Hello, Goodbye
by ZombieJazz
Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and ends up offering the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. But it's not without its hard choices. Is she willing to make changes in her career to pursue some of the other things she's spent the last several years of her life longing for? Does opening one door really close others? And how many?
1. Chapter 1

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Liv," Amaro called at her, as she walked passed him in the hall on her way in.

She was arriving late after having spent the better part of the night at a crime scene and then collecting the rape kit at the hospital and taking it over for processing. Cragen had given her permission to go home and catch a couple hours of sleep before coming in for her regular shift. Normally, she would've ignored the offer and just gone straight into the station – catching a couple winks in the cribs, if she decided she really needed to. But she was still battling this flu that didn't seem to want to let go and she'd been feeling like she was really dragging her ass around. So the offer of sleeping in her own bed rather than a bunk space that reeked of men, and body odour and dirty laundry that had been on those beds God knows how long, that seemed much more appealing.

She'd actually ended up crashing in her apartment for longer than she'd meant to, though, more like four hours. She probably would've slept longer, if the captain hadn't called her cell to make sure she was alright when she still hadn't reappeared at the station. She'd felt kind of disgusted with herself that sleeping so long and had staggered awake and managed to get showered and changed again – after having slept in what she'd been wearing out on the case – before heading in. Though, she hadn't been disgusted enough that she opted out of her usual coffee stop. Even though she'd been working at getting it into her system, she still felt pretty close to the walking dead.

"Yeah, I'm late. Sorry," she mumbled at him and kept walking.

"Ah, no," Amaro called again, and she glanced over her shoulder a bit at him. "Some kid has been hanging around the squad, waiting for you."

She made a funny face. Some kid? She didn't know that was all about – especially why one of the guys wouldn't have been able to take a statement and start a case file, if necessary.

But when she got to her desk, there certainly wasn't a kid around. She almost wondered if her cold-clogged head had heard Amaro wrong or if they guys were just fooling with her while she was still in her decongestant fog. She put her coffee on her desk and started to slip off her coat, while glancing around the squad, just to make sure she wasn't missing something. John saw her looking, though, and pointed out the opposite doors.

"He went that way," he said. "Guess he got tired of waiting for you to grace us with your presence."

She just shook her head at him and wandered out to the opposite hallway and elevator bay. She was kind of curious about who would be in there looking for her, that the guys seemed so passive about.

There was a university-aged kid – or, she supposed, rather a young man – standing near the elevators, waiting for one to come. He was dressed kind of shambly. All his clothes looked a little baggy on him and well worn. She saw some holes in the ratty hoodie he had on and his jeans were nearly hanging off of him, they were sagging so much in the back.

"Hey," she called at him. "I'm Detective Benson. Were you looking for me?"

The kid turned his face towards her. He kind of looked like he was using. His face seemed to have almost a waxy quality to it and he had dark circles under his eyes. But there was something familiar about him.

She started running her 14 years worth of cases with Special Victims through her head, hoping to place him. She figured he must be a family member or loved one of a victim, maybe a boyfriend. Or maybe even a victim, himself, all-grown up now. But she just couldn't place him. She saw him examining her too. Running his eyes up and down her body before he concentrated on her face. It was almost like he was measuring her worth.

"Ah, no," he said, and pushed the button again. "There was a misunderstanding."

She squinted her eyes at him and took a step closer, still trying to figure out who he was and why he was looking for her.

"Did you need to file a statement?" She asked. "Report a rape?"

He glanced at her again, from where he'd set his eyes against the doors of the elevator and wrapped his arms protectively across his front. "Ah, no, like I said, there was a misunderstanding."

"What sort of misunderstanding?"

He shook his head and wrapped his arms across his chest even tighter. "I shouldn't have come here," he mumbled quietly.

She took another step closer to him, so she was basically standing next to him at the elevator. She looked at him even closer. He almost looked like he was jonesing. She could see a glean of sweat on his forehead and he was fidgeting.

"Are you alright? You don't look too well. Do you need some help?" She touched his elbow.

He looked at her again – this time meeting her eyes. His eyes didn't look like an addict's. They just looked tired and maybe hurt. She saw him move his eyes across her face again, taking her in.

"Can I get you some medical attention?" She offered. "Get you to the hospital?"

He shook his head. "No. I'm alright. I'm just … sick."

The elevator dinged and he pulled away from her hold on his elbow and got in. She thought for a moment about getting in with him and pursuing him to the lobby – to continue to try to determine who he was and why he was there. But she still wasn't feeling that well herself and she didn't feel like strong-arming someone that didn't want help. Hell, he'd been sitting in a squad room full of cops, if he wanted help, he could've gotten it – ten-times over.

So she sighed as the doors closed and trudged back to her desk. John looked up at her.

"So what'd Mr. McPukey-Puke want?" He asked.

"Pukey-Puke?" She raised her eyebrow at him, as she took her seat and flicked on her computer.

"The guy really did a number on the men's restroom – and thanks to the city we only have night janitors. So whatever he wanted better have been good."

Olivia just shrugged. "Don't know."

John looked at her. "He said it was personal business, not police business."

She shot her head back to John's gaze at that comment.

"You don't know him?" he said.

She shook her head. "When do I get spend time with 20-year-old men, John?"

He shrugged. "The state has no business in the bedrooms of the nation."

She rolled her eyes at him. "I have no idea who he is. I thought maybe he was a family member of a victim – or a victim from years ago? He didn't say who he was?"

"Jack," John offered.

"Jack?"

"Jack."

"He looked like he was jonesing – and you just let him hang around here?"

"He looked like he had a bad case of the flu – kind of like you," he said. "I thought maybe it was part of your continued plot to infect the entire office."

She shot him a look. "How long was he here?"

"Nearly an hour likely."

"And you just let him hang out?"

"Well, he spent most of it christening our toilettes."

"And that didn't warrant medical intervention either?"

"I don't do vomit," he said.

She picked up her phone. "I'm going to see if front desk can tell me who the hell he was – assuming they made him check-in or maybe they just let him waltz around in here too."

John shrugged. "You know, we've really increased security around this place, in the past year. Those budget cuts haven't deterred that progress at all."


	2. Chapter 2

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She'd sworn she'd seen the kid still loitering around outside the precinct when she left the night before. She actually kind of felt like he'd been loitering around more than that.

She got the distinct sense she was being watched, and even followed that night. She had told herself she was being paranoid. That the flu and the over-the-counter meds she had in her system just had her a little loopy and her instincts weren't working quite right.

She'd tried to just get on with the work at hand. Though, something about the encounter with the kid just wasn't sitting with her right. The front desk of the station house had told her that the kid had signed in as Jack Lewis. He'd shown a New York driver's licence. But no address or phone number for the guy had been noted – and they'd just sent him up.

She'd run his name through the system, still trying to determine how he knew her. But he hadn't come up attached to any SVU cases. She supposed that didn't mean anything. If he was a victim, it wouldn't be abnormal for his name to have been changed, by his own choice, or maybe there'd been a divorce between his parents. They appreciated when victims reported that – for their own sake, for notification related to the release of their perps – but it was up to them. Lots didn't keep their files up-to-date. So she'd run his name a bit further – thinking maybe he wasn't a victim, maybe he was a perp, or at least someone they thought had been good-as. But nothing had come up there either.

She felt bad she hadn't been able to place him. She actually felt bad that she'd even let him leave about the precinct. Something was clearly up with the kid. He was looking for help – reaching out to her. She should've encouraged him more to give a statement, told him that she couldn't help him unless he talked to her, had him come back into the squad room. But since she wasn't feeling well, she'd just let him leave. Now she might never know what was wrong or even who he was.

She wanted to run his name a bit further even – to get the licence number from the front desk – and continue to widow it down, maybe track down an address or a phone number and check in on him. But work was busy and she just hadn't had the chance yet. Her mind kept going back to it, though.

So now she stood in the deli waiting for her order to be called up. She was looking out the window, mostly thinking about the paperwork she needed to get done that afternoon if she didn't want to be in contempt of court. But as her eyes focused a bit more outside, she swore again, that she saw the kid in the park across the street. She shook her head a bit and squinted her eyes – thinking that the decongestant really was doing a number on her. Maybe after she got that paperwork done, she should really take a day off – sleep and finally get the chance to hopefully sick this thing out of her system. Still, as she stood staring at the figure across the street, he seemed to become aware of her gaze and zipped his hoodie up more and pulled his backwards cap's rim forward and further down to hide his eyes. She shook her head.

After she retrieved her grilled chicken wrap and cup of soup, she looked out the window and the figure was still there. She waited for a moment, moving for the door as there was a group of people coming and going at the same time, and slipped out, looping around and managing to get behind the bench he was sitting on apparently unnoticed. He did seem to have noticed that she wasn't in the deli anymore, though, and his head was moving like he was scanning the street looking for her.

"You know, Jack, following after women isn't very smart," she said from behind him and he seemed to startle a bit and look behind him and up at her. He looked like he'd been caught with his hand in the cookie jar – embarrassed and slightly concerned about what was going to happen next.

"It's probably even stupider to be following after a police officer," she told him. "Some might consider it stalking."

He sputtered a bit. "I'm not stalking you."

"You just happen to be sitting on a bench in the park across the street from the deli I walked to from my precinct?"

He looked down – like he didn't have a good answer for that. But he also wasn't making to move to try to run away from her.

"You left the precinct in an awful hurry yesterday," she said as more of a statement than a question, but she kind of hoped it might be an opening to get him to talk.

He just shrugged, though. "Going in there was a mistake."

"And what's this?"

She heard him let out the smallest sound that could almost be classified as a laugh. He looked up at her again and had a thin, little smile on his face.

"Oh, this is likely a mistake, too," he said.

He didn't look as bad as he had the day before, she noted. Maybe John was right, he really had just been dealing with a flu as well. He'd changed clothes too – and still didn't smell of a homeless person or addict. But she still wanted to get to the bottom of who this kid was and what he wanted from her. It was clearly something. She wasn't accustom to people following after her – unless there was something behind it. Of course, usually there was something bad behind it on the handful of occasions it had happened.

"Is everything alright?" she tried. "Usually people come into our squad room when they have something to say. Did something happen to you?"

He just shook his head and shrugged. "Doesn't something happen to all of us?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Well, my squad generally deals with rape and other sex crimes."

He shook his head at her. "I wasn't raped."

"Were you assaulted?"

He made that sound again. "I wasn't assaulted."

"Then why were you in our squad room?"

He shrugged – but he still wasn't trying to get away from her.

"Maybe you should come back to the precinct with me," she said. "We can talk a bit more about it there."

He shook his head and looked down the street. "Nah, I've got to be somewhere in a bit."

"Standing outside my office waiting for me to leave work?"

He looked up at her again and gave her another thin smile. "Nah, not tonight."

"Oh, but tomorrow?"

He shook his head again. "No. I'm done. I'll leave you alone. Sorry."

"You're done what?"

He shrugged. "Checking you out, I guess."

She looked at him a bit more closely – her cop instincts upping again. "Checking me out? That's also not the smartest thing to say to a cop, Jack."

He ran his eyes up and down her again. "You know my name." She nodded. "Because I left it at the front desk at check-in. I really wouldn't be very smart if I was up to no good and I left my name with the police."

"You wouldn't be the first one," she told him.

That little smile painted across his face again. It seemed so fucking familiar. It was driving her crazy she couldn't place him. The fucking decongestant. What was she missing?

"I'm not that stupid," he said.

"So what are you up to then?"

His lips pulled back into a bigger smile and he shook his head at her. "I told you, checking you out."

"I'm not much for playing games, Jack," she said. "I'm really considering taking you in."

"For what?" He asked and gave her a look.

"I guess we'll start with stalking."

He gave her another look and jerked his head back a bit. "Com'on. I was nowhere near you. You approached me."

"Where else have you been nowhere near me over the past 24 hours?"

He shrugged. "The city isn't that big."

"It's pretty big."

He nearly rolled his eyes. "Whatever. You have my name. I'm sure you can figure it all out."

She examined him some more. Who the hell was this kid? He didn't seem to care she was a cop. He actually seemed comfortable talking to her. There was just something about him too. His looks. His mannerisms. Why was he so fucking familiar?

"I already ran you through the system," she told him.

He looked up at her. "Really?"

"You aren't in the system – not under Jack Lewis."

He shrugged. "I guess I'm not too much of a bad ass then, right?"

"So then what are you Jack Lewis? Who are you?"

He looked up and examined her some more – like he was really having to consider those questions. She almost expected to get some sort of existential answer back from him. But instead, he put his one elbow on the back of the bench and rested his head on his hand, rubbing his eyebrow and watching her.

"Ah, I'm Jay Lewis' son," he said finally, like it had taken him a lot to get that out of his mouth. "I think you … dated him back in college."

She did a bit of a double-take as that sunk in.

"Oh … wow …," she managed to get out, as she looked at the kid more. His facial structure. The dimples in his cheeks. The hazel eyes and the light-brown hair. "Wow … do ever look like your dad …"

It just fell into place. He did look like his dad. In fact, he was probably about as near of a spitting image of Jay as he could get. But she hadn't thought about Jay – nor seen him in years. Still, that must've been where she recognized the kid. Fuck – even that coy smile he had been giving her – it was so Jay.

The kid gave a small nod. "Yeah, I get that a lot."

Her and Jay had been hot-and-heavy in college. She didn't know she'd call it love. But it was definitely lust – and just goold ol' college fun. They'd had a lot of fun together. Jay was just a nice guy. Smart. Funny. Popular but still engaged in his studies. He'd had this shyness about him but this ability to seemingly connect with everyone and anyone. It seemed like everyone knew him on their small campus at Siena College. He was handsome and fit. He'd played on the lacrosse team and had been studying economics and management and had all these big plans about getting out of his small-town farming life and making it big on Wall Street. She'd actually thought the city would likely corrupt some of his charm. But if this kid was sitting here, she figured, there was a chance that Jay had managed to chase his dreams and the money.

She'd lost touch with Jay, though. She'd actually been the one who'd broken it off. Her and Jay had nearly been inseparable for most of her third-year of schooling after having met during all the Rush Week events. Pub nights, parties, Friday night football, meeting each other after classes, overnights in each other's dingy dorm beds, she'd even spent Thanksgiving with his family that year. But it'd come to a halt after she'd had a pregnancy scare. That time of being late, followed by a false-positive test, a visit to the doctor's office for an official exam and test and then finally getting her period had brought things into stark perspective for her about what she wanted out of her life at the time, and where she thought she should be going. It didn't include being a mother.

She was barely 21 – just starting her final year of her degree. She had big plans. She wanted to get into the police academy after she finished her degree. She wanted to be a cop with the NYPD. She wanted to climb the ranks. None of that included having to tote around some baby and to put her career ambitions on hold – if not completely throw them out the window. But at the same time, it had shown her how differently her and Jay had perceived their relationship. She was just having fun. She was being a college kid – having a boyfriend, going out drinking, having sex, hitting up parties with her sorority sisters, cheering on the home teams. She wasn't thinking anything serious.

Jay, though, had made clear in that limbo period that he was committed, that he was thinking long-term, that he wanted a family. She just couldn't do that. She couldn't take making that kind of commitment at that time in her life – even thinking about it had terrified her. So she'd broken it off.

It was sort of funny looking back now. If she'd only known then that she'd be almost 44, single and the prospects of ever having a family growing dimmer and dimmer with each month and year. She'd basically accepted that it likely just wasn't going to happen for her. She should've put more time and effort into that in her 20s – even her 30s. But she'd been so focused on her career and so leery of letting anyone in with her job and her life, letting those walls down for anyone.

She'd still dated. She still thought about having a family of her own. But she'd mostly just looked at dates as an escape from work for a while. Nothing ever worked out as long-term. Most of the men would go running when they found out what she did. Or she'd go running from them after they stayed because of the creep-factor involved in their interest in her job.

It was hard to imagine that if she had been pregnant, or if her and Jay had stayed together and married and started a family, she likely would've had a child this age. A kid that was clearly at least 20 – maybe even a little older; the age she would've been when she was busy planning this other life that she was now living and wondering what the hell she was doing and what she'd given up to have it and why giving up any of that had been worth it. It made her feel kind of old. It also hit her with a kind of sadness – that almost scared her with the intensity and suddenness of it.

But, even knowing who this kid was now, it really didn't explain why Jack was following her around – or maybe even more creepily, why he'd even know who the hell she was. She couldn't imagine that Jay would be talking about an ex-girlfriend with his children – especially, when he'd clearly found a wife to have a family with. Especially, when she knew she'd hurt Jay and probably left him a little heartbroken at the time. It just didn't make sense that this kid knew who she was.

"How's your dad doing?" she asked.

The kid looked at her again and seemed to consider the answer. "Umm. He's dead," Jack said. "He died almost three years ago. A farming accident."

She felt another wave of sadness hit her at that statement. Jay would've been her age – so he couldn't have been more than maybe 41 when he died, far too young. And, he'd left a family – or at least a child – to live the rest of their lives without him. Jay had been such a nice guy and so full of life. It was hard to imagine he was dead, even though she hadn't seen him since graduation, and they really hadn't spoken since she'd pulled the plug on their relationship.

"Oh, I'm sorry for your loss, Jack," she managed to get out, and continued to examine the young man. He just nodded, though, like he'd long ago come to terms with his grief in that regard.

"Dad, he used to talk about you a lot," he said, though. "Umm…" he fumbled around, lifting his ass off the bench and pulling something out of his back pocket. He handed it to her.

She gave him a questioning look and unfolded what she thought was a tattered piece of paper at first, but it turned out to be a creased and aged photograph. On it a 20-year-old vision of herself stared back at her, all smiles, while a sweaty and dirty looking but glowing Jay had his arm around her shoulder.

She hadn't seen the picture in years, though, she supposed she might have a copy of her own buried somewhere in her college boxes off in storage. But looking at it took her back all those years to the sidelines of the lacrosse field after the home-opener. Jay was co-captain that year and so proud to have that honour – and his team had just won. He'd come over for a kiss and picture before he went to get showered and changed and they headed off to a kegger. It was one of those all-out parties that always happen early in the academic year, while everyone still isn't buckling down to their studies quite yet. She could still remember parts of that night – now that this picture was in front of her. They'd spent most of it out in the backyard of Jay's frat house. Drinking, laughing, music blaring and just happy – excited about the year ahead of them and all the seemingly endless possibilities that still lay before them.

"I kept that from dad's things," Jack offered and she glanced at him from the photo. "He just looks … happy there. And, ah, I saw you on the television a while ago … at some press conference. I guess I kind of thought … no one would've told you about dad, and that maybe you should know."


	3. Chapter 3

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She finished off her bottle of Amstel and looked at her watch.

She'd thought she'd talked the kid into meeting her for dinner to talk some more – but after him following her around for at least a day she was aware of, she didn't really think he was going to show at this point. He was more than 30 minutes later than what they'd agreed to as a meeting time. There wasn't much she could do about it, either. He hadn't given her a phone number to call him. So she couldn't check to see if he was coming – or even to make sure that everything was just alright. She was just going to have to decide at what point it was stupid to wait any longer.

Actually part of her thought it was kind of stupid that she was even talking to the kid, that she was even intrigued by him. The kid of some ex-boyfriend that she hadn't even thought about in years; actually, more like decades. It all seemed kind of absurd. But the whole situation had just struck her.

Jay Lewis' son – grown son, at that. And the picture the kid – toting it around with him in his pocket. Of her and Jay? And, he'd said Jay had still had it with his things? That Jay had talked about her? It all just seemed so strange.

It had just sent the past slapping into her face. It had slapped her current reality in her face too. What she'd given up. Hell, in an alternate universe, Jack could've been her son. It was so strange to even think about.

She supposed in a way none of it even really mattered. Jay was dead. This all was actually some sort of self-punishment. Really, what more could this kid say to her or tell her? Probably nothing. At least not anything that would make her feel better about her life choices, she doubted.

But then she lifted her head a bit, as she saw the kid up at the front with the hostess and she saw him then point to her and start to come back to the table, slouching a jacket off and removing his cap. He sat down and gave her a small nod so she returned it with a small smile, not commenting on how late he was and resisting the urge to ask why. The hostess had trailed after him with a menu.

"Can I get you something to drink?" She'd asked, as the kid just ruffled at his mess of hat head, while he gazed at the menu.

"Ah … I guess just a Coke or whatever," he'd mumbled.

"You ma'am?" the hostess had said. She hated being called ma'am. She made no comment, though, and just tapped her empty as an affirmative on her refill and handed it to the young girl, who she saw kind of eyeing the attractive young guy not sitting with her but eventually hurried off to get the drinks.

"You aren't legal?" she directed at the kid.

He glanced up at her from still looking at the menu. He looked tired – and wet. She could see it was raining outside now through the window. Maybe part of the reason for his tardiness? Or maybe he was just as unsure as her about if talking more was a good idea. He'd already expressed he thought coming to the station house – following her – was a mistake. Maybe in a way he was right.

He shrugged, though. "Maybe I just don't drink."

She examined him at that comment – trying to decide what was behind it. "How old are you, Jack?" she asked.

He shrugged again. "Why does it matter?"

She eyed him some more. "I'm curious. You seemed to want to talk before. It kind of has to go both ways. You don't just get to learn about the person in the photograph – and don't get to offer anything in return. Doesn't work that way."

He looked at her. "I already know lots about the person in the photograph."

She rubbed her eyebrow. It really made her uncomfortable knowing that this kid knew anything about her. It made her even more uncomfortable to know that some of what he seemed to know were stories from his father.

"Well, I don't know much about you," she finally said and the kid just shrugged again and went back to looking at the menu.

A waitress now came over and set their drinks in front of them and the kid immediately grabbed his and chugged half of it.

"I don't think they do refills here," she commented at him.

"You can have a bottomless glass for $1.50 more," the waitress offered.

He shrugged some more. "I'll switch to water after."

She eyed him at that comment too. The kid was kind of hot-and-cold in his personality and mannerisms. That wasn't like the Jay she remembered. She wondered if there was something behind it. The kid did seem to have a bit of a cloud over him – at least for a young person. He seemed a little jaded, a little harsh. Though, she supposed losing your father when you were still a young man – possibly still a teenager – could do that to you.

"Are you ready to order?" the waitress asked.

Olivia had been occupying the table for a while and it was clear that the little bistro was still trudging through its dinner-sittings. They likely would've preferred the table be occupied by someone who looked like they were going to be doing more than nursing a beer. But now that she did have company at the table, they seemed to be aiming to get them served and out of there as quickly as possible.

"Ah … I'll just have a plate of fries," the kid had said.

Olivia examined him again at that, looking back up from her own menu.

"Have you eaten already?" she asked and the kid just shrugged again. "Well, I haven't and I'm not doing take-out when I get home. So you're going to get to watch me eat, if you don't get something more than that."

She got another shrug.

"The burgers here are supposed to be good. Pick something. It's my treat."

The kid considered it but then said, "I don't do charity."

She snorted. "Buying you a burger isn't charity. Order something." She looked at the waitress. "I'll have the salmon burger. Salad instead of the fries. No coleslaw."

The waitress looked at the kid again. "So something else for you or just the fries?"

Jack tapped at the menu and glanced across the table at her. She just made the eye contact and let him decide on his own.

"Ah … I guess just the beef with swiss on it."

"Fries and slaw OK with you?" the waitress asked as she grabbed the menus back from them. The kid had just silently nodded.

They sat in silence for a moment and the kid examined his glass of pop, running his fingers down the condensation.

"Sorry. I don't eat out much," he said quietly. "It's kind of expensive."

She gave him a small shrug. "It's OK. I remember what it's like. Are you still in school?"

He nodded. "City," he offered.

"Oh yeah, what are you studying?"

"Umm… urban planning and design," he said quietly after an extended silence.

"That sounds pretty interesting," she allowed. "Relevant. Do you want to be an architect at some point then?"

"Ah…" he glanced at her.

It was clear he didn't like talking about himself. Or maybe he wasn't used to people asking him anything about himself and his life. She couldn't see Jay being like that, though. Jay was always so curious about people and things and asking endless questions – just engaged. He couldn't see him not being engaged with his kid. Though, she supposed people changed, things changed and raising kids is hard work, especially teenagers. She didn't have to be a parent to know that.

And, Jay had been gone for a while too. She didn't know who else this boy had in his life. She assumed a mother? Maybe some siblings? She'd met his grandparents years ago. They'd still be in his life too, she hoped. She thought she remembered Jay having a brother too.

"Not an architect then?"

He rubbed at the condensation on his glass more.

"I'm more interested in like … how to best utilize under-used spaces and the planning around that. Like … underpasses and turnpikes and revitalization along the piers and waterfront."

"So the development and management of urban parks?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. You know the new skate park on the Chelsea Piers?"

"Mmm," she nodded around taking a swig from her bottle. "Yeah, that's not far from the precinct. That was a big thing when it finally managed to get it constructed and opened."

He nodded. "Yeah, so it's things like that I'm interested in. I guess I kind of want to design skate parks but … have the know-how to work through all the bureaucratic red-tape and to be able to do it in spaces that need revitalization … or even to be used, anyways."

She gave him a small smile. His interest in skate parks at least explained something about his attire. The clean but slobbish look. Like he almost wished he could dress like a homeless person and get away with it. But, she thought, at least he was articulate and seemed to be expressing ideas and a vision when he started talking.

She'd been kind of wondering how much was actually behind the kid. She'd definitely picked up some slyness and a level of intelligence in him with her interactions with him the day before. But she'd been undecided on the extent of it. She supposed she still was.

The waitress returned again and put their food down in front of them. The way the boy was eyeing the burger, she could tell he was hungry. She wondered if that was still just a young men growing. Teens and college boys tended to eat like they didn't know they even had a metabolism or that calories and fat existed. Jack had grabbed a fry and put it in his mouth before the plate had barely touched down on the table.

"How are you guys for condiments?"

"Ketchup and mayo," Jack had said almost instantly, though Olivia had just shaken her head that she was good. So the waitress had nodded and retreated briefly again to retrieve the requested items.

It made Olivia smile again. Jay used to drown about everything imaginable in ketchup, she remembered. She'd thought it was disgusting. It was even more disgusting when they were eating out somewhere and he'd have his plate swimming in it – potatoes included, even steak. And, the mayo, she suspected was for the fries. She'd have to wait-and-see. But she remembered that about Jay too. He'd been about the first person she'd ever seen to dip his fries in mayo. For all his love of ketchup – his fries skipped over the ketchup and straight to the mayonnaise.

"So do you live at home, Jack?" she asked, as she worked at getting her burger cut in half. It was a little big. That didn't seem to bother the kid, though. He had it up to his mouth and had already taken a giant bite out of it, like he was starving. So he just shook his head with his full mouth. "But you grew up in the city? Your mom lives here?"

He shook his head again and swallowed. "Nah. Well, I guess I was born here – in Brooklyn but I was little when we left. I don't remember it really."

She watched him again, as he went back to eating like someone might take the plate away before he was finished. She put a few forkfuls of her salad in her mouth as she observed him going at the food.

"You came back to the city for school then?"

He nodded.

"So where's home then?"

He shrugged. "I guess here, for now."

She thought it was a strange comment. Most kids still identify where they grew up as home – especially when they're still in school and it's where their parents keep a bed still available for them on visits and holidays and summer breaks.

"Where'd you grow up?"

He glanced at her. "You ask a lot of questions," he mumbled with a half-full mouth.

She shrugged. "It's my job to ask questions."

"This is work?"

"I don't know. Is it?"

"Well, I don't think you have some case file on me," he said. "I'm not some victim or something."

She watched him again for a moment but then left it and lifted half of her burger and took a small bite, letting where the conversation was hang there for a moment while she chewed.

"The farm," he said while she ate. "Horseheads. Finger Lakes area."

She swallowed. "Your grandparents' farm? That's where you grew up?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

"Your dad went back to work on the farm?"

He shrugged again. "Yeah."

She knew she made a small face at that and felt badly about it. But it struck her. Jay had been so adamant about not wanting to be a farmer, not wanting to manage the farm or work at it. He wanted other things. Then, in his early-20s, what his family wanted or needed didn't seem important. That tradition and owning that land – working it for generations – didn't much to seem to matter to him at the time. He wanted the city and the money and the fancy car and the hustle and bustle. Or at least that's what he thought.

She wondered if when he got there, that had changed. The city was a hard place. Making it in the city – from nothing – no roots, was a challenge. Jay wouldn't have been the first one that it ate up and spit out.

"Did something happen to one of your grandparents that he needed to go back?"

He shook his head. "No."

"He just didn't like the city?"

He shrugged. "I guess not. He thought out there would be a better place to grow up, I guess."

She rubbed her eyebrow. "What'd he do in the city?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Some corporate type. He didn't talk about living here much."

"How old were you when you moved back up there?"

"I don't know. I guess like two."

"And he died in a farming accident, you said?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Baler."

"Baler?"

"Hay baler," he said but shook his head. "I don't want to talk about it. It will ruin dinner."

She looked at her plate and considered that. She didn't know a lot about farming but she had enough of an idea of what a hay baler was and how it worked that she also really didn't want to think about it. She'd seen some horrific demises at the hands of others. But the concept of what the boy was implying sounded pretty horrific too.

"How are your grandparents doing?" She asked.

They'd seemed like nice people from the one time she met them. She knew too that Jay had called them every Sunday and had often talked about his family life growing up with her. It sounded like it involved hard work but that he'd had a nice family, what she would've labeled a normal childhood. He seemed to have a normal college life too – going home for each and every holiday and coming back with stories about family dinners and traditions. It was something she'd never really been able to relate to.

"Gramps is dead. Heart attack – while ago. Before Dad. 2006. Nan's in a home. Alzheimer's. She doesn't known much of anyone anymore."

That made her feel some sadness for the kid again.

"Who looks after the farm?"

"My uncle manages it. Doesn't really work it, though. Contracts out. He wants to sell."

"Wow. That's a lot of family tradition to sell."

He shrugged. "Farming isn't family-run anymore. It's big business. It's worth more sold – for the land or the operation, generally."

"I guess you aren't planning on going back after you're done school then?"

He snorted. "No."

"I guess the degree is more applicable here than up there anyways," she commented.

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"But you don't want to stay in the city," she sensed.

"Skateboarding … park design … it's bigger out West. California."

She made another face and poked at her salad. "Well, that would certainly be a different lifestyle."

"Whatever. This is too. It's all just dreams anyways."

"Well, you're supposed to dream big while you're in college. Lots of life and opportunity still waiting for you."

"Yeah, farther for you to fall to reality the bigger you dream, right?"

She looked at him. It was a pretty pessimistic comment.

"I suppose that's another way to look at it."

"Are you doing what you thought you'd be doing when you were 20?"

She snorted and looked back to her plate. "So you're 20?"

"Maybe. Or there-abouts. You didn't answer my question."

She glanced at him. "In fact, I am doing what I wanted to do when I was 20."

"To work in sex crimes? That's a fucking weird aspiration."

She gave him a small laugh at that. It sounded like something his father would've said to at that age. Even the way he intoned it almost made her feel like she was sitting across from Jay.

"Well, back then it was more just working with the NYPD and, I guess, the hope that I would eventually make detective. I'm not sure I'd really decided that working with the Special Victims Unit was a fully developed intention for me at the time."

"Special Victims Unit? That's such a BS name."

"I don't think it is."

"Why are they more special than people killed or robbed or whatever?"

"The dead can't be victimized anymore – and people who are victimized by property crimes aren't victims in the same way as someone who is raped, as a child who is abused. That's a victimization that stays with you for life. It has a lot of implications for them. They're pretty heinous crimes when you get down to it."

"Why would you want to work around stuff like that?"

"I like to help, I guess, is the simplest answer."

She saw him considering her and nearly measuring her response. She didn't think it passed whatever test he was giving her – but it was all she was offering for the moment. His phone ran, though, and seemed to distract him from the dissection she felt him doing of her. He reached into is coat pocket and retrieved it, looking at the call display.

"Sorry," he mumbled at her, and answered it.

"Hey," he said and she saw him fidget, hunching over more and trying to keep his voice low. There was enough background noise in the restaurant she wasn't able to catch any of the other side of the conversation, though.

"I'm still going to be out for a while. No. You shouldn't wait up. Nope. Nope. You'll probably be asleep. No, you better be asleep. OK. Yep. Awesome. Oh, that's awesome. OK. Yep. OK. Night-night. Love you too," he said even quieter.

He kept his eyes downcast as he returned to the phone to his jacket and then examined his plate and poked at his food rather than look at her.

"Your girlfriend?" she commented. "I'm really not going to be keeping you out to all-hours."

He snorted and shook his head. "No."

"Boyfriend?" she suggested instead.

He almost laughed at that and shot her a look. "Ah, no. I definitely don't have a boyfriend. Who has time for that shit anyways?"

She gave him a little smile at that and shook her head. "Make time."

"Make time?" he shot back at her.

She shrugged. "Make time. Your 20s go by faster than you think. Your 30s disappear even faster."

He laughed at that. "Well that sounds like you're talking from experience."

"Well, I am sitting here with you at 8 p.m. on Wednesday night, aren't I? I mustn't have anything better to do with my time, right?"

He snorted and shrugged. "Work?" he offered.

She gave him a little smile and rolled her eyes a bit as she took another drink.

The reality was that she'd picked a place to meet him that was close enough to the precinct that she could go back and do a bit more work before heading home – if she did. She knew she should – with still at that tail-end of her cold-and-flu, she really needed to take the downtime and get the appropriate amount of rest. Sometimes, though, going back to her apartment anymore was just too depressing.

It had felt so empty since Calvin had been there and then been taken away from her. It just felt even more so since her break-up with David. Not to mention it gave her too much time to think about everything … her life, her work, cases at work, victims, Elliot. Being there just wasn't good for her these days.

"So you aren't married then?" he commented. "You don't have a ring."

She glanced down at her hands. "Nope. Not married."

"And you don't have kids?"

She shook her head.

"And no like boyfriend or … whatever?"

"Nope. No boyfriend."

He examined her again. He moved his mouth a couple times like he was going to say something but nothing more came out.

"So was it your mom checking in on you?" she asked, going back to the mystery one-sided phone conversation.

He shook his head. "Ah, no."

"Does your mom know you're talking to me?"

He laughed at that. "Ah, no. I really don't think she'd care either way."

She watched him at that comment. "I don't know. I think if I had a kid and he was talking to one of his dad's past relationships, I might kind of care."

He looked at her and made a face.

"Really?" he said, like that was a possibility that he hadn't even considered.

And it suddenly made her feel like she was creating some sort of hardship for this family. They'd lost Jay. It had been a few years – but there was likely still a lot of grieving going on in the family – and here she was meeting with the kid. The kid sought her out? She couldn't imagine how that would make his mother feel – especially now if she found out. There was almost no way that the woman likely couldn't feel like the boy was going behind her back. She might even feel anger at Jay – that he'd kept photos and memories of her. That he'd expressed enough about her that the kid was even able to know who she was, to track her down. It seemed like a betrayal. She could see how some might even see it as cheating in some form.

She shook her head. "Jay …" she stopped. "I'm sorry," she said and nearly wanted to slap her hand to her mouth for the slip. "I meant, Jack. Jack, we really probably shouldn't be talking, if your mom doesn't know about this. I can see how it might be hurtful for her."

He watched her again. "I don't have a mother," he said simply, catching her eyes.

She looked at him again, processing that comment.

"Ah … my mom left when I was little. I don't remember anything about her. I don't know her."

She felt a pang but she felt like she could see where this was going. The boy was damaged. He was confused. She'd probably really let this go too far – because she was being selfish and trying to cling onto a moment that had presented itself, taking the opportunity to reflect on a past where she'd been happy but had given it up. She felt herself give a silent curse at Jay too – after all these years.

He used to make her so angry sometimes. Even when she was completely infatuated with him – there were moments where he would just truly piss her off with how he talked about his future and the optimism he had. How he'd debate and argue with her about something - everything. And then in those final weeks of their relationship where he talked to her about wanting a family – wanting marriage, wanting kids. That he loved her and he'd like to have that with her. Now God knows what thoughts he'd left in this misguided kid's head - who'd grown up with out a mother and now didn't have a father; who'd lost his grandparents basically, and who was now carrying around some tattered photo containing herself and his father like he was on some sort of mission.

"Jack, you know that I'm not your mother, right?" she said softly and trying to be as unassuming about it as possible.

She saw him meet her eyes again for a moment, before he looked back to the table. "Yeah. I'm not as stupid as you seem to think."

"I absolutely don't think you're stupid, Jack," she tried again, still keeping her voice low.

"Ah, anyways," he said. "I should go. Thanks for dinner though."

She looked at his plate. He still had some fries there and several bites left of the burger.

"You aren't even done," she said. "Stay. Finish your meal."

He shook his head and stood, starting to put his coat on. "I've got somewhere to be."

"Seems like you always have somewhere you need to be."

He shrugged. "Yeah. So?"

"Where's this someplace you need to be?"

"What's it to you?"

"You opened the door, Jack."

He made a small shake of his head and turned to go.

"Hey," she stood. "Just wait a second, OK?"

He did stop and glance at her, so she pulled her ID out of her pocket and pulled a card out of the back of it, and quickly fished a pen from another pocket and scribbled her cell onto the back of it. She held it out to him and he looked at it.

"My personal number is on the back," she told him. "Just keep in touch. Or call me if you need anything … OK?"

He shrugged. "Whatever."

He started to trudge away and she watched him, sitting back down and looking at her own meal. She'd been grilling him so much she'd hardly touched it and it was long cold. She'd be getting it package to take home to her empty apartment – about par for the course for her.


	4. Chapter 4

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Now she felt a bit like she was stalking him. But she just hadn't liked what had happened at their last meeting. She actually had had it running over-and-over in her head. Just everything about it was striking her to her very core.

She felt like the kid needed help. He needed some sort of support or something. It sounded like he didn't have anyone in his life. It had been eating at her for more than a week. As much time as it had spent eating at her – especially in those quiet moments while she was home alone – she'd also spent a considerable amount of time trying to convince herself to leave well enough be. Some things just weren't meant to be handled. They were grenades. But she had trouble letting go of things after she got a hold of them. She supposed this was no different – even though she kept on telling herself it should be.

She had no way to contact him. She really wished she did. And he hadn't tried to reach her again. She hadn't seen him around again – no loitering or lurking, no feeling like she was being watched or followed. As quickly as he'd just appeared in her life, he'd disappeared. She supposed that was like most people in her life, it seemed.

She'd tried tracking him down some more now that she had some general information about him. But wherever he was in the city, whatever he was doing – he was covering his tracks well. She would basically need a warrant to dig much further into his life to try to find him.

She'd actually considered that he'd given a false name. Maybe he wasn't actually who he said he was at all. That made her angry to even think about. She didn't think it was true, though. It was a pretty elaborate deception, considering he hadn't asked her for anything. He'd even been reluctant to let her spend 15 bucks on his dinner. She supposed it could still all be an act. Her gut was telling her something was off. But she didn't think it was that. She hoped not. Because, man, did he ever look like Jay at that age. You can't really fake that, she thought. Or maybe she just wanted him to look like Jay?

She kind of felt like the whole thing was playing with her head. Too much had been going on in her life in the past year – too many losses. Somehow, this just felt like another one. Yet, she'd also considered it was the losses that were making her cling onto this, when there really wasn't anything there, when it really was something she should just let go.

Not that night, though. She couldn't.

Things had wound down at work early. A reasonable hour really. It was good for Amaro – he could get home to his wife and daughter. Fin had disappeared silently and Rollins had still been sitting there. She got the sense that maybe Rollins was waiting for her to offer up going out to the pub for some drinks and billiards. It had seemed to become a thing over the past couple months. She was clearly avoiding going home to something too. Or maybe, more like she was avoiding going home to nothing too.

But Olivia had somehow ultimately decided she was going to walk over to Pier 62 and see if she could spot him. He hadn't specifically said he was a skater. He hadn't even said that if he was if that that was a place he skated at. But the Chelsea Pier Skatepark was the only place he'd really identified as a location that meant something in his life. There was City College. But that was a big place. She'd have to wander around a lot and really luck out to catch him there. Though, she supposed some irresponsibly flashed badges in the admissions or scheduling office might get her directed the right way. She didn't want to risk that coming back to her, though. She was on enough thin ice lately anyways. Her gut told her there was a chance she'd find him at the skate park, though. Maybe.

She'd never really been to a skatepark before. She actually thought with all her years on the Force and all the flak you sometimes hear about skateboarders, she couldn't remember ever being at one of the parks as a crime scene or even to track down a suspect. She couldn't even really recall dealing with more than a handful of skaters in her various canvasses over the years. So she wasn't really sure what to except.

She'd seen the park open and knew it was there in the Hudson River Park system but the gates around it kept it mostly out of sight. She'd never felt the need to go and take a look inside before.

She was kind of surprised at how clean the place was – even after it already being open for about two years. It looked pristine really. She supposed she was also kind of surprised at the number of young men milling around the place. She'd thought with it being around dinnertime – it might be quieter. It didn't look that way, though. It anything, it looked kind of crowded to her.

She stood at the sides watching for a while. Teens, young men – and some not so young men – were whizzing around on skateboards and rollerblades. Some were catching air out of a pool and doing all sorts of tricks, others were grinding over banks and rails and trick-boxes. It was just a flurry of activity.

She eyed the many of the passing faces and figures, trying to locate any that looked like Jack – or anyone that made more than passing eye contact with her. But it wasn't happening. She wasn't seeing him. She thought it was likely more than a little silly that she even thought there was a chance she'd be able to catch him on some random Monday night at some random time at some random park he'd mentioned in passing. It was a lot of what-ifs she was working on in attempting to possibly re-locate him.

But, just was she was about to go, she saw a kid come flying out of the bowl and fist pump the air as some of the other people standing around there gave him some claps and a couple hoots. She'd hardly seen his face in the leap where he'd grabbed the board from under his feet and landed almost gracefully on the ground. He had his back to her now. But then she her a voice – a voice she was nearly sure was his voice – say, "OK, OK boys, give him some space. Go on, tear it up Benj."

She walked over and stood next to him. He was standing with his deck tapping against his knee and watching another skater down in the pool. The kid looked small. Definitely not even a tween. She'd be surprised if he was even seven or eight, actually. She probably would've been scared for him, if he wasn't completely decked out in a helmet and other padding.

"Jack?" She said, after he hadn't seemed to notice or acknowledge her.

He glanced at her and did a bit of a double-take but then settled his eyes back onto watching the skater with the rest of the people gathered around the pool.

"You shouldn't be here," he commented, though.

"I hadn't heard from you. I thought …"

"I can't talk right now," he said and took a few steps away from her and moved a bit closer to the edge. "OK, Benj," he called out. "Com'on, get a grab in there next time."

She stood too and watched the little boy in the pool come back up and down the bowl, seeming to gain some speed and then he got right up to the edge, ollied getting some air and put his hand down and grabbed the board between his feet.

"Yes," Jack had cheered with his fist in the air. The rest of the people around the pool had offered out cries of support too. "Nose stall, next," the kid had suggested loudly to the smaller child.

The little boy must've known what he was talking about, because he came up onto the opposite edge of the bowl and seemed to balance there in thin air for several seconds before dropping back into the pool. The onlookers cheered him on again.

"OK, bail," Jack had called. "Give someone else a turn."

The kid seemed to hear again and dropped to his knees sliding into the bottom of the pool. He then came running with his board up the side near Jack, who'd leaned over the edge and grabbed the kid's hand, pulling him the rest of the way up and onto the flat surface. On the concrete now, Jack started giving the kid fist bumps and slapping at his helmet, while the boy glowed at him.

"That was frackin' awesome," Jack told the kid. "Amazing, little dude."

Olivia had slowly closed the gap between them again and looked at the small boy under the massive helmet that made his head look huge, while the pads around his elbows, wrists and knees seemed to extenuate just how tiny the rest of his body was under the bulk.

"Who's this?" she'd asked, and Jack glanced at her again, looking slightly unimpressed. The little kid just kind of gazed up at her, as Jack seemed to try to push him to the side a bit.

"Benji," the little boy had said, though.

She'd given him a small smile. "Hi Benji."

"Hey, Benj, how about you do another circuit of the street course, 'Kay? Go lay down some lines for me. I want to see you practice your manuals. Maybe try to get a couple kickflips in. See if you can land a boardslide on the trickbox, alright?" He'd pointed to a rectangular brick structure behind them.

"But Jee-Peedg I want to go again," the little boy had nearly whined at him.

Jack had shaken his head. "Nah. Give other peps a turn, Grom. We gotta go soon anyway. Circuit. Practice. Go. You lay a good line and I can't land it and I'll buy ya dinner."

The little boy considered it. "What if you land it, though, Jee-Peedg?"

He poked the kid in the belly. "Then you buy me dinner."

The kid had shaken his head.

"Than it better be a frackin' fantastic line. Go. I gotta get rid of the Fuzz."

The kid had glanced at her again. "She's the Fuzz?" he'd whispered.

Jack had put his head down closer to the boy. "She is," he hissed.

"But she's a girl," the kid had said quietly back, though not quietly enough she couldn't hear.

"I know," Jack had said. "The girl ones are extra mean, so you better go lay that line while I tell her skating ain't no crime, right?"

The little boy had reluctantly nodded and tossed the board on the ground and started peddling away, though she saw him kind of glancing at them, to the point he'd crashed into someone else and stumbled off his board, before getting back on it and continuing to go over the waves and banks that ran along the exterior of the area.

Jack watched for a moment and turned back to her. "You shouldn't be here," he said again with an edge of anger in his voice. "Now who's stalking who?"

She examined him for a moment and rubbed her eyebrow trying to compose herself and decide how to direct the conversation. But with the pause he'd stormed over with his deck over to the sidelines, out of the way of all the rest of the activity going on around them, and she'd followed after him. He was at a backpack and taking a swig of some sort of coloured hydrating drink, it looked like.

"Is he your son?" she asked, as she watched his eyes continue to monitor the kid, though he did offer occasional glares at her.

He snorted at her and shook his head harder, rolling his eyes.

"You just hang out with little boys?"

The kid had sighed and shot his head at her. "He's my nephew. Just because you're job has your mind all perverted, doesn't mean the rest of the world is just full of fucking perverts, OK?"

She looked at him. "You hadn't mentioned you had a sibling. You'd made it sound like you didn't really have much of anyone right now."

He shook his head at her again and rolled his eyes even harder. "Sorry, I should've given you the annotated biography of my life. Look – me approaching you was a mistake. I'm sorry. Now, please, get the fuck away from me."

She rubbed her eyebrow some more, as she looked at him, deciding what to say and do in his increasing agitation, weighing whether she really should just drop it and walk away. "Do you have that photo in your back pocket still?"

He stuck his hand in his pocket without even looking at her, watching the little boy, and handed the tiny folded square towards her. "There. You can have it. Keep it."

She didn't take it. "Why do you carry that around with you, Jack?"

"I told you. Because my Dad looks happy in it. Now – please – leave."

"Your name isn't Jack is it, Jee-Peedg?"

He shook his head. "J.P. Jean-Paul. Only my family called me that. Everyone calls me Jack. It's on most of my documents. It's on my driver's licence that I showed at your fucking station. I'm not … whatever you're suggesting. Lying. OK?"

She didn't know what to say to him. But at least it likely explained partially why she'd been having trouble tracking him down. She fully intended to re-run him now. She was actually thinking about going back to the office and doing it that night – while she had some quiet and privacy.

The little kid returned from his ride. "Did you see my pop shuv-it?"

Jack looked at him and shook his helmet. "I don't know. Did you land it?"

"Yeah."

"I don't know I believe you. Go show me again."

"She's still here," the kid said. "Is she takin' ya in?"

Jack snorted. "Nah. Skating ain't a crime, right?"

The kid shook his head but eyed her.

Jack shook his head some more. "Com'on. One more skate then we'll go get some dwags and Docs."

"Are you sure she's a cop?" the kid had whispered again. "You shouldn't talk to strangers even if they're girls Jee-Peedg."

Jack snorted again and tapped his knuckles on his helmet.

"You want to see my badge?" Olivia offered and the kid's eyes grew wide as she took it out and showed it to him.

"She has a badge," he whispered at Jack.

"Don't look right at it, or else she can arrest you," he told him – and the kid's eyes shot to him and looked terrified.

Olivia had shaken her head. "That's an awful thing to tell him," she nearly scolded Jack and crouched down to the little boy's level.

"He's teasing you," she told him. "Here, you can take it and look at it," she offered and the little boy cautiously stepped forward and took it examining it. He smiled and showed it to Jack, who just nodded.

"It's for real," the little boy had said and showed her.

She wasn't sure if it was a question. "It is. I'm Olivia," she told him. "I was friends with your grandpa, Jack's dad, a long time ago."

The kid shot Jack a questioning look.

"Popa-Jay," he nodded at the kid. "Mama's and mine's daddy."

"Pops is dead," the kid said and examined her badge more.

"Yeah, Pops is dead," Jack agreed. "Go on, 'Jamin, one more circuit. We aren't going to be back this week. Now or never."

The kid looked at her, though, and examined her. "Are you a Nan?"

She snorted. It was almost horrifying to be asked if she was a grandma when she hadn't even managed to have a child of her own.

"Ah, no, Benji, I'm not."

"A Mama?"

"Hey, Ben," Jack said and tapped on his helmet again. "Don't be rude. Go. Ride. Now."

He near pouted at Jack but handed her the badge back and seemed to listen, though, stayed closer to them that time. Doing a series of ground tricks, flicking and kicking the board around with his feet not more than 12 feet from them.

"How old is he?" she asked Jack.

He glanced at her. He had his board at his feet again and was pushing it back and forth with one foot, she thought it kind of like he was considering mounting it and skating away from her as quickly as possible.

"Four," he said simply.

"Wow, he must be pretty good at this stuff for a four-year-old," she commented, glancing at him from watching the little boy.

He shrugged. "We spend a lot of time at the parks."

"That the someplace you always need to be?"

"Something like that."

"So you watch him a lot for your sister? She lives in the city too?"

He snorted at her and shook his head. "I just wanted to see who you were, who you are," he said and looked at her. "I see. I saw. I didn't plan on giving you my life story."

She just looked at him.

"My sister is dead. Everyone is fucking dead. Physically, mentally, emotionally. They've all checked out. OK? She was fucked anyways. She lost it after Dad died. She OD'd. Ben lives with me. Now … please, leave me … us … the fuck alone. I'm sorry I wanted to see who the hell was in the picture."

He looked at her hard and then really did give a push on his board and peddled off towards the kid.

"Hey, Benj, S-K-A-T-E," he called as he breezed by him and ollied up onto a box and grinded across it, with the little boy following and copying him.

She watched as they continued to around the outside of the park. Jack doing a trick and making it look effortless and the little boy trailing after him and trying to copy it. He didn't make it look anywhere near as easy - tumbling from the board or tripping over his feet and deck. Though sometimes he seemed to land them. When he didn't, Jack was stopping and waiting for him. But as he stopped and waited for the little boy, she could see him looking back to where she was standing, and she knew he wanted her gone before they finished their circuit.


	5. Chapter 5

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She'd glanced at her cell and the caller ID as it started to ring. She didn't recognize the number and the ID was listed as UNKNOWN. That didn't mean a whole lot. She handed out her cell to a lot of victims and told them they could call her any time – even just to talk, if they needed it. Beyond that, it was prime supper-hour time for telemarketers who somehow got a hold of her number and never seemed to take her off their lists no matter how many times she asked – or even threatened. She answered, though, like she always did. She didn't want to risk leaving a victim clinging to the edge with no one else to turn to.

"Benson," she said into it. She knew it sounded formal and almost impersonal. It was her personal cell. She could answer it another way, if she really wanted to. But the greeting was habit. It was just a part of her and who she was. She didn't think she knew how to answer the phone with just a 'hello' or 'hi' anymore or even an 'Olivia' or 'Olivia Benson'. It all just sounded so wrong coming out of her mouth. 'Benson' just worked.

There was quiet on the end of the line, though. Well, she could hear background noise that sounded familiar somehow but no one was talking. She looked at the screen of her phone again, just making sure it was really connected. It still was and the timer was ticking off each second.

"Hello?" she said again. "Who's there? Can I help you?"

There was a rustling and she heard a sigh.

"Olivia?" a male voice said.

"Yes," she nodded, even though she knew the person on the other end couldn't see. "This is Detective Olivia Benson. Who is this?"

Another sigh – or maybe more like a deep breath emitted into her ear.

"It's Jack Lewis," he finally said.

She leaned back into her chair at her desk and glanced around. It was almost 7:30. The space in and around the SVU had pretty much cleared out. No one really sat in their area during the graveyard shift – save for the lone detective of their squad who got to man the phones and work on paperwork all night, and then dealing with rousing Cragen and the rest of them when something shitty happened out in the city. So more often than not.

Still, even, though, John was stuck on midnights at the moment, he'd come in and puttered for a while and then declared going to get something to eat since she was still hanging around anyways. She'd agreed to pick up the phones while he got his dinner – on the promise he'd bring her back some noodles too. So she was alone for the moment – having once again stayed passed the end of her shift, with the excuse of paperwork, court prep and just goold ol'dedication to the job. She was sure that most everyone saw through it at this point. She just had no reason to go home and didn't really want the alone time – as usual.

She was a little surprised to her from Jack, though. It had been almost three weeks since she'd stalked him to the skate park and seen him there with that little boy. It had piqued her interest in him even more – but she'd decided to respect his wishes and to leave him alone. She didn't want to agitate him. He clearly had his plate overloaded as it was. Beyond that – stalking him was just a crappy idea in so many ways.

And, really, she thought getting involved in any of it was just unhealthy. Hell, him opening the door for her little trip down memory lane had been unhealthy enough. She'd spent far too much time thinking about what-ifs and never-weres than she should've been. And, she'd already been spending far too much time running those kinds of things through her head anymore: Calvin, Elliot, David. It was enough. She didn't need more.

Still, she hadn't been able to stop herself from digging – even, though, she'd stopped herself from following the kid around. She forced herself to do it on her own time, though. And not at work. Or rather, she supposed it had become a form of distraction while she was home.

It had been easier to find him on the internet now that she knew his full name was Jean-Paul and where he'd done most of his growing up. He was a child of the internet and there were little bread crumbs of him here and there online that she'd been able to click through and piece together a reasonable idea of the timeline of his life.

She'd figured out he was just 18 – a baby – though he did have his 19th birthday coming up soon. He was a sophomore and he had received a scholarship to attend City, complete with a laptop computer and residence. Though, she doubted with a little boy in his care now he was in residence. She wondered if he was even able to keep his grade-point average high enough that he still had a scholarship. The university didn't issue press releases about the kids who couldn't make it in their elite scholars endowment programs. Still, she hoped he did get those marks in the first year and he wasn't trying to pay tuition this year. She couldn't imagine how an 18-year-old could be paying to go to a highly recognized and competitive program at City, while also renting somewhere to live and caring for a little boy. Maybe his father had had life insurance or his grandfather had left him an inheritance?

She had discovered, though, that he did work. He was an instructor and mentor with a "school" that taught skateboarding. It was through a skateboard store in Midtown, so she kind of hoped he was getting some hours there that were more frequent than whatever the demand was for skateboarding lessons. Normally she would've thought that wouldn't be something that would be booked up. But she supposed based on how busy the skate park on the piers was, maybe that was a misguided opinion. She felt like now that she knew this kid – this good kid, Jay's kid – was a skateboarder, she was seeing skaters everywhere. She was more attuned to them now. She used to hardly notice them – unless they did something to piss her off. Now she found herself stopping to look at them: watching how they navigated down the stress, looking at their footwork while they did little tricks in the park, observing how they tried to grind across things around the city. She thought none of them seemed to make it look as effortless as Jack had at the park. She wondered how he would've learned all that – where he would've even skated – when he grew up in a small town and on a farm, no less.

She'd learned that Jack had played soccer when he was little (she'd found references to his team actually winning the county championships for the 10-and-under league) and had also participated in at least one piano recital (it's program was posted in an archive online). Through the magic of ever-changing privacy settings on Facebook, she'd even seen a few pictures of the kid from high school and she supposed his first-year of university. He didn't look that much younger – but young enough. There wasn't anything too crazy in any of them, though. No drunken photos or him looking too stoned. She wondered how he balanced skate life with his academics with now raising a child? If he even did – or if he was just really good at putting up a lot of fronts to those around him. She could understand that. She knew how to put up walls too. Though the photos were all innocent enough – mostly him at skate parks or with friends, some at parties that didn't look nearly as outrageous as you'd expect for a kid that age, some at bonfires by the looks of it, and a couple of him in a cap-and-gown, so she assumed his high school graduation – looking at them still really did make her feel creepy and like a stalker – so she'd stopped looking quickly.

She'd determined his sister had been older than him – and had indeed died of a drug overdose. She'd found a newspaper article. It had happened at a party – apparently much more rowdy than the kid Jack found himself at, but maybe that was why. There'd been a police investigation into the whole thing.

She'd found another newspaper article in the same paper too – one about Jay's death. He'd been working alone and had been pulled into the baler when he was attempting to thread it. It'd been a while before anyone realized something was wrong and had come to check on him. It was far too late at that point. There'd been various levels of government and authority who'd investigated that incident too. The way the article read, it sounded like baler deaths, or at least amputations where just part of farming – you expected a certain number to happen in a season. But she doubted Jay would've ever expected to find himself making it onto that kind of list.

She really hoped that Jay hadn't suffered too much. But even in the very matter-of-fact way the news article read, it had sounded horrific and she'd almost been brought to tears thinking about what he'd spent his last minutes thinking about – badly injured and likely knowing he was bleeding out and would never see his children, or little grandbaby, again because of an accident. She wondered if he'd cursed himself for working alone that day and if he had been angry at himself in that final, quiet time. Or if working the fields alone was just something he did? That sounded more like Jay to her. She almost hoped that even if the death hadn't been quick – that at least he'd lost enough blood or been in enough pain that he'd lost consciousness and hadn't been left alone there with his thoughts and fear. It made her so sad for him.

She couldn't imagine what that would've been like for his children to cope with either. His two children would've barely been adults. Jack would've still been a teenager. Those are hard years to get through without parental support and guidance – no matter how much you don't want it at the time, you still do. Or you at least need it. She knew from experience what the longing for that acceptance and support – and what the lack of it or the absence of it could to do you. I could have long-term implications for your psyche, for how you saw yourself, how you valued yourself, your motivations. Jack entered adulthood without a father and without a mother. She knew that wasn't ideal.

Still, she thought that the kid seemed to have turned out OK despite everything that had been thrown at him. He seemed like a smart kid – her Google-stalking just seemed to prove that even more. But he had so much on his plate at the moment. She didn't know how a kid at 18 could be handling it – especially when most of it wasn't by his own choice or his own mistakes. It was just something that had happened and he had had to man-up and take responsibility – for his whole family it seemed like. That was a lot for anyone to carry.

She had seen the weight the kid was carrying. He had the weight of the world on his shoulders – and a dark cloud above him. It was clear he wanted help and was reaching out – but he also didn't know how to accept help, almost like he feared it. She didn't really blame him. She'd seen, though, the smiling pictures of a younger boy on the internet and the little references to the goals he'd scored or the academic awards he'd won. He used to be a well-adjusted, happy kid. Not anymore. That had been taken away from him. It made her feel bad for him.

She knew too that that wouldn't have been what Jay wanted for his son – or either of his children. Not the Jay she'd known. She knew he'd be devastated at the death of his daughter. That he'd be crushed by the load his son was carrying now. He'd be proud of him – but sad, she thought. Jay would've been the kind of man who would've encouraged the kid to work hard but to follow his heart and his dreams. That's how the Jay she knew waxed philosophical in his naïve optimistic way.

She'd thought about reaching out again to the kid. She'd thought that maybe that was something that Jay would want – someone to help his child. The reality was that Jay had been the longest relationship she'd ever had in her life – a whooping almost 18 months. But she'd never treated it with any seriousness. This little trip down memory lane and the current state of her life kept making her wonder if that had been a mistake.

But, God, what would've her life looked like with Jay? She couldn't imagine it having ever worked – even now, especially if he left the city and wanted to move back to the farm. That's just not something she would've ever agreed to. Though, she got the sense that had been more so he could have help raising the children, more so than a career move of choice.

She didn't really know what she was supposed to be doing with all this information now – about Jay, about Jack, about his dead sister and absent mother, about that little boy, Benjamin. She wanted to cling – to think that maybe it all meant something and could work out to be something for her – something good. But she also knew it could all just work out so badly. She could get hurt. She could be being used.

It had happened before – because she was so desperate to have a family of her own, as Cragen had once put it. He'd claimed it was words from another's mouth that he was just providing for perspective. But ever since she'd wondered if that's how he really saw her – if there was really some truth to it? She had let herself be used before because she so wanted to be a part of a family – by Calvin's mother, by her own half-brother. She wasn't sure she wanted to do that to herself again. But another part of her – the compassionate side, the trained SVU detective side, the mother-that-never-got-to-be side – all that had been screaming to help the kid. He was a victim, she thought, maybe different than her usual victims. But the kid was definitely still a victim.

Still, she'd forced herself to give it all time and space. To give herself a cool down period – and Jack too. To get her head on straight about the whole situation and what she wanted to do about it – if anything. To not be selfish about it. It wasn't about her – and it also wasn't her problem and she shouldn't make it into her problem.

She'd told herself that she'd given Jack her card, her personal number. The ball was back in his court, she told herself. She'd have to trust that if any of it was meant to be – or if he really needed help – he'd reach out again, he'd get in touch. She hadn't really expected him to get in touch, though – not really. Yet, now here he was on the phone.

"Hi Jack," she nearly smiled into the phone. "What's up?"

There was another pause but he finally said with hesitation. "I think I need some help and I don't really have anyone to call. You said I could call if I needed anything …"

She sat a bit straighter and put her elbows on her desk, her gut instinct and listening skills going into over-drive.

"I'm glad you called, Jack," she told him carefully. "What's wrong? What do you need help with?"

And then the babbling started. It was almost like the words just started flooding out of him. The quiet that had been there in his voice was quickly replaced by an edge of panic. The composed and stand-off-ish young man she'd been interacting with so far faded and she heard the 18-year-old kid who was still just barely an adult and trying to desperately to be one.

"I swear I just turned my back for a minute. I was just getting us some pretzels for dinner and a pop. I told him not to do anything. He was sitting on the bench …"

"Is Benji OK?" she interjected. "Is he with you?"

"Yeah but he's not OK and now they're saying things about MRIs and surgery and I don't really understand what they're saying. And Ben doesn't seem very good and he keeps crying and asking for Izzy."

"Who's Izzy?" she asked, she was starting to gather her things from her desk, she knew she was going to wherever the hell they were.

"His mom. My sister. Isabelle. And I don't really have insurance and I don't know if I can afford any of what they're saying and I'm afraid they are going to send in like children's aid or something in here and take him away. And maybe I should just take him and leave but they've got him connected to … stuff … right now."

She stood from her desk pulling on her coat. "You aren't going to leave. You're staying put. Where are you Jack? What hospital?"

"Bellevue."

"OK," she nodded into the phone and started heading for the elevator – but sidestepped it and went for the stairs, not wanting to risk the call dropping. "And you're in the ER?"

"Yeah, right now. I think they're going to move us."

"OK, Jack, I'm coming. I should be there in about 15-20 minutes. If they need to do something for Ben – you just let them. Don't worry about the hospital bill right now, OK? We'll get that sorted out when I get there."

"What if they send in children's aid or a social worker or something?" he said the fear is palpable in his voice. "What if they try to make me leave or take him away?"

"OK, Jack, I'm on my way. If anyone tries to do anything – just tell them I'm on my way. You still have my card with you?"

"Yeah," he said quietly.

"If that happens – given them my card. Tell them to call me. I'll be there soon."

She passed John in the lobby just was she was hanging up. He did a bit of a double-take at her and held up the bag of Chinese.

"What? You're bailing on our dinner date?" he called after her.

"Ah, sorry," she said, glancing over her shoulder, still heading for the door. "Something came up. Dinner's on me next time."

He sighed and dropped the bag to his side. "What am I supposed to do with all this food?"

She gave him a smile. "You work in a police station, John. It's the graveyard. I think you'll be able to find someone to help you out."

He sighed some more. "Yeah, yeah. Have a good night."

She nodded and pushed the door open and stepped out of it. She didn't think it would be good.


	6. Chapter 6

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Jack glanced up at her as she came into the curtained off area that the ER staff had put them in. He looked really stressed but his eyes seemed momentarily light up on seeing her but faded just as quickly.

"Hi," she told him quietly, but he just nodded in response. So she looked at the little boy sitting on the bed. Benji looked spaced out of his head – his eyes seemed glassy and unfocused. He clearly looked like he'd been crying – his face still red and cheeks streaked and his eyes red and puffy looking. But for the moment he was quiet.

"Hi Benji," she said to him and he glanced at her but his eyes still seemed unfocused and he also didn't offer a response. "It's Olivia," she told him. "We met a while ago at the skate park." He just gazed at her for a moment and then looked back at Jack.

"See. I told you. Mama can't come – but she came to help. So you can lay down now," Jack told him. "Rest."

Benji gazed blankly at him for a moment but complied and Jack stood and pulled the thin flannel blanket up around him and watched the little boy, who seemed to have set his sights on the ceiling tiles above him – looking just as dazed.

Olivia looked at him some more. He looked awful. He had gauze bandages taped to his face – one that looked bloody through it and she could see bruising down the one cheek and temple. The eye on that side looked like it might end up black. The bruise from near the temple was creeping to the eye socket. His arm was clearly broken and they had it in some sort of support and sling for the moment. She'd seen scraps on his little knees too before Jack had pulled the blanket up him. They had an IV hooked up to him too, and she moved over to look at it. She thought it was just a saline solution they had dripping into him, but she wasn't sure. Based on how space the boy was – she was wondering if they'd given him pain killers or a sedative.

"They gave him some more meds just after I got off the phone with you. He's acting pretty stoned now," Jack told her, as he plopped back into the chair on the one side of the bed, and hung his head, as he put his elbows on his knees.

She looked around and found the second chair up at the head of the bed and pulled it over to sit next to Jack. She went between looking at the little boy in the hospital bed and the kid sitting next to her. She was waiting for him to say more but she was starting to think that wasn't going to happen.

"What happened?" she finally asked – after what felt like ages to her, but likely had only been a matter of 10 seconds or so.

"I just had him over at a park and we'd been skating but we were done, so I'd taken all the pads and his helmet off him. We were on a bench near a concession cart so I'd just gone over to get us something to eat and drink. I told him to stay put. I was like … I was right there. But he didn't listen and I wasn't watching good enough I guess. He tried to ollie up and grind across the bench. He completely missed it and he hit his head – his fucking temple, I think - on the bench and he landed on his arm. He was fucking out for a while and there was blood all over his face and his hand was like … in a different direction."

Jack hung his head more, examining the ground. "I was right there – but I wasn't watching," he mumbled.

She looked at him. He seemed so defeated. She carefully lifted her hand and put it on his hunched back and gave it a small rub. He didn't jerk away so she left it there.

"It's OK, Jack," she told him. "These kinds of things happen with kids. Stitches and broken bones are pretty common in active little boys. You didn't do anything wrong."

"I should've been watching him better," he said and glanced at her.

She gave him a little smile. "You were. You were right there. Kids only need a second. It happens."

"I don't really have insurance," he said quietly. "Just student insurance through the college. I don't think it covers him."

She nodded. "Did you pick this hospital or did you have an ambulance come?"

"Someone called an ambulance. He was unconscious and bleeding. People were freaking out there."

"And did you tell the EMTs that you didn't have insurance?"

He gave a little nod.

She rubbed his back more. "Well, they brought you to the right hospital, Jack. It's going to be OK. Bellevue is part of HHC. When we get him out of here, we'll be dealing with a financial counselor and they're going to get you and Benji set up on a public insurance program or they're going to look at your finances and you're going to pay what you can. They'll have a fee scale. It's set up for people in situations like this, Jack. It's going to be OK. This isn't going to break you. There's still going to be a bill but it's not going to be thousands of dollars. Don't worry. I can go to the meeting with you. We'll get it sorted out."

He nodded a little bit more.

"Have they sent in any social worker or children's services yet?" she asked him softly.

He shook his head.

"OK. I don't think they will. The doctor has to suspect abuse. There's no signs of that, Jack. And, there were lots of witnesses to what happened, right? It was just an accident. So you don't need to be sitting here worrying about that either. And, if I'm wrong about that and they do send someone in, I'm here now and I'll talk to them, OK?"

His head bobbed a little again but he was quiet for a while. She kept her hand on his hunched back and shoulders. She got the definite impression he needed the touch – and that he'd likely been sadly lacking in having any sort of human touch from anyone other than his little nephew in a very long time. But she just watched Benji. She thought he might be falling asleep. His eyes looked kind of heavy and he was barely stirring. She wondered what the hell they'd given him.

She heard Jack sigh and glanced at him.

"I'm sorry," he mumbled, "to like monopolize your night. I just … still don't really know anyone here."

She squeezed his shoulder. "It's OK. I'm glad you called."

His head bobbed again – but the silence in the little curtained off area only hung with them for a moment or two before a doctor pulled it open and came in.

"Checking in. Heard you got Mom here," he said before even looking up from the chart, but then he did a bit of a double-take at her.

It was a doctor Olivia ended up dealing with regularly in the Bellevue ER. They recognized each other instantly. He glanced at the chart again – clearly surprised to see her and seeming to think he'd missed the police involvement in the case.

"Ah … " Dr. Beresford sputtered, glancing between her and the boys and the file, an increasingly questioning look painting across his face.

Benji picked that moment to start crying out "Mama" again, apparently agitated by the appearance of the doctor, who'd likely already inflicted pain on him – or at least ordered nurses to.

Jack stood up and went to him but the little boy just cried harder at him and flailed around a bit, knocking his wrapped arm and invoking more wails. So Olivia stepped forward and stroked his hair away from his forehead until he looked at her.

"Hey, Benji, you need to calm down, OK? We need to talk to the doctor and get you better so we can get you home."

He looked at her but his tears kept flowing and his bottom lip quivered. She wiped some of the tears away with her thumb – and glanced at Jack.

"I'm going to talk to Dr. Beresford, OK?" she more told him than asked permission. But Jack just barely nodded. He was gripping at his nephew's little socked foot and looking like he nearly wanted to cry too.

Beresford stepped away from the bed, almost to the curtain, with her, so they were about as huddled in a corner as they could get.

"Ah, I didn't realize they were yours," he said. "The kid didn't say anything. I would've had someone call."

She shook her head. "Not mine – and not work-related. Family friends."

"Ah, yeah, OK. The kid listed himself as the guardian. We couldn't find any parents to call yet."

She shook her head again. "There's no parents. He's legally an adult and he's his nephew's legal guardian. He filled out the form correctly. Umm. Jack's feeling a little overwhelmed with the information you're giving him about what needs to happen with Benji. So – maybe you can brief me here – so we can kind of guide this along."

Beresford examined her for a moment and sighed. "Jack," he called at the kid, who glanced his way. "I need your verbal consent to disclose Ben's medical details to Detective Benson."

"OK," the kid said quietly without further prompting.

Beresford shrugged a bit and looked back at her. "OK," he said, and opened up the chart he had in a binder with him.

"Well, we got his face glued for now. We might put stitches in after – we need to make some decisions on imaging first. So we've got him under observation right now and we did some xrays.

"He definitely has a concussion. He lost consciousness for what's been estimated as about three minutes. He's had some in the ambulance apparently and he's been complaining that his head hurts. We haven't been able to get him to call it a headache or give a description that would match that – so we aren't entirely sure if it's pain from the impact or a headache related to the concussion. He has been acting really disoriented. He doesn't seem to remember what happened – so that's amnesia. The extent of it is a little hard to determine in a four-year-old. So basically, we want to get some more imaging done. Right now I'm putting it at a Grade Two concussion, but we should really make sure there isn't anything else in terms of swelling or bleeding or damage going on in there. I'd recommend it for almost anyone with a concussion – but with a kid this young, I'm pushing for it even more."

"OK, so do it," she said.

"Yeah, I'll get to that," Beresford said. "There's some complications going on in the decision on how you guys want to proceed."

"What kind of complications?"

"Well, he's got a badly broken wrist. We've got it set for the moment but the orthopedist isn't happy with it. There's all these little bones in the wrist and his are badly misaligned right now. If he was 70 and retired – we'd likely just leave it. But a kid … he's got a whole life of stiffness and basically malfunction if we don't go in there and fix it. So we'd like to go ahead with surgery."

Liv nodded. "OK. I think everyone's fine with that."

Beresford sighed. "We need better pictures of the wrist before we can do that. So here's the thing. Generally, MRIs give us better images of the brain – and the orthopedic surgeon, would prefer those images of his wrist too. But getting a four-year-old to lie still for an MRI …" he shrugged.

"Well, aren't there machines that are designed so the parent can go in with the kid or something? Put Jack in with him. Or doesn't he seem pretty compliant right now?"

"He's freaking out whenever any of our staff gets near him," Beresford said and shook his head. "Usually for kids under about seven, we put them under for the MRIs. But that causes a problem in that we need to wait until his stomach is empty – so it won't be until morning. We also don't like putting kids under atheistic so close together – so we'd likely be looking at the surgery about two days down the road."

Liv rubbed her hand up her forehead. She was starting to see why Jack was having trouble absorbing everything that was being said to him. "OK, I take it there's another option?"

"We could do some CTs on him. Images on CTs aren't as good – but we're ready to see if we can get what we need from there. If not, we'd still have to go ahead with the MRI. The other thing is that some parents don't like CTs because their child is going to be exposed to radiation. It's a limited amount – and it shouldn't have major implications. The vast majority – it never will. But you never know. Generally, we are pretty cautious with sending anyone under 40 for CTs unless it's really necessary."

"Well, this sounds like any OK exception?" she said but almost asked.

Beresford shrugged. "I'd say, yes. Likely. We need you to have him drink some fluid that has a contrast in it. Jack hasn't been able to tell us much about any allergies he might have?"

She shrugged. "He'd know better than me."

"OK. Well, he drinks the contrast over a two-hour period. We'll have to inject him with a dye too. The CT itself will only be about 10 minutes. You're still going to need to talk to him about keeping really still. We'll monitor him after to make sure he's not having a reaction to the dye. But we need to get on this stat. If we can get him through the CT before midnight, it will leave enough leeway for the fluids to be cleared from his system and the surgeon to hopefully work on him tomorrow. But if there's a back up in imaging – or if he isn't able to co-operate …"

She nodded. "OK. I understand. We'll make sure he's ready."

Beresford tapped the folder on his chest. "We're trying to get him a bed over in pediatrics. But they're pretty full. It doesn't look like it's going to happen tonight. So you may be stuck here until they take him up to surgery. Honestly, unless there's problems, after he gets out of the surgical recovery ward, he'll likely be able to go home. So …"

She sighed. "But he's acting kind of scared here."

He nodded. "I can try to get you into a room in an adult ward – semi-private so there's only one other bed. But he'd have to have an adult with him around the clock for supervision – even bathroom breaks and coffee runs wouldn't be a go, unless someone else is sitting there. And, honestly, I know the kid is technically an adult but …"

She examined the ceiling and let out a deep breath. She wasn't really planning on going anywhere until Jack got Benji out of the hospital – but she also wasn't exactly expecting it to be a multi-day affair. "Yeah, got it," she said. "I'll be here."

Beresford gave her a thin smile and nodded. "I told Jack – but telling you too. With the concussion – he shouldn't be playing videogames or be on your phones' apps or watching movies or anything – if he starts to complain about being bored. Best I can offer is read to him. Maybe colour. Try to get him to rest. We've got him on some heavy duty pain killers so hopefully he'll sleep soon – or at least after we get him through the CT. But still. Next week or so – he needs to be pretty unstimulated.

"But, anyways, the neurologist will likely be around to talk to you more now that you're here – or at least after the CTs come back. I'll let him and the surgeon both know you're here. And – don't let him eat or drink anything – not even water. We're keeping him hydrated," he said, nodding towards the IV. "That's got to be enough until after his surgery."

She sighed. "Yep. Got it."

Beresford gave her another small nod. "OK. I'm going to put through the order for the CT then and let people know what's going on so we can start getting him booked and scheduled. A nurse will be in soon to get him started on the contrast. He's not going to like the way it tastes. One cup every 15 minutes."

She looked at the ceiling again. "OK."

He tapped the file against her shoulder. "OK. I'll see what we can do about getting him up into a ward too – and out of here. I'll check back in later."


	7. Chapter 7

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She glanced up as she saw Benji stir. They'd put some more pain medication into his IV after they got him into a ward bed after the CT scan and he'd been sleeping mostly soundly for a couple hours.

He'd been dead-to-the-world enough, that she'd gone and found a badly battered, 18-month-old Good Housekeeping magazine in a nearby waiting room and dragged it back to look at his bedside. It's content was ridiculous, but at least it was something to look at and to try to pass the time.

Jack's stomach had been growling so loudly and hungrily she'd eventually told him that he should go and see if the cafeteria was still open – or at least find a vending machine and grab a bag of chips or something. Just because Benji couldn't eat until after his surgery, didn't mean they had to starve themselves too. Realistically, she knew the kid was going to need his energy to get through the next couple days – if not the next couple weeks or months. It had taken some convincing but he'd eventually relented and left her to monitor his sleeping nephew. He'd been gone about 20 minutes at that point, though, so she was hoping that meant that he'd found the cafeteria open and was getting a meal into himself. Or maybe it'd been closed and he'd taken a wander outside the hospital to see what he could find. She knew there was a Dunkin' Donuts and a couple sandwich places and pizza shacks nearby that'd likely be operating around the clock. And, she figured getting a bit of fresh air and stretching his legs wouldn't hurt him either.

She put down her magazine and gave Benji a little smile and leaned forward a bit.

"Hey Benji, how you feeling?"

He blinked at her a couple times through the dim night-level lighting in the room. She had the little reading light on above his bed. He hadn't seemed to even notice it before – but maybe it was bothering him now. He seemed to glance around a bit.

"Jack will be back in a few minutes," she assured him. She didn't want to mention the food aspect of him being out of the room. She'd been sure to mention to Jack that he shouldn't bring the food back to the room and eat in front of Benji. She hoped he would've figured that out on his own – but he seemed like he was still in a bit of a state and was tired. Not to mention, kids that age just didn't think properly sometimes.

She hoped she wasn't lying too badly to the little boy right now, though. She'd already seen him have two other meltdowns so far that night. Getting him to drink the contrast solution for the CT had been a chore. Jack had basically given up with Benji's screaming and resigned to the fact that they were just going to be stuck in the hospital a couple days and Benji was going to have to endure two rounds of anesthesia and an MRI. She wasn't ready to give up so easily, though. So she'd taken over and urged the little boy on – a sip at the time between pouring tears and screaming protests. She was sure other people in the beds in the ER thought the boy was deathly ill or being tortured from the fit he was putting up. He'd calmed a bit after they managed to get all the fluid into him but the crying had started again when they had to wheel him to the radiology and imaging unit. All down all the hallways, he'd just wailed and then he flailed as they tried to get him onto the bed of the scanner.

"Ben, you need to lay still," Jack just kept telling him. "You're more grown-up then this. Stop being such a baby."

That had just made him cry harder and she'd again crouched down next to the bed and wiped at his tears.

"Benji," she told him softly. "Listen to me." He just sputtered more and more. She got some tissue from the techs in the room and blew at the snot in his nose while Jack just stood there behind her with his arms crossed, looking so lost about what to do or how to manage the situation at all.

"OK, Benji," she told him again, as he calmed at least into silent, though body shaking, sobs and rolling tears rather than all-out wailing. At that point she hoped that he'd been crying so much and his little boy had been through so much that night that he'd just sleep after they got the hell out of that room. "You want to get out of the hospital really quick, right?"

He'd just looked at her with his glassy, watery eyes.

"I know this is really scary and you're hurting. But you need to co-operate right now, OK? Then you're going to be able to go home sooner. So this nice lady …" she gestured to one of the waiting techs, "she's going to put some straps on you now – to help you lay really, really still like we wall talked about upstairs. And even then you're going to lay really, really still – as still as you can – and they are going to take some pictures of you with this machine. And you're going to do exactly what they tell you. You need to listen and co-operate so you can go home tomorrow, OK?"

He hadn't given her any sort of answer but he didn't fuss when the tech came over and strapped him with the soft restrains – keeping his legs, arms and head in place and hopefully still for the scan.

Olivia wiped at his little tears a little bit more. "OK Benji. Good boy. Now Jack is going to stand in that room just behind your head with the other ladies, OK? And I'm going to be just outside the door and in a few minutes we're going do go up to a room and to bed so you can get some sleep. And the doctor said you could have a couple ice chips when we get upstairs too. Would you like that?"

He gave a small nod – as much as he could with his restrained head.

She smoothed her fingers across his forehead. "OK. Good boy. So keep being brave for a few more minutes and then we're going to get to all those things."

She'd felt almost a sudden urge to give him a little kiss on the forehead as she got up from her crouch beside the scanner table. But she'd known that would be inappropriate – that it would likely upset Jack and it might've really upset and confused Benji. So she just rubbed her thumb down his temple and tear stained cheek again and gave him a small smile, before nodding at the tech and giving Jack a look before she stepped outside the CT room's door.

She would've preferred to stay in the booth too – but they were only allowing one of them to and there wasn't even any discussion. It was Jack that got to take up that space. It felt like the 10 minute scan took hours while she leaned against the wall outside the room with her arms crossed – hoping that it would go well and that Benji would co-operate and that the doctors would be able to get what they needed from the imaging so they wouldn't have to endure an MRI with the little boy.

"I need to pee," Benji told her, still squinting in the light and seeming slightly disoriented.

She nodded. She wasn't surprised he needed to pee. He hadn't requested a bathroom trip yet – and they'd had him ingest a litre of contrast and must've dripped about a litre more of fluid into the little boy at that point. That was a lot for a little bladder.

"OK," she told him. "I'll call the nurse."

She pushed the little call button on the side of his bed and waited as it made the beeping noise until a voice eventually came across the built-in intercom. "Can I help you?" the woman's voice said, sounding almost slightly annoyed. Though, it had been kind of clear that the night-staff wasn't that excited about ending up with a child on their ward – especially one that was still pre-op and who wasn't in a post-op sleep stupor.

"He needs to pee," Olivia said into the intercom.

There was a short pause and some rustling. "We've got him listed a mobile. Bathroom's at the back of the room."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "He's four – and has a broken arm and an IV in the other arm."

"Still going to be faster than us getting a bedpan over there," the nurse had said and the intercom had cut out.

She sighed and looked at the little boy. "The nurse is going to be a few minutes, Benj," she told him. "Do you think you can hold it until she comes or until Jack comes back?"

He shook his head at her. "I need to go," he told her and she was sure he was on the verge of tears again.

So she nodded. "OK," she agreed half-heartedly, "then let's get you up and to the bathroom."

He sat up and then didn't seem to know what to do with the IV taped and gauzed against his one hand while his other arm was strapped in a sling against his chest.

She patted down beyond the rails. "Scoot here to get out of the bed," she told him.

He made a movement to do that – but put his hand down on the bed and must've tugged the IV in some way because he winced and made a little sound.

She sighed again and stood from her chair. "Here," she told him and stuck out her hands, shoving them under his armpits and carefully maneuvering her arms around the IV line while also trying to make sure she had most of his weight fall onto that side of his body and not where the break was. She pulled him up off the bed and was almost surprised at just how light he actually was. She'd intended to put him on the ground to let him walk to the bathroom but he'd reached for her and his arm came up and around her neck in a tangle with the IV line.

"Ah, OK," she said – partially to herself and partially to him, while she attempted to untangle the line from around her neck without managing to rip it out of him – and to settled him on her hip.

She was used to dealing with kids – but this was different. She wasn't entirely sure what to make of any of it – or how she was supposed to act, what she was supposed to do, what would be crossing lines, what was only going to end up hurting Benji in the end, what Jack would frown upon, what would end up hurting her in the end too. She didn't want another Calvin situation on her hands. She didn't think she could go through that again. That had hurt her in a way she'd been unprepared for. She thought it had nearly broken her – actually, it had, until she'd realized she could be even more broken with Elliot's departure.

She managed to get the line sitting in a way that seemed more reasonable and clutched the little boy tightly against her while she reached for the IV machine and managed to get it rolling without him protesting that anything was tugging in a way that hurt. So she carried him over to the bathroom and managed to very awkwardly struggle to get the door open and the IV over the jam and into the little room for him – before setting him on the ground in front of the toilet.

"OK," she told him. "I'll wait outside."

He looked at her with pleading eyes.

"What's wrong Benj?"

"I don't know how," he told her.

She looked at him in his hospital gown and the sling and the IV and sighed.

"Just like you always do, sweetheart," she told him. What else was she supposed to say?

He shook his head at her. "I have to go," he whined.

"I think maybe we should wait for the nurse or for Jack to get back," she told him.

Seriously, she wasn't sure helping the kid in the bathroom was crossing some sort of line. She'd felt awkward enough dealing with some of that stuff with Calvin – telling him that he needed to bathe, apparently that was something 11-year-old boys needed to be instructed to do and didn't seem to self-initiate; washing and folding his underwear, and he definitely hadn't given up the ghost in the ass-wiping department. But she didn't need to school him on how to take a piss. Sure, Benji was a little boy – but still …

"I need to go 'Livia," he pleaded.

She sighed again. "OK," she said.

He was a little boy. He was asking for help. Fuck, he needed help. She'd probably need help the first time she needed to take a piss if she was outfitted in as much medical equipment as him at the moment – and she wasn't four. She wasn't doing anything wrong, she told herself. She sure as hell knew where the line was and wasn't in terms of wrong.

"OK, I'm going to hold up the gown for you," she told him, as she bent forward and lifted up the seat for him and then gathered the gown and held it above his shoulder – giving him the space to do his business and also some privacy.

He still had his briefs on though and he fumbled trying to get them down with his solo gauzed-up and IV-tied hand. "It hurts," he whimpered.

She nodded and wadded the gown in her one hand more and leaned forward with her free hand and stuck a thumb into the waistband at his one hip and pulled them down just enough to give him access.

He flailed again with his IV hand and rapped his slinged arm against his chest and made another little noise and glanced up at her.

She sighed. "OK, Benj, I think you're just going to need to sit down, OK? Otherwise you're going to have to wait for Jack to get back."

He shook his head. "Girls sit."

"Boys sit when they are in the hospital and have broken arms," she told him. She leaned forward and put the seat back down. "Sit," she told him seriously.

He glanced at her again but seemed to listen and sat his little butt on the toilet apparently just in time – because she heard the urine start to hit the water near instantly and continue for quite a while.

"Are you done?" she asked him after the sound stopped but he'd continued to sit there silently. She'd be examining the corner rather than him but glanced down at him now and he gave her a small nod. "OK," she told him. "Stand back up. Do you need toilet paper or something?" she asked. She didn't know what the protocol was for when boys took a piss sitting down versus standing – or if there was one? She supposed it didn't really make a difference – and he just shrugged at her anyways. So she just left it. She doubted if he ended up with a wet spot on his underwear that it would really add any greater discomfort to him than he was already in.

His underwear had fallen all the way to the floor with the sit-down maneuver, though, and she had to drop the gown and crouch down to get it for him and manage to pull it back up for him. She mustn't have done it properly or comfortably – because he'd done almost a little dance after she thought she'd managed to get it back into place for him.

"Are you OK?" she asked. He'd just nodded again. "Ah, OK, let's see if we can wash that hand a bit," she said and grabbed a paper towel and put some water and soap on it and wiped down the fingers still sticking out of the gauze they'd wrapped around the IV needle in an attempt to keep him from poking at it. He'd just let her – not saying a word – and watching her with big eyes.

"OK," she told him as she finished. "Back to bed."

He stuck up his free arm at her again, though, clearly demanding to be picked back up. She gave him a little nod and pushed the door open first, holding it with her foot and wiggling the IV machine over the little bump and out the door.

"OK, come here," she told him and put her hands down at his level and he took the couple steps forward before she scooped him back up and this time more easily managed to get him positioned on her hip for the walk back to the bed. He hadn't let go, though, as she tried to lean over and put him back on the elevated mattress.

"I want the ice," he told her, clinging to her neck.

She sighed. It was almost 2 a.m. – well after the midnight cut-off for him crunching on the few ice chips they'd been given for him in a cup when they'd gotten into the room.

"No more ice, Benj. You can't have anything more to eat right now."

"I'm hungry," he told her as she straightened back up to eliminate the strain on her neck as he decided if he was going to lie down or not.

"I know – but you can't eat right now. You'll get to eat after your surgery in the morning."

He tightened his grip on her more at the mention of the surgery again. Jack had tried to explain it to him earlier – as had the on-call surgeon. But even in simple terms – apparently it still sounded terrifying to the little boy.

"How about we hold the ice pack on your arm again?" she offered, laying her hand against the discarded cold pack on the table. It still felt cold to her.

He nodded against he shoulder.

"OK, let's lay down and get it on there then," she told him.

He shook his head. "I sit with you," he informed her.

"OK," she nodded – and moved to put him in the rocking visitor chair that Jack had vacated, but he again clung to her.

"NO! I sit with you," he told her again.

She looked at him and where he had his little face buried against her shoulder and was huffing hot little breaths against her neck. She knew she was already fucked. However this ended now – she was going to get hurt. She could feel it. But she wasn't going to leave this little boy alone through this. She wasn't going to leave Jack spinning about how to deal with any of it – looking so lost and scared himself.

She was an adult. She could suck it up – even if it meant she was already feeling the stirrings of attachment and the evitable pain she knew she was going to feel when the next 24 hours were over and she'd likely not get to see the two boys again for weeks or months … or ever.

"OK," she told him. "Here, hold this for me," she said, handing the cold pack to him and shoving it between them and against his slinged arm. It was definitely still cold – she could feel it against her chest.

She maneuvered the IV machine more and put it next to the rocking chair – claiming it for herself and Benji. Jack could have the hard chair she'd spent the last three hours sitting in when he got back. Or if he couldn't convince Ben to get back into bed – maybe he could lay down and get at least a bit of sleep. She could see the young man fading too and she knew he'd need his patience in the morning. She needed him to be there mentally and emotionally for the little boy in the hours leading up to surgery – she knew they were going to need it.

She managed to get seated and pulled Benji's legs across her lap – and then untangled the IV lines again so they weren't wrapped around either of them. Benji didn't seem to mind either of the movements and cuddled even more into her – making her heart ache a little bit more – and curled his head just under her chin. She re-adjusted the cold pack, moving it away from her shirt and skin and settling it on top of his slinged arm a bit more. She rocked the chair a little bit for him and rubbed down his little arm.

"Story," Benji said quietly.

She gave a little smile and looked down at him. She leaned over and grabbed the magazine off the arm of the other chair, where she'd left it.

"I've just got this magazine right now, Benj. It's not very good for a story – but let's see what we've got in here."

She glanced over at the bed – surrounded by curtains – on the other side of the room. Its occupant was an older man who's been in surgery earlier in the day apparently. Whatever they had pulsing through his system – he seemed to be out good. Or at least he was still snoring. He hadn't even seemed to stir on their bathroom adventure and she hoped her reading quietly to the little boy wouldn't disturb him either.

She paged through the magazine. "Ah, OK, let's read about decoding your pet's whacky behaviour. Sounds pretty fascinating, right?"

Benji had given a little nod.

She gave a small snort. "OK," she said and gave him a small smile. She thought he'd be asleep again soon anyways.

"How to help your shy pup feel comfortable," she read the ridiculous headline to him. "For fearful dogs …"

"Do you have a dog 'Livia?"

She looked at him again. "No, I don't Benji."

"There's a dog called Benji, too," he told her.

She gave him a small smile and rubbed his arm some more. "There is. Have you seen any of those movies?"

He gave another little nod.

"Those movies were on when I was a little girl too," she offered. "They're pretty good. Lots of adventures."

He gave another little nod. "He helps people."

She smiled. "He does. Have you seen any of the Lassie movies? He helps people too."

The little boy nodded some more. "We had a dog at the farm," Benji said.

"Oh yeah? What was his name?"

"London. But he Uncle Greg's and Jee-Peedg says London doesn't like the city and couldn't come live with us."

She put her chin on the top of his head and rubbed his back a bit more. "Jack is likely right. I don't think a farm dog would like the city very much."

"Why not?" Benji asked.

"Not enough room for him to run and play," she told him.

"But there is lots of places to skate and play," he told her.

She smiled. "There are. You like skateboarding, Benji?"

He nodded against her.

"You're very good."

"You can to lots of tricks when you're very good," he told her, "and then you can 360 and cavemen and lots."

"Mmm, it sounds like you have lots more to learn. It's a good thing that Jack is a good teacher."

He nodded some more.

"Will I still be allowed to skate after?" he asked quietly.

She rubbed his back a bit more and nodded her head against the top of his head. "Yea, Benji. You're likely going to have to take a bit of a break while your arm gets better – but then you can skate again. But I think you're going to have listen when Jack tells you that you're done for the day and not try to do tricks when you don't have your pads or helmet on. You wear them for a reason, sweetheart."

He nodded against her. "I sorry," he said softly and gave a little sniff.

She stroked her hand through his hair and made eye contact. "No sorries," she told him. "It's OK. We just need to get you fixed up. I don't think you'll be making this mistake again, though, will you?"

He gave her big eyes and shook his head.

She gave him a little smile. "Good boy," she told him and rubbed her thumb across his forehead.

How could this little boy's mother have left him? She didn't care she was young – 21 – and it was likely a stupid mistake by an immature, damaged, young woman. Now this beautiful little boy was going to struggle his whole life because of her selfish choice to do drugs at a party and to just keep taking them. It made her mad. Benji was another victim now – and it wasn't fair.


	8. Chapter 8

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She was watching Jack more at that point then she was Benji.

His surgery had gone well – or at least that's what the surgeon had told them. His bones where back where they were supposed to be, more-or-less. Though, he'd had a pin added to his wrist. And, for now he had a bright florescent green cast running up his forearm and around his elbow. It was peaking out of the extra blanket that they'd wrapped around his arm.

Between the anesthesia and painkillers they were pumping into him now, though, he was passed out good. He'd come out of the anesthesia just long enough to do some vomiting from the drug cocktail. They'd pumped some Gravol into him and gotten the pain meds dripping into him and he'd passed out again.

The nurses had told them to expect him to be out for up to five hours – and that they'd likely be sitting there with him in recovery until he did wake up and they managed to get some broth and juice into him - and to take his vitals again and have him take a pee. And for him to keep it all down and seem like an aware and functional little boy. So they were just waiting. It felt like a long wait – and she found herself watching Jack more than the sleeping little boy at this point.

The teen had his elbows sitting on the side of the bed and his head resting against closed fists in front of him – clutched together almost like he was in prayer. With how he was positioned she couldn't tell if he had his eyes closed or if he was even awake. The slowness of his breathing and his lengthy silence - she was starting to think he may have finally succumbed to sleep too. Though, the position he was in didn't look that conducive to it. She was tired as well at that point. She'd managed to get a few minutes here and there – as much as it was possible while sitting up in a hospital.

She'd called into work around 6 a.m. and said she was taking a medical day. Cragen had actually picked up his phone, but he didn't ask any questions – and she didn't even attempt to sound sick. She'd deal with explaining herself later – if it even came up. She had a feeling it might, given the fact that John had seen her hasty departure the night before, and she doubted he could restrain himself from making some sort of smart-ass comment when he learned she'd called-in that day. But she'd worry about that later.

"I think you should consider letting me help you guys out after you get him out of here," she finally vocalized at Jack. She'd been sitting there thinking it since the night before – since watching Jack struggle with the situation and since Benji sat curled in her lap until he eventually fell asleep and she'd rocked with him for hours. And she hadn't wanted to let him go.

Jack slowly lifted his head and glanced at her and shrugged in apparent indifference.

"He's going to be a lot of work the next week or so, Jack," she told him seriously. "He's going to need a lot of help."

He looked at her some more like he was thinking about it but then shook his head. "I know how to take care of him," he said, almost defensively.

She rubbed her eyebrow. She wasn't sure how true that was. She knew that his sister had only died in June. It was barely November. She didn't know how long he'd been on his own with Benji in the city – if it had been since her death or if it had only been since the start of the school year. Either way, it was pretty much a crash course in learning how to be a parent – for anyone, especially for an 18-year-old boy, who wasn't actually a father.

She didn't question that Jack cared for his little nephew. She actually thought he was likely doing an OK job. Benji looked healthy. He was clean. He was clearly feed. And, she'd seen their interactions. The little boy listened to Jack and there was clearly some authority there. They had a repoire. Still, Jack wasn't much more than a kid himself, and she'd spent the past 18 hours watching him struggle making decisions and even figuring out how to operate in a situation like this – where Benji was scared and helpless and needed a whole lot of support and care. She'd actually been wondering how he was dealing with the little boy's mental and emotional health in the loss of his mother and trying to explain that to him – based on how panicked and lost Jack seemed every time Benji's tears started.

"I know you do," she told him seriously. "But I think this is a little different."

Jack shook his head and looked back at his sleeping nephew.

"How are you going to manage taking care of him and keep up with your schooling for the next while?" she asked him pointedly.

He shrugged. "I'll figure it out. He goes to the sitter anyways."

She shook her head at him now and sighed. "You can't have him at the sitter's, Jack, at least not this week. Have you been listening to the doctors?"

He shot her a dirty look.

"He needs to rest. He can't be stimulated, right now. No television. No videogames. You just need to get him to sit still. Colour, read to him, sleep. You're going to have to be icing his arm. Keeping it elevated. You're going to have to have him back here for more x-rays in a few days – see the doctors again. He's going to need help with even basic things – going to the bathroom, managing his food, getting dressed, extra precautions while he's taking his bath."

"I know," Jack spat at her and gave her a hard glare.

"That's a lot of work."

He shrugged. "We'll manage."

She sighed and looked at the ceiling. "I'm offering to help, Jack," she said a bit more softly and trying to sound a little less judgmental and to make it a more open-ended offer.

"We're fine," he said again, this time not looking at her.

"I know you're fine. But I'm still offering to help."

He was quiet for what felt like a long time to her, but he finally said quietly, "I don't want you to know where we live."

She rubbed at her eyebrow and watched the back of his head. "I already know where you live, Jack," she said, weighing the amount of purposefulness to put into the statement.

But, it was true. She'd finally managed to track that down in her snooping into his background. Still – even with his address in hand – she'd respected his request that she leave them alone. Even, though, she hadn't been thrilled about where he was living.

They were in Harlem – and not a great area of Harlem, not part of the neighbourhood that was undergoing gentrification, not an area that was becoming trendy with the hipsters and the college kids and the real estate investors. It was just … Harlem. If she was slightly unimpressed, she could almost feel Jay rolling in his grave at the location.

She knew Jack and Benji were likely a minority in the area – and she knew even more that it likely wasn't the safest block for him to be coming and going, let alone with a little boy. She didn't even want to really think about what sort of "sitter" he had Benji set up with.

Still she knew it was likely one of the few areas in the city that he'd be able to maybe afford on whatever sort of income he had, while still being able to sort-of pay for his schooling and manage to care for the little boy. And, she supposed beyond that, it was technically fairly close to his college.

He shot her another look – and she could see a flash of anger there similar to the disgust she'd seen in him that afternoon at the skate park on the piers.

"Then I don't want you to see where we lived," he told her with the anger also wavering in his voice.

She sighed and examined the ceiling again for a moment, letting silence hang between them.

"Then, come stay at my apartment with Benji for a few days," she said quietly, "and I'll help get you guys through this first bit."

"No," Jack said, without even looking at her that time, his eyes set on his nephew and not moving.

"I can tell how much you care about that little boy, Jack," she said. "But part of being a parent – part of being a man – is knowing when to accept help and when do things that maybe you don't want to do, if it's in the best interest of the child."

His head bobbed some more and his chin again came to rest on clenched fists as he examined Benji. He was silent for a long time and Olivia just let it hang with him. She couldn't force him to do anything. She could just hope that he'd see some sense – and she could only hope more that he wouldn't extract themselves from her life now. Not now.

Him popping in and out of her life had screwed with her head enough. Getting to be there now, only to be told to shove it, was going to be hard. But she'd already mentally prepared herself for it and kept telling herself that she'd respect his wishes either way and just let whatever was meant to be, be. She wasn't going to let this hurt her. … She knew she was partially lying to herself – but it made her feel a bit better about this crap-shoot of a situation.

"We don't even know you," Jack had finally said so quietly she wasn't even entirely sure she'd heard him properly.

"Well, I guess this is a good opportunity for us all to get to know each other, Jack," she said flatly.

She saw him rest his forehead against his fists. She let him think about it more. She was hoping he was coming around – even though she didn't know how she was going to accommodate them in her apartment, if he did agree. She supposed she'd just put the two of them in her bedroom and she'd occupy the couch. That'd been what she'd done during her couple months with Calvin. She usually slept on the couch more than her bed anyways. She needed the sound and the light of the television to sleep anymore – if she did manage to find sleep.

"Where do you live?" he asked quietly again.

"Oh, you never followed me home, did you?" she teased a bit, trying to break the ice some more but he shot her another dirty look over his shoulder. "Murray Hill," she told him. "It's actually not far from here."

"You work anyways, how does it make a difference where we are," he commented with an edge to his voice again.

She shrugged. "Let me worry about that. I'll probably be able to manage a couple days off or will switch off some shifts with my colleagues. Pick up a few evening or graveyards – so I can stay with him through the day while you're in class. We'll sort that out."

"We don't have anything with us," he said softly.

"That's easy enough to fix, Jack. We go your place and pick up some stuff."

He shook his head.

"You go to your place and pick up some stuff and bring it down to my apartment," she said instead.

He glanced at her and shrugged.

She shrugged back at him. "Does that mean OK?"

He shrugged again.

She rolled her eyes at him. "You're an adult, Jack, form sentences."

"OK," he said quietly and looked back to Benji again.

She nodded at the back of his head – almost allowing a little smile, though she didn't want him to see it. "OK," she said. "Good."


	9. Chapter 9

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She sighed and examined the ceiling of the kitchen in her apartment. Sometimes she forgot how infuriating teenagers could be – then she had to deal with the attitudes and the snark in the interrogation room again. It usually made her momentarily happy that she didn't have kids and didn't have to go through seven to 10 years of dealing with that bullshit.

But now she had one – pretending to be a grown-up – standing in her apartment and giving her about as much attitude as she'd ever seen. She was trying not to smack on her interrogation room face and voice and start drilling him back into his place and into a corner. But the tone and the looks he was giving her had her about 10 seconds away from doing just that.

"Jack, you're going to class," she told him again – this time more sternly and brought hard eyes back down to him, meeting his. "I offered to help – partially to ensure you don't get behind in you studies. It must be mid-terms around now, right? There's no point in you staying here if you're just going to skip anyways."

"Well, I can't leave him here," he spat back at her. "You don't even have any food."

By the time Benji had woken up and got released from the hospital – and she'd manage to guide Jack through his chat with billing and then a financial counselor – it had been well after dinner when she got the little boy into her apartment. It had been another couple hours before the teen showed up with a bag of clothes and some toys and a backpack full of his books and other school supplies. Benji was already asleep – and she'd really just wanted to sit on the couch and decompress and try to sleep too. She'd hoped that Jack would be so exhausted that he'd go lay down with his nephew and pass out as well. But that hadn't been the case.

Apparently, he hadn't taken the time to eat on his outing up to their own apartment – despite her telling him he should – and he'd made it a priority to scope out her empty fridge and had been at her about it since. Not to mention, he seemed unimpressed at the accommodations – despite the fact she really doubted he was living it up in Harlem. Still, apparently having to share a room and a bed with his nephew didn't see like an option for him. She'd finally told him to go ahead and sleep on the floor, if it was that much of a problem for him.

His overtiredness – and the fact he really was still just a teenager – was really showing at that point, so he was coming across as extremely ungrateful. She told herself that he had his reasons – or excuses – at the moment. But she was really wishing when he woke up she would've had the smart-ass young man in front of her again. That kid still irritated her too, she'd already learned, but at least then Jack managed to come off as a bit of an adult, even if young and strong-headed.

"Jack," she said sternly and purposefully again, "after Benji is up and established and he's feeling OK – we will go over to the grocery store."

She pushed the piece of paper and pen across the counter to him again – he'd already shoved it back at her once.

"Write down some things you want – some things that Benji likes and I will pick them up," she nodded at him.

He glanced at the paper again and crossed his arms and glared at her. "How come you don't have food?"

She put her hands on the counter and sighed, shaking her head. "We've been over this. I'm single. I work long hours. I'm not here very much. I'm sorry that I didn't wake up the other day knowing that I'd have an 18-year-old and four-year-old boy in my home and run out and stock the cupboards for you. You aren't going to starve. Give me a list. There will be food here when you get back from your classes."

"Well what's he supposed to eat for breakfast?" Jack demanded again, still ignoring the piece of paper in front of him and just making the conversation continue to ridiculous extremes.

"There is orange juice in the fridge. There are apples, grapes. There are crackers in the cupboard. Oatmeal."

"He doesn't like oatmeal."

"There are these amazing things called restaurants and coffee shops and delis on about every corner in this fucking city, Jack. Benji will get fed. If you're so concerned about it – stop arguing with me – there's a convenience store down the block. Go and pick up something for you guys before you have to go up to class."

"What am I supposed to eat for breakfast?"

"Did you not hear what I just said?" she threw back at him. "You're a big boy, Jack. You're a grown-up. Start acting like one. I thought I was having one little boy into my home – not two."

He just glared at her more. She shook her head and rubbed at her eyebrow.

"OK, where's Jack?" she finally sighed. "The kid I've got in front of me right now – is not the young man I met a month ago. I liked that person a lot more than this pouty, obnoxious boy I'm seeing right now."

He crossed his arms tighter and offered no response.

She sighed harder. "I know you're stressed, Jack, and I think you're likely still really overtired right now. But I'm not going to be talked to or treated this way in my home. You are a guest here – and I'm trying to help you out. If you can't be respectful of those two things I'm going to end up asking you to leave." She bluffed. She knew that wouldn't happen – but he didn't have to know that.

He made a small noise and examined the counter for several moments. "Do you at least have coffee?" he mumbled.

She allowed a small smile and shook her head some more. "Yes. I do have that. Write the list. I'll get the coffee going."

She grabbed the kettle and filled it with water at the sink before rummaging two clean mugs out of her cupboard. She took down the tin of coffee from another cupboard and grabbed the one-cup strainer and filter and scooped some in for Jack. She didn't feel like the coffee jitters so she set up a teabag into the other cup for herself as she waited for the water to boil.

She leaned against the sink counter and went between watching the kettle and watching Jack as he considered the piece of paper and seemed to be struggling to decide what to write down in terms of groceries. She didn't think it should be that difficult to list things that he and Benji liked to eat – but apparently it required a lot of thought. He would write something and then was sitting there and examine the paper for a while before he'd put the pen down to it again, seemingly think about it a bit more, and scribble something else. She was going to be interested to see what the hell he'd put on it that was so thought-provoking.

She knew already it was going to be a long week. Just based on her interactions with Jack in the past 10 hours in her home, she could see they were going to be butting heads. She was struggling to find the balance of being the adult and managing him as a teen and recognizing that he was an adult and the supposed guardian of the little boy still sleeping in her bedroom. It was going to take time. She figured by the time they maybe both sort of sorted it out, Jack would be taking Benji back up to whatever the hell their life looked like up in Harlem. Hopefully, they wouldn't have rubbed each other the wrong way enough that Jack never let her see either of them again.

She kept reminding herself that it was Jay's son and trying to think back about all the positive things she could remember about Jay when he was a young man. She tried to remember some of the things about him that had annoyed the fuck out of her too – and there had definitely been things. She was trying to remember how she managed them. Some how she thought that managing them when she was in her 20s and not looking at the behaviours as that of a teenaged boy when she was a 44- year-old woman just seemed easier, though.

Right now everything Jack was saying or doing that came off as immature was just making her want to smack the kid – and basically mother him or police him like she would any other teen victim or perp that she crossed paths with at work. She knew though that wasn't going to work in this case. She needed to figure out how to nurture this relationship with Jack as an independent young man. She thought she likely needed to step-up too and guide him in figuring out how to be a parent to the little boy. Because that was an area she knew so much about, she thought so sarcastically she almost wanted to roll her eyes at herself.

She could almost hear Elliot telling her that she was playing Mom and playing house again. Fuck, that had stung and pissed her off when he'd said it about her short guardianship of Calvin. It had really hurt – and it had stayed with her. Elliot had told her before that she'd be a good mother – a good parent – but that comment had made her think he didn't really mean. Or he only meant it if she ended up with her own biological child.

She knew that option had pretty much dried up for her. It likely wasn't going to happen for her anymore. She'd accepted that. If she ever managed to get a family – which she also doubted would ever happen now – it'd be adoption or guardianship or step-children or … something. She'd be playing mom. She was never going to get to be a mother.

And, then even when she got beyond the Jack-quandary, there was everything going on with Benji, which was the real reason either of them were even in her apartment. She didn't really know what the hell she was going to do with the little boy while Jack was up at school. He'd brought a stuffed animal for the boy, some toy dinosaurs, some Hot Wheels and a Transformer. She didn't really think that was going to entertain the boy in the no television, no videogames, no over-stimulation period of his concussion recovery over the next two weeks. She was hoping that at least the next couple days Benji would be exhausted enough from his ordeal, and still drugged up enough, that he'd be doing a lot of sleeping. But she thought she was probably being overly optimistic. She didn't know a lot about kids – but she knew enough to know that keeping a four-year-old boy still and entertained would be a bit of a challenge.

Calvin had been a bundle of energy. She actually slept while she had him in her home. Dealing with the demands of parenting him – feeding him, making sure he did his homework, being on him about his hygiene, playing with him and keeping him entertained – had been exhausting. He always wanted to play – and just playing by himself seemed like it was rarely an option. They'd played a whole lot of cards and more rounds of Monopoly then she ever thought possible. She'd basically decided he likely had undiagnosed ADD/HDD. Getting him to sit still, to sleep, to focus – even on a television show he'd picked – had been near impossible.

They were going to have to get Benji back into the hospital for at least two more doctors' appointments over the next week or so too. The surgeon wanted to do some more x-rays to make sure that everything was mending OK and they didn't need to reset his arm again. The neurologist also wanted to follow-up with Benji because of his age and the grade-level of his concussion. They were supposed to be monitoring the little boy pretty carefully the next several days to make sure he didn't show any signs of a worsening condition – though the doctors had seemed confident about his recovery when they'd left the hospital. Still, the whole thing basically meant she had to get the little boy into the appointments – or at least be there.

Jack seemed so reluctant to be making any medical decision for his nephew or even having the interactions with the doctors. She wasn't entirely sure what was behind that yet. Maybe he'd just been in a panic about Benji and been in a bit of a state of information-overload. But she got the sense there might be more to it then that. His comfort level in the hospital just never seemed to calm even after they knew the little boy was going to be fine and heading home.

She'd called into work already. She'd told Cragen she just needed some personal days. Still, it had been years since she'd taken back-to-back days off that weren't vacation days. Hell, she even rarely actually booked her vacation time. So, it wasn't exactly unexpected he'd seemed a little concerned. He had pressed a little but she'd danced around it: tired, workload, some rough cases, the time of year – it had been just over a year since she'd been partnered with Amaro. She could fake that things were weighing heavily on her mind and she just needed some time. It wasn't exactly an all-out lie. She still thought about Elliot and the loss of her partner basically daily. She still questioned more days than not what the hell she was still doing in SVU and what had become of her life – what she'd given up to be there, and for what?

She could tell Cragen had been reluctant – but he'd eventually told her to take the day. He wanted her to call the next morning, though, not giving the final approval for her take the rest of the week like she'd wanted. She was hoping she could just argue for it a bit more. She thought she'd earned it. She hoped he'd see it that way too. If he didn't – she was hoping he'd at least agree to just let her file and take it as vacation days. Though, she knew there would be HR hoops and groaning about her not getting the request in in the proper timeframe.

Whatever. The ridiculousness in getting vacation time approved was part of the reason she never bothered to take it. What would she do with it if she had the time off anyways? Sit around her empty apartment with even more time on her hands? Wander around a city she'd spent her life wandering around? Go on a holiday alone to look at landmarks alone and to do activities alone – and to likely be surrounded by couples or families? That didn't sound appealing either.

Cragen's tone, though, had prompted her to shoot off an email to John. He seemed to live on the night shifts anymore. She supposed it was sort of good for the rest of them. No one liked working midnights even they could avoid it. She knew it was especially helpful for Amaro. But it worried her.

She saw that John's heart just wasn't in it anymore either. He'd been beaten down over the years and he likely felt a little too old to be dealing with integrating himself into the new squad room and dealing with the continued training of the rookies. They weren't so wet behind the ears anymore – but she really wasn't sure how long either of them would be sticking around. There might be another set of greenies in the unit within the year. She thought if that happened – that would be the end of John. He'd really be handing in his shield – likely permanently this time. He'd more than earned his retirement – twice over. She knew he was volunteering for the midnights to just avoid dealing with it all – or the new faces – as much as possible.

Still, she'd hoped that her request for him to spend some time in the light-of-day might resonate with him and that he'd do her the favour of switching some shifts, if it came to that. Sometimes you could never tell with John. He was a good man – but he was John. He had the tendency to stick his foot in it – or at least talk out of his ass.

She wasn't afraid to admit that John just being John had hurt her feelings now-and-then over the years, no matter how thick her skin got. Sometimes it was the people that cared about you the most that were so good at getting under your skin and hurting you, though. She knew he never really meant any of it – and that the reality was that John would likely do anything for her. He was in her corner – even when he was being a jackass.

But, she didn't even want to think about or hear what anyone in the squad would think about or say about any of what was going on right now. She knew there'd be disapproval. And, she understood why. She was disapproving of herself too. But she couldn't help it. These kids needed help – and she could help that. And, they weren't some unknowns – even if they technically were. They were relatives of someone she'd known – someone she'd really cared about, someone she'd really hurt. Even a connection to how she'd hurt herself before she'd even known she was hurting herself, she thought. Wow, that made her letting them in sound even more unhealthy, she told herself.

She put the coffee in front of Jack and he glanced up.

"I don't have milk. I have sugar," she told him – before he could make some other smart-ass comment and piss her off all over again.

"I drink it black," he said, though.

She nodded. "Good. So how's the list going?"

He shrugged and pushed it back towards her. She turned it around and examined it – thinking it would likely be kind of long for how much time and concentration he seemed to have put into it. It wasn't though. There were only nine items on it: milk, Lucky Charms, bread, Cheez Wiz, pasta, tomato sauce, Ramen noodles, Alphagetti, beef barely soup.

She rubbed at her eyebrow and looked at him. She supposed it sort of read like what you'd expected on a starving student's grocery list – but it certainly didn't look like anything that should be fed to a growing, little boy on a regular basis. Or even a teen who was still growing too - and needing to feed his mind to get through school and keep a hold of a fucking scholarship, she thought.

"OK," she said and picked up the pen. "What fruit do you guys eat?"

Jack shrugged at her.

"Apples? Grapes? Oranges? Mangos? What?"

"Apples, I guess," he offered.

She nodded and wrote it down. "Vegetables?"

"Tomato sauce. Soup."

"Neither of those are a vegetable," she told him and eyed him. "You grew up on a farm. Com'on."

"A diary farm," he said.

She nodded. "OK. Do you eat yogurt?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"Cheese that doesn't come in a jar or can?"

"Kraft singles?"

She shook her head. "No."

He shrugged.

She rolled her eyes at him. "What kind of meat do you like?"

"Ben likes hot dogs," he told her.

She nodded and wrote it down. "I'm not feeding him hot dogs all week, though. Will he eat chicken? Ground beef in his pasta sauce or meatballs?"

He shrugged again. "I guess."

She rubbed at her eyebrow again and looked at the piece of paper and then at him.

She shrugged. "OK. I'll figure it out. I'll let Benji pick some things out in the store. Does he have any allergies?"

"I don't think so."

"Do you?"

"No."

She nodded. "OK. Is there anything either of you absolutely won't eat?"

"I don't like fish," he said. "We can't afford fish anyways."

She nodded again. "OK. Anything else?"

He shrugged.

"What about eggs?"

"Yeah, I guess."

"What if I got some stuff for salads?"

"We don't really eat salad," he said flatly.

She looked at him again. She didn't write anything down – but was pretty sure she'd be doing her best to get some fruit and vegetables into the two of them. It sure looked like they were eating a lot of carbs and processed crap.

"You have to keep the bill under fifty bucks," he told her.

She shook her head. "No, I don't. My kitchen. My food. I'll get what I want."

"Well I can't give you more than fifty bucks. Even that is … a lot."

"You aren't giving me anything, Jack."

"I don't do …"

"Charity," she finished for him. "Oh well. You're here now. This isn't charity. I'm not the soup kitchen. So you can stop spitting that at me. You'll eat what's in the fridge and what I make while you're here. If you don't like it – you can take your money and go and buy whatever the fuck you want. I don't really care."

"I'm giving you money," Jack said.

She snorted. "Whatever, Jack. When's your class? Go catch the fucking subway."

"You aren't my mom. You don't get to ask me shit like that or tell me what to do."

"You don't want me to act like your mother – then start showing me that grown-up again," she drilled her eyes at him.

"I don't really like you much," he said to her – sounding about 12. She was pretty sure Calvin had spat the same line at her during his first week with her when she imposed a bedtime on him (not that he'd ever really listened to that very well) and was making him actually sit down with her at the table after dinner to do his fucking math homework – that Vivian had apparently let him get about a two grade-levels behind on.

She just snorted. "This morning, Jack, the feeling is mutual. Go to school."

He crossed his arms and glared at her. So she crossed hers and looked right back at him.

"Trust me, Jack. I'm just as stubborn as you – probably more so."

"That's probably why my Dad broke up with you," he said with the edge in his voice re-emerging again.

She laughed and shook her head, examining the floor for a moment before meeting his eyes again. She figured it was probably supposed to be insulting or hurtful. But her and Jay's breakup was a lifetime ago. The reality was if Jack and Benji hadn't shown up in her life – she probably would've died not having ever thought about it again. She didn't feel guilty about it. She wasn't going to. Any hurt she was feeling about it was from her own what-ifs – not a decision made by her 20-something self so long ago.

"Not exactly – and I broke up with your Dad, Jack. Not the other way around," she told him. "But, we can talk all about whatever you want in all of that later. You'll have lots of time to pick me a part. Don't worry. Right now, I'd like you to get the hell out of my apartment, go to school, and let me watch your nephew – that was the agreement."

Jack considered her. "When did you break up with him?"

"Senior year. March."

She got the sense he was still weighing where she fit in in terms of his absentee mother. She wondered too. Jay mustn't have been quite as heartbroken as she thought based on the age of Isabelle. He'd clearly gotten someone else knocked up in short-order after their breakup. But she had no idea who else he may have been seeing – if anyone – on campus after their split. She had no idea who the children's mother would be. And, she was at the point she was curious too. She was possibly more curious about what the hell would've happened that Jay would've stayed with the woman long enough to father two children – and to then have her apparently leave and abandon the family.

"Why?" Jack asked.

"We can play 20 Questions later, Jack."

He gave a small nod and looked at the counter.

"You're going to be OK with Ben?" he asked a bit more quietly and with a bit more levelness and maturity in his voice compared to what she'd heard so far that morning.

"I work with kids all the time, Jack. We're going to be fine here. I have your cell if something comes up. You have mine – so call and check in, talk to him."

"You aren't going to … take him away or anything, right?"

She looked at the top of his downcast head. He was so paranoid that the little boy was going to be taken away from him. She kind of understood. It was an unusual arrangement and he wasn't exactly going to be winning Father of the Year or even Uncle of the Year despite his best efforts. Raising a child is rough. Raising a child in New York City on a limited income when you're still a child yourself was border-lining on ridiculous, she thought. She'd almost understand if ACS somehow got called and involved at some point. But she sure as hell wouldn't be doing that to them – they'd been through enough and she hadn't seen any reason yet to tear the family apart more than it already was. She'd let someone else put them through that torture, though she hoped it never came to that. She hoped she'd be able to help Jack ensure that it never came to that.

But still this constant state of fear that it was coming - it was no way for them to be living. She was going to need more information about the guardianship – to see the paperwork, to understand why the hell the little boy had ended up with Jack and not Jay's brother. The whole thing seemed like a giant mess in so many ways. She felt so badly for Jack – and for Benji. It was two young lives so fucked up already.

"No, Jack, I'm not going to take Benji away. He'll be here when you get back. No one is coming to get him," she assured him again. "Look, we're both operating on some good faith here. We just need to trust each other, OK?"

He gave a little nod.

"Do you have your guardianship paperwork, Jack?" she pushed a bit.

He looked up at her. "You don't believe me," he accused.

"I do believe you. But – I think while Ben is going to be having hospital appointments and while you guys are staying here and while I'm helping you and talking to doctors on your behalf – that the paperwork should be here and accessible."

He looked like he thought about that and then gave a small nod. "It's at the apartment. I'll go and get it on the way back here."

"OK. I think that would be a good idea."

She heard the toilet flush off in her bedroom, and glanced that way. The running water was followed by some more sound and a call of, "I messed."

She sighed a little. She'd seen the clothes Jack had brought Benji. It was jeans and PJs. She was pretty sure the kid was going to need joggers or at least pull-up jeans until he got zippers and buttons - and dressing and pissing one-handed down.

She looked at Jack. "I think it would be easier for everyone if you left now – before he comes out here," she told him.

He allowed a small nod and picked up his bag from where he'd be balancing it between his feet and grabbed a zip-up hoodie he'd apparently felt at-home enough to toss over the back the of one of her chairs and leave it on the ground after it slipped to the floor, letting her pick it up for him and hang it over the back of the seat instead. He glanced at her again as he headed for the door.

"He'll be here and food will be here when you get back," she assured him again.

He nodded again and wordlessly opened the door and went out it. She watched the closed door for a moment – almost expecting him to come back in and say he wasn't going to school that day and he was taking Benji home. But it didn't happen so she turned her attention towards the bedroom door.

"How'd you mess, Benj?" she called out and started moving to the room to start her day of playing wet-nurse for the little boy.


	10. Chapter 10

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Why are you even watching that show?" Jack asked from where he was sitting in the corner at her small desk. "It's retarded."

She glanced at him from the couch. She wasn't really watching it. The reality was it was just on and she was half-ways staring at it to look like she was doing something. She'd thought about pulling out some files from work and puttering but then thought better of it.

The last few days had just been exhausting. She wasn't all there. She hardly felt like she had enough concentration to even look at Grey's Anatomy on the screen. She was really thinking more than anything else – and thinking about sleeping too. Wondering when 18-year-olds went to bed? Based on her own recollection – whenever the hell they wanted. She wasn't sure that was going to work for her. Not when her bedroom was currently the living room and Jack didn't look like he had any intention of getting some sleep any time soon. She supposed it was barely after 9 p.m. – and usually that'd be an unheard of hour for her to consider going to bed too. But her usual life didn't include a day and a half in the hospital followed by a day babysitting an injured four-year-old.

Watching Benji had been easy enough. He'd still been relatively exhausted from his ordeal – and the doctor had given them some painkillers and antibiotics to get into him for the first few days. The little boy seemed to pass out for several hours about 90 minutes after he got his dosages. That worked for her. Other then that last 30 minutes of him being awake and thinking he still wanted to be up and going while his body was nodding off. That seemed to be a good witching period of some temper tantrums and talk-backs or just plain whining and tears.

She'd worked at wearing out the last bit of beans he had left in him on a trip to the grocery store. Benji had been much more helpful than Jack in terms of what they ate – or at least what he liked. She actually spent more time taking shit out of the cart and telling him 'no' then having to pull-teeth to get a few items on the list like she had with Jack in the morning.

Then in the afternoon she'd beat the ants in his pant out of him with a walk across to the Old Navy to actual get him pants - that didn't have zippers and buttons. Jack had been unimpressed about the couple pairs of pull-up cargos and joggers she'd gotten the boy. She'd known he would be. But she really didn't want to deal with having to cope with Benji pissing himself because he couldn't get his pants down.

"Do you? Because then on my watch I'll be sure to leave the laundry and the mess in the bathroom for you to clean up when you get home," she'd said to Jack and that had shut him up quick enough.

She knew there was still going to be a mess anyways to clean up. Apparently pissing one-handed when you're four is pretty complicated – even after you were better able to get your pants down. There were definitely boys in her apartment again – and she was having flashbacks to getting used to that with Calvin: toilet seats left up, dribble all around the toilet bowel, sinks not wiped out, mirrors splattered, dirty socks between the cushions on the couch in little wadded balls, little sticky or black finger marks at every light switch in the place. She'd just started getting used to having all that in her space with Calvin when he'd been taken away from her.

"It appears to be what is on on a Thursday night," she told Jack, shifting her eyes back to the television and attempting to make herself a bit more interested in what was on the screen.

"You realize you have cable?" he said. "There's other channels."

"This is what's on," she said again a bit more pointedly.

She could feel him looking at her – but tried to ignore it.

"I think you're probably about the only person left in the country who actually watches TV on TV while it's on TV," he said.

She glanced at him again but he'd gone back to looking at whatever textbook he was reading and apparently scribbling some notes.

"You need to work on your sentence structure," she told him, watching the top of his head. "That statement hardly made any sense. And, I'm hardly ever here to watch anything anyways."

He looked up at her again. "Then it makes even less sense that you're paying for cable."

She rolled her eyes and turned back to the screen.

"You realize you can watch all of this online," he said. "Stream it. Hulu. Torrents. Whatever."

She didn't bother to look at him that time. "When I do get the chance to watch TV- I like to watch it on the television, not the computer."

"So you connect your laptop to the television. Or get a top box and stream it to it."

"Do I look like the kind of person who knows how to connect my computer to the television, Jack?"

He made a sound that indicted his amusement with that statement. But then fell quiet for a minute.

"I could show you," he offered after a while and quietly. "We'd just need to get you a cable to do it. You have pretty sweet broadband here. Doesn't make sense to be paying cable and internet."

She glanced his way again. "Thank you, Jack. But I'm fine."

He nodded and looked slightly embarrassed that he'd even offered. "So why do you have cable and internet if you're never here anyways?"

She shrugged. "Seems like the thing to do."

"Parks and Rec is on on Thursday," he offered quietly after another long silence. "At 9:30, I think."

She watched him for a moment and then looked at her watch. She shook her head and shrugged. "OK. Watch what you want," she told him, and took the remote off the arm of the couch and put it over on the middle cushion instead.

Jack seemed to consider that for a bit but eventually came and sat down on the couch. He didn't sit back into it, though. He balanced himself on the edge, keeping his elbows on his knees and his hands pulled up into fists for him to sit his chin on.

"We don't have cable or internet," he offered quietly after looking at the screen for a while and then finally reaching and taking the clicker-box and switching the channels around. He stopped when it got to a channel that seemed to have the tail-end of the Office on it. She assumed the show he wanted to watch would be on next.

He set the remote back on the middle cushion and glanced at her again. She didn't give him much of a reaction, so he took up his on-edge pose again. But she saw his eyes fall on the small pile of toys and board games that she'd left on the coffee table for him to decide if any of it would be appropriate for Benji to play with while he was there.

It was some of Calvin's things; items she'd ended up buying for him while he was in her care. But he'd been torn from her so quickly – a lot of it had just ended up staying in her apartment. She'd tried to return it to him in the weeks that followed. That hadn't really gone as planned either, though. Calvin refused to take some of it – almost like if it got left with her, maybe he'd really get to come back to her, or his home. If home is where the toys are, anyways. Other items apparently just didn't meet his grandparents' sensibilities and they hadn't let him take it when she'd tried to give it back to him on a visit. Then there were the items he'd put in ridiculous places and she'd stumbled across them months after he was out of her life, when she'd opened a drawer or a cupboard that she didn't usually go into on a daily basis – and there it was. It seemed to add an extended and cruel reminder to what had happened.

She'd told herself that she should donate the toys to a charity, or take it into work for the kids' room, or even for other people in the station to rummage through and see if there was anything they wanted to take it home for their little boys. But now, about a year-and-a-half later, she still had the stuff tucked away at her place. She thought maybe part of her bought into Calvin's ridiculous concept of, that if it was still there, maybe he really would end up coming back to her at some point. By the time he did, though, he'd probably be far too grown-up for anything she had sitting there.

He'd be coming up on his 13th birthday now. In the increasingly infrequent emails and phone calls she got from him anymore, he sounded more and more grown-up and not that awkward, immature and angry 11-year-old she'd known. Though, he definitely still had his issues. How couldn't he? His childhood had been a shitstorm – and his teens definitely weren't looking like they were going to be much better. She honestly thought he was likely going to end up in trouble with the law, in the very least, if not in a juvenile facility. He needed help and guidance and a whole lot of patience and support. Knowledge and experience in dealing with children who'd endured the kind of life situations he'd already encountered at such a young age – situations that most people never even had to deal with at any point in their lives, let alone by their 11th birthday.

She supposed his grandparents were trying to help him address them and deal with them. She knew he was in therapy. They'd sent him to some sort of self-esteem building and disciplinary summer camp too. They were trying. But she wasn't sure she would've been approaching it in remotely the same way as them. She wasn't sure she supported their methods of parenting either. It sounded like near everything he did had a consequence in their house. Every time she talked to him he was grounded. Every email said he'd just finished being grounded so he'd thought he'd send her a note now that he was allowed on the computer again. She didn't think taking things away from a boy who had spent his life without having much was really teaching him anything – expect to be angry with them. Calvin definitely needed boundaries and rules. But he also needed understanding. He needed to be given options and to be shown why something he'd done was wrong and to be told what other ways of dealing with the situation might've been. He needed a guiding hand and a stern voice. He didn't need to be beaten over the head repeatedly to get a point across. But what did she know …. she wasn't a parent.

"What do you have all this stuff anyways?" Jack asked, picking up one of the action figures and examining it.

She shrugged. "I had a little boy living with me for a while."

He looked at her and seemed to consider that for a moment. He held up the figure. "This is pretty sweet."

She nodded and gave a small shrug. "He seemed to like robots."

Jack snorted and looked at her. "He's not technically a robot. Cyber-genetically enhanced but not a robot."

She gave him a blank look.

He shook the toy towards her again. "It's Master Chief." She must've continued to look at him blankly. "Halo," he said again.

She just shrugged. "He liked it."

Jack gave her another look but put the thing back on the table and looked at some of the other things there. Some Lego Hero Factory robots (or at least she had thought they were robots), a pack of Uno cards, Battle Ship, Clue and Monopoly (which she had decided was about the most annoying purchase she'd made while Calvin was living with her. Though, he had loved counting the money and building his empire and generally kicking her ass at the game. She really hoped that neither Jack nor Benji would be interested in it. She'd actually considered not putting it out at all), a Nerf dart gun and a Transformer that turned into a car (which Calvin had informed her was a 'sweet ride'. They'd watched the movies together. They ranked up there as some of the worst she'd ever seen. She thought they ranked up there as some of the best Calvin had ever seen. Though, she didn't get the impression that Vivian had rented many movies for the boy ever or taken him to any either. Calvin had been pretty easy to impress with niceties, actually. It had made her a little sad for him – in other ways than she'd already been sad for him. She had been happy that she'd been able to give him a few nice things and hopefully some nicer or more normal childhood memories – even if they were extremely short-lived.)

She figured some of it would be sort of age-appropriate for Benji, a little advanced but he could still manage. She thought he at least might like the Transformer thing, since Jack had brought one of those from home for the little boy. Though, Benji had been struggling with trying to manipulate it during the day and had had a minor meltdown. She'd tried to transform it for him. But she didn't think she did it quite right. It certainly didn't look like much of anything when she was done with it and Benji hadn't seemed to have approved of her efforts. Thankfully, he'd passed out not long after that and seemed to have moved on to something else by the time he was up.

She thought what Benji really needed was some colouring books and maybe some picture books or a children's novel to be read to him. Jack hadn't brought any of that sort of thing with him, though, from the apartment. She'd set Benji down with just some paper and pens and highlighters during the day and he seemed content to scribble. Though, that seemed to have invoked some frustration in him too. He'd broken his dominant arm – just adding to the whole situation. She was hoping that Jack might agree for the three of them to go on an outing to a book store on the weekend so that they could pick up a couple things to get them through the rest of Benji's recovery. But she somehow doubted he was going to be very amiable to that idea.

"Why's it all here if he's not?" Jack said, now examining the dart gun with some interest. He pointed it at her briefly but instead fired one of the darts off over her shoulder. She didn't react – and she really doubted he'd be the one going to pick the foamy up later.

She just shrugged again. "Just is. Benji can play with whatever's there, though, if you're OK with that."

Jack nodded. "Yeah, sure." But he glanced at her. "Why's the kid not here anymore?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow and sighed. "Ah, his mother decided being with his grandparents would be better for him."

Jack looked at her some more. "So children's services took him away?" She already knew that was one of his biggest fears. She really didn't want to get into it and stoke that fire. She was too tired to have that conversation with him.

"Technically, his mother took him away. She re-assigned his guardianship. ACS just oversaw the transfer. And, it was all just a temporary arrangement anyways."

"Guardianship can be re-assigned?"

She sighed harder. "Jack, your circumstances are extremely different then what went on here. Don't worry about it. Just … enjoy the toys."

He looked at her a moment but then wordlessly went back to manipulating the robots.

"He forgot this stuff or you bought it for him?" he asked after a while.

"I bought it for him. He picked most of it. He didn't come here with much more than what he was wearing. He needed to have something to do."

He glanced at her sideways. "How old is he?"

"He was 11 when he was living with me."

"Now?"

"Almost 13."

He nodded. "These would be pretty sweet toys at 11."

"Well, if they're too grown-up for Benji, I can just put them away again."

He shook his head. "Nah. He'll like some of this stuff."

"OK," she said quietly and watched him. He seemed pretty transfixed on the action figure that he'd identified as Master Chief. "You can have it," she told him. "Take whatever you and Benji want home with you when you go."

He glanced at her and gave a small smile. "Thanks."

She nodded silently.

"It's a pretty awesome game," he told her after a while.

"A videogame?"

He nodded. "Yeah. My Dad …" he started and shook his head. "He didn't let me have videogames until I was 13 and then get out me like the holiday Xbox pack … as like a Christmas and birthday present. My birthday's just before Christmas. It came with Halo. We played so much frickin Halo on Christmas break that year. And Project 8. It's a skateboarding game." Jack snorted. "He really sucked at both. He was funny, though. He was yelling at the television a lot."

She gave him a little smile. "That's a good memory."

He shrugged. "Yeah. I guess."

"Do you still have it?"

He glanced at her from the toy. "What?"

"The Xbox?"

He gave another shrug. "Yeah. But it's kind of dated now. New versions have come out and stuff. The Kinect shit."

"Wii?"

He gave her a little smile. "That's Nintendo. It's for kids."

"Ah. Does Benji play?"

He nodded. "Yeah. We play some of the skateboard games together. I've got like the retro wired Guitar Hero guitars too. So we play that sometimes. Guitar Hero. Rock Band. But most of the games, you know, aren't really for a four-year-old. Dad would probably be pissed I even let him play anything."

She smiled. "I don't know. Things have changed a lot since you were 13. Keeping kids away from videogames is hard."

"He's going to want to play with your phone after he figures out you have an iPhone," Jack nodded at her. "Angry Birds. He's fucking obsessed with Angry Birds and I don't even think he really knows what it is. But some kid at the sitter's has this stuffed bird thing and talks about it and his mom's phone and Ben thinks it's about the coolest thing ever. It's stupid."

She allowed another small smile. "I'll have to make sure to download that one in time for him coming out of concussion recovery then."

He shook his head. "Not if you ever want your phone back."

She snorted and looked down. Jack could be friendly when he wanted to be. He was really running hot and cold with her. When he let some of his walls down a little, though, she could see the pain there.

"Jack," she called out to him, as he again started moving the arms on the figurine. He glanced at her. "Do you have winter gear for Ben up at your apartment?"

He shrugged. She sighed a bit. She'd ended up buying a fleece for Benji while they were out too. Jack had just had a zip-up hoodie on the little boy – and no toque or gloves. It wasn't necessarily wrong. They had been having a warm November so far – but it was the second week of the month now, and really, it could start feeling like winter at any time. They could end up with snow on the ground.

It had been cool enough that day – or maybe it was just Benji's body still sensitive from all the drugs that were churning through his system – that the little boy had been shivering when she'd had him out and about. So she'd bought him the half-zip fleece. It had a skateboarder on it and he'd latched onto it himself and had been completely enamored with it. So much so that as soon as they'd gotten out of the store, she'd been crouched down on the sidewalk, pulling off the tags and then dealing with his sling and gently maneuvering his little arm to get him outfitted in the fleece jacket.

He'd refused to take it off when they got back home and Jack had seen it near as soon as he'd gotten into the door – before realizing she'd bought the kid pants too. He hadn't been impressed. Apparently if she was going to buy Benji things, she should at least ask or go to the thrift store. They didn't need her charity and they didn't need fancy stuff (she wouldn't call Old Navy fancy. It had actually been why she'd picked it. Beyond it being close by, she'd again known from when Calvin had been there, you could buy about a week's worth of kids clothes for under $200), he'd nearly yelled at her. It'd taken him a while to calm down. She'd thought the reaction was a bit of an overkill but did eventually apologize for overstepping any bounds.

She had to keep on reminding herself that they weren't hers. She didn't have a say. She couldn't force herself on them. Really, she knew if she did force herself on them, it was more likely Jack would push away. But it didn't make sense for the little boy to be running around outside cold. What the hell did she have to spend money on anyways?

She figured she'd dropped about $120 on groceries that day. She'd spent another about $100 getting some clothes for the little boy. It was nothing that would come anywhere to making or breaking her – or even having too much of an impact on her monthly budget. Still, she knew, that was a lot of money for Jack. It was something that he wouldn't have been able to do for the boy. But Benji needed to eat and he needed clothes that he wouldn't be frustrated with and pissing himself in. She'd just been trying to help. She got the impression that Jack accepted help about as readily as she did, though.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "Do you plan on going home in a couple weeks for Thanksgiving? Does he have gear there from last season that might fit him still?"

"No," Jack said quietly.

"No you aren't going home or no there's no winter gear up there?"

Jack shrugged. "Both, I guess."

She watched him. He kept glancing between the television screen and still that toy – doing his best to avoid making eye contact with her.

"Have you been putting some money away to be able to gear him up then?"

Jack shrugged again.

"You know that it could get cold any day now, Jack? It's not uncommon for us to have snow by Thanksgiving in the city."

"Yeah," he said even more quietly.

She sighed. "Jack – tell me a bit about how you're supporting Benji. Where's your income coming from?"

He shrugged again.

She rubbed her eyebrow and sighed, looking at the ground.

"You work," she meant it as more of a statement – but it was also a question.

He nodded. "Yeah."

"How many hours a week?"

He shrugged. "I guess like 15 or 20."

Well, that wasn't likely much money, she knew, especially since he likely had Benji at a sitter during that time. The money might as well just be being transferred directly to whoever that was, she thought. Though, she imagined him working much more then that would make it hard to deal with his studies – and with caring for Benji.

"Do you have a scholarship this year?"

He shrugged and glanced at her – a bit of surprise on his face. She wasn't supposed to know that apparently. Though, she didn't think he should be surprised at this point that she knew anything about him. At least the anger wasn't there this time.

"Is it covering your full tuition?"

He nodded.

"How high do you need to keep your grades to keep it?"

"High," was all he said at a near whisper.

"Is that happening?"

He gave an even smaller shrug. She knew it would likely be near impossible for that to happen – not in his situation.

She sighed and rubbed her face with both hands. "What about money from your family? Did your Dad have life insurance? Or did your grandpa leave you anything? Your sister for Benji?"

"A bit but it's all in trusts. I don't get any of it until I'm 21," he said quietly.

She nodded. "OK." She paused. "OK. Umm. Well, I think maybe we should go see a lawyer and ask a few questions about that since you have Benji in your care now – maybe there's something that can be done about that."

He shrugged.

"Is your uncle helping at all?"

He looked at her at that. "No," he said harshly.

She watched his eyes. She could see the rage flickering in them at that question. Another night, she thought. She wouldn't push that topic tonight.

"Do you have winter gear, Jack?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"A jacket? Gloves? At least."

He nodded.

"What are you going to do about Benji?"

He shrugged again. "I guess just go to the thrift store or one of the church coat drives or something when it starts snowing."

"I thought you didn't do charity," she said a little sarcastically.

He shot her a look.

"You should get that stuff in order before the snow is on the ground, Jack. Don't wait until we have a foot of snow and then drag him out looking for a jacket and boots and mitts."

"I'm not stupid," he told her.

She nodded. "OK."

She watched him. He was glaring at her again.

She sighed. "Do you have classes on Friday?"

He allowed a small head movement at that, though she wouldn't exactly have called it a nod. "In the morning."

She rubbed her eyebrow and looked at the ground. "OK. Well, I think I'm going to have to go into work for a bit tomorrow. So we're going to have to do a switch off."

"I'll just take him to the sitter's then," Jack said and turned his eyes back to the television.

"No, you won't," she told him sternly. "He's staying home and resting until after his appointments next week and after the doctors say he's out of his recovery period. I'll stay with him until you get back from class."

He glanced at her. "Why are you even doing this?"

She directed her eyes at him and kept them there until he finally glanced at her again and made the eye contact. "I don't know, Jack. Why am I doing this? Why were you following me? Why did you call me the other night? Why are you carrying that picture around?"

He stood up. "I'm going to bed."

She snorted. "Sit down. Watch your show."

"Stop telling me what to do," he spat at her and stormed to the back of her apartment and into the bedroom.

She watched him go and shook her head. "Jesus Christ," she muttered. Why was she even doing this was fucking right?


	11. Chapter 11

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

**NOTE THERE WAS A PREVIOUS TYPO IN THIS CHAPTER - IT SHOULD'VE SAID "WASN'T OLIVIA BENSON" WHERE IT SAID "WAS".**

Jack choked back a sob – cursing at himself for the silent sadness that was shaking through his body. He pulled his eyes away from Ben's little sleeping form – flailed on the opposite side of the bed from him, and he sighed hard and looked at the Master Chief figure again. Again he adjusted the figure's arms again to better prop the rocket launcher up – pointing it towards his head. There were moments where Jack really wished he had a rocket launcher. Or maybe a frag grenade. Or just generally that none of this was happening.

Jack felt like he was drowning. He didn't know how to this. Any of this. He'd been trying and trying really hard – but with each passing week it felt worse and worse.

He thought he was likely going to be kicked out of his program by the end of the semester – if not school completely. He was already a month behind on his rent, and though, after his next pay cheque, he'd be able to give it to the landlord, then he couldn't afford groceries and he already couldn't afford groceries. And he doubted he'd be able to pull together the next month's rent in two weeks either, so he'd be late again. He didn't know how long his landlord would let that go on before he got evicted.

And, now he had a hospital bill – and there were going to be more when they had to go back for these stupid appointments and x-rays. And, the fucking painkillers and antibiotitics. And, it was his fault. If he'd just been watching Ben better it wouldn't have happened.

And, then there was Ben. His sitter – the little old lady with 30 kids running around in her ghetto courtyard of her ghetto apartment complex and calling it a daycare. But it was cheap. It could almost afford it and Ben didn't seem to mind it too much. But he was cluing in to this all not just being a temporary thing now. It wasn't just like a sleep-away camp that he'd tried to present it to him as – for big boys and they'd do lots of cool activities and fun things in the city. He was four but he had fucking figured out that their living situation sucked. He was crying more and more. Only taking him out skating seemed to calm him and distract him any. But now he couldn't do that with him. At least not for a couple months and it was going to be winter then and if they got a lot of snow and slush this winter – then he probably couldn't do it to the fall. Not to mention the doctors had lectured him and said that kids under five shouldn't even be allowed on skateboards because of the ability to get injured. But Ben was fucking good and he usually had all his pads on and was supervised. And that just didn't seem fair. And what was he supposed to do about that? What was he even supposed to tell him? How was he supposed to deal with his crying and his questions? What the fuck was he supposed to even say?

Jack was so mad at Izzy. She was always fucking up the whole family's life. She scared away Mom and then she did her best to make the whole family miserable for the rest of his childhood. Everything always had to be about her and then when it couldn't be about her, she had to make it about her. Always. And it'd only gotten worse in her teens. And, Dad just had to spend more and more and more time trying to fix her and cater to her and to make it better for her. No matter what she did. Suicide attempts, pulling knives on them, never doing any chores, running away, drinking, drugs, getting pregnant, getting suspended, barely passing school. Izzy couldn't do anything wrong enough that Dad would just give up.

Izzy had killed Dad as far as Jack was concerned. She'd tried to kill herself the night before again. She'd taken what was left in a bottle of Tylenol and chased it down with some cough syrup. But Dad had found her because Ben had been screaming and screaming and she hadn't been calming him. So he'd gone into the room to take care of the baby himself and found her there instead. It was her fourth attempt. Another one of her lame ones that just fucked with them all more than it presented harm to her. He should've left her then, as far as Jack was concerned. But, he'd taken her to the hospital and spent all night there – even though Izzy wouldn't let him anywhere near her. And, then he'd come home and started the work on the farm – getting the hay before the frost set in – even though he was so tired and so distracted. He just shouldn't have. He should've gone and slept. He should've just let her die in the first place. Instead he was dead now.

Jack shook as another silent sob wracked his body.

Dad dying had been bad enough. Having to get through high school without Dad. Having to live with Greg and with Izzy – and with them fighting and with Benji crying all the time and neither of them doing anything. And Nan fucking losing her mind. He needed Dad to fucking be there and he hadn't been. And, it was Izzy's fucking fault. And even then she'd still fucking figured out a way to make things worse.

He thought he'd escaped it. He'd worked so hard to get the hell out of there and to say he didn't care and to have his own fucking life – and then Izzy had to find a way to fuck it up again. She had to really go and kill herself this time. And she wasn't even trying then. OK. Well maybe she'd always been trying. She was working at killing herself slowly and killing the rest of them while she was at it – a bit at a time.

And now what was he supposed to do? Greg hated him. Greg hated Benji more. Jack hated Greg and he hated the farm. He couldn't live there. He couldn't let live Benji there. But what the fuck was he supposed to be doing?

Soon he was going to be a fucking homeless person with a four-year-old. He'd have to go back to the farm. If Greg would let him.

This wasn't supposed to be happening.

Dad always said college was the happiest time of his life. The most fun time of his life.

Izzy had wrecked that too for Jack now. He was going to be a drop-out. A failure. He'd be just another Horseheads kid – pumping gas or stocking shelves or mucking on one of the farms. Maybe he'd get lucky and could be a mechanic. At least there were some real wages in that. He didn't know anything about mechanics, though. The only trucks he knew anything about where the ones on his deck. The mechanics he knew were the physics of landing a trick, the chemistry of the best cement for a park, the vision to rig up the best line for a skate. He wasn't made for the farm.

Dad always told him he wasn't made for the farm too. That he was a city boy. That he'd known it from the day Jack was born. He breathed the city. And, Dad had built him the half-pipe outback of the house – even though Pops had rolled his eyes and Nan had fretted that he'd hurt himself. Dad had still built it for him – spending a small fortune to get just the right for the smoothest ride. And he'd learned all the tricks going up and down that fucking thing over and over again.

Izzy had spray painted it on one of her benders, though. Then another time her and some of her drunk-ass friends had come and run up and down on it, jumping on it, until one of the guys had purposely managed to ram his foot through it. Dad was gone at that point. Jack had managed to scrimmage up enough money to get another piece of wood for it. But not like what Dad had got. It never had quite the same ride after that.

He'd told Dad that he'd be a pro-skater when he was a kid. Dad had laughed but told him he could be whatever the hell he wanted. "You'll do big things, J.P.," he'd said. "I know it."

Some big things now. A big fucking mess was what it was now. What the fuck had happened? How the fuck did he fix it?

He didn't know anymore. He was making it worse. He shouldn't be here. He should be out and working some more hours or figuring out how to get money. He shouldn't be stalking some girlfriend of Dad's. What the fuck was he doing?

He'd thought that maybe it was his mom. He knew that was stupid. She didn't look like him or Izzy. He knew his mom's name. It was on his birth certificate. It wasn't Olivia Benson. He knew his mom was French-Canadian. That she'd gone back to Canada. That she wasn't ever coming back. That she probably didn't even remember she had kids before. He bet she'd gone and started a new family – a better one. She'd probably had the right idea. Growing up with Izzy had been a royal mind-fuck anyways.

He didn't even know what he wanted from the woman when he saw her on the television at the diner he was eating in with Ben. He didn't. But he'd known she was the woman from the picture. Dad's picture. The one he'd had shoved inside the cover of Treasure Island on his book shelf. A book Pops had given him when he was a little boy. A book that Dad told him would be his some day too. He didn't think he'd meant when he died. But that's when Jack officially got it as his own. Dad had read it to him when he was little, though. They used the picture as a bookmark – every night. He'd been just as fascinated by the picture and the stories about it as he had the old bound book with the narrative about pirates and treasure.

She still sort of looked like her in the picture – only old. But she had the name. Olivia, it said on the TV screen in the little banner thing. How many people had the fucking name Olivia? Like Olivia the Pig or something? Who the fuck named their kid after a pig anymore?

He didn't know why he tried to find her, though. It'd been stupid. It was still stupid. He was sleeping in her fucking apartment. Not just her fucking apartment, he was laying in her fucking bed. Her fucking clothes were in the closet next to him. Her fucking underwear in the dresser across from him. He'd seen her fucking Tampax when he'd gone looking for toilet paper in the cupboard under the bathroom sink. It was all just fucked up.

Dad had talked about her, though. Why the fuck did he talk about her and not his Mom? He could count the number of things his Dad had told him about his Mom on one hand. But Dad told stories about Olivia, and that picture and that bookmark. He told stories about college. He talked about all of that.

Jack had just wanted to see who she was. He just wanted to see his Dad, right now. He so fucking wanted his Dad to be back to fix Izzy's fucking mess again this time. He wanted his Dad to figure out how to make this better and what the hell he was supposed to be doing.

He didn't want to fuck up Benji. He didn't know how to be a guardian to Benji – not without any help. Greg sucked and Nan was senile but at least they were grown-ups. Jack didn't know he knew how to be a grown-up yet. He had told himself he did. He'd spent a year in the city on his own, with a fucking scholarship, in fucking college. He was fucking 18 – almost 19. He could handle a fucking four-year-old. He'd thought.

Fuck.

Another sob rocked him and he sucked back the snot that was filling his sinuses as his eyes watered so bad that tears threatened to start rolling down his cheeks.

He needed to get the fuck out of here.

There was a small, quiet knock at the door. He glanced that way and wiped at his eyes with the back of his hands, sucking at his snot a bit more. But he offered no response. He hoped she'd just go away. But she didn't and the door opened a crack and then a bit more.

Jack pulled himself up from where he'd been laying on top of the covers – just in his boxer briefs and socks – and wiped even more vigourously at his eyes, sniffing through the fucking snot even more and tossing the stupid action figure on the bedside table. He didn't know what he was more embarrassed by – her coming into the room while he was crying, while he was just in his florescent blue striped underwear, or while he was still fucking playing with the fucking toy.

She peaked in, the light from the hallway and the living room flooding in through the crack. She must've seen him moving and pulled it closed a bit more – though still keeping it open.

"Sorry," she said quietly. "I thought you might've been asleep already."

She held out a pill bottle and a cold pack through the cracked door.

"It's time for Benji's next dosage. Should likely ice him down again for a few minutes too."

Jack swiped at his eyes some more. "He's sleeping," he tried to hiss, but his tear-drenched voice cracked and popped with the snot in his throat and nose.

She pushed the door open a bit more – and Jack grabbed at the edge of the duvet and tried to draw it up over is lap. He knew she'd likely seen people in underwear before. Like he didn't think she was a virgin or anything. Fuck. She'd likely slept with his Dad. OK. That was kind of gross and even more reason he didn't want her to see him in his underwear. She'd already said he looked like his Dad. Grosser. God fucking knows what some old single lady would be thinking. Nasty.

She made no comment about his clothing though or his embarrassed movements to cover himself.

"It's important to get the doses into him at the right times, Jack," she said still at a near whisper. "It will keep his pain managed. Can you wake him up and give them to him? Sit with him for about 20 minutes with the pack on his arm? Or you want me to do it?"

Jack just fumbled around some more, glanced at Benji and wiped his eyes again. He saw her examining him. She kept on doing that. Just looking at him. It creeped him out and it was kind of pissing him off.

"Are you OK?" she asked.

He just nodded. He didn't want to try to speak again. He thought his voice would again betray him. He just wanted to be left in the dark room and for her to leave.

She looked at him for a couple more seconds and let out a small sigh. He saw her head look down at the ground – and then the door opened all the way, the light streaming in more readily.

"OK," she said. "I'm going to take him into the living room and get them into him and ice him down. You try to get some sleep. You need it."

He didn't offer any sort of response but watched as she came across the room and to the other side of the bed.

"Hey, Benj," she whispered and shook his shoulder a bit. "It's Olivia. I need you to wake up."

Benji stirred just a bit.

"OK, I'm picking you up, sweetheart," she said. "We're going out to the living room for a bit."

She seemed to scoop his nephew up without any trouble, even with the pills and cold pack still clutched in one hand. Benji didn't seem to think anything of wrapping his legs around her waist and his good arm around her neck and putting his head on her shoulder. He seemed to like her a whole lot more than Jack thought he did. He just didn't get her. She seemed OK but he didn't get her. And she broke up with Dad? She probably thought she was too fucking good for Dad or something. Dad always picked the wrong women. That's what Uncle Greg said. That his mom was a bad one. That Dad had royally fucked up his life and everyone else's too with his mom.

She headed for the door. "You don't have to sleep on top of the covers," she told him as she walked out. "If the duvet's too warm for you, there's lighter blankets in the top of the closet, OK?"

He just shrugged. He wasn't sure if she saw it or not.

She just glanced at him again. "OK," she said. "Night."

She pulled the door shut and the room fell into darkness again. Jack beat his head against her headboard. Fuck, he thought. But it really all was just one big clusterfuck – and the tears just started rolling again.

"FUCK," he said. He was sure it was likely loud enough she probably could've heard. But she didn't come back. And he let the tears roll harder and the sobs shake him more. "Fuck," he cried.

**NOTE THERE WAS A PREVIOUS TYPO IN THIS CHAPTER - IT SHOULD'VE SAID "WASN'T OLIVIA BENSON" WHERE IT SAID "WAS".**


	12. Chapter 12

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

**PLEASE NOTE: THERE WAS A TYPO IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER THAT SAID "IT WAS OLIVIA BENSON" IN REFERENCE TO THE MOTHER'S NAME ON JACK'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE. IT SHOULD'VE STATED "WASN'T". OLIVIA IS NOT HIS MOTHER. SORRY FOR ANY CONFUSION. THANKS TO FREQUENT READER, KATECHOCO FOR SPOTTING THE ERROR AND POINTING IT OUT. IT'S SINCE BEEN CORRECTED.**

She looked down at Benji where he was gripping her hand on the elevator. She tried to give him a little and reassuring smile – but the reality was that inside she was fuming. Not at him – at his uncle, and she supposed in a way at the whole situation and herself.

Jack had told her that he got out of his class at 11 a.m. and technically, he should've been able to get back to her apartment by about 11:30 a.m., which should've meant she could've been to work by about noon. That was going to have Cragen riled up enough – but she'd thought she could just sit through that tongue-lashing. Really, she was a 44-year-old woman with more than 15 years in the bloody unit. Her captain putting her in her place only counted for so much anymore. It didn't really scare her about her job anymore. If anything, it usually just riled her up to defend her position and then pft out of the office.

She was pretty whatever about it anymore. Not the best attitude. But, really, that's where she was with her career at the moment. She was pretty take it or leave it. She couldn't bring herself to leave it herself – it was her life, all she knew and all she had. But she just couldn't bring herself to feel that all-consuming drive about it anymore. She'd lost too much to it. Given up too much.

But Jack had never come home. She'd started calling his cell at 11:45 a.m., to ask if there was a delay on the line and to get his ETA. But he hadn't picked up. He hadn't returned the call either. So then she tried again in 15 minutes and again and again – throwing in some texts for good measure too. Still nothing.

She'd had a short period where her mind had gone to the worst-case scenario – that something had happened to the kid. But as she kept dialing his number and sending him texts, she'd realized that the chances of something having happened were likely slim. Jack was just being an ass.

She knew he was losing it. She knew he was struggling. She didn't need to be a fucking detective to see that. The anger in him barely hid under the surface and the fear in him had just been boiling. He was moody. He was quiet. He was short in his answers and nearly bipolar in his emotions and temperament in their conversations. She'd seen and heard the tears – though she'd left him alone in that. What 18-year-old boy wanted a woman to acknowledge he was crying? She tried to offer him the opportunity to talk about it in other ways, while he had his emotions more in check, but he kept dodging her each time. Everything was covered up with a joke or a snarky remark or all out rage. But even in that, him pulling a disappearing act was unacceptable.

She'd called Cragen and said she wouldn't be in for the rest of the day. Well, that hadn't gone over so well. And, she'd been summoned – with a few choice words and a raised voice. She'd sighed at his little act, that unfortunately she'd become all too familiar with. She knew he didn't mean much by it, other than he had to play Dad. He was her boss. He needed to do his job and part of that was making sure she did her job. She'd thought about defying him and just staying home. But she also knew she was going likely going to need Cragen in her corner for the next while, until she got this mess sorted out. Pissing him off more wasn't going to make the situation any easier for her.

Why did it even need to be easier for her? she'd found herself wondering on the way over to the station house. It wasn't her mess. It wasn't her problem. Yet, once again, she'd allowed herself to get sucked into someone else's chaos. It was like she didn't know how to exist if she wasn't dealing with someone's drama … or rather their trauma. And here she was yet again.

She wasn't even sure what the hell she was going to say when she got in there. She couldn't leave Benji alone. So he had to come. She knew that was automatically going to attract attention and raise questions – but she didn't know what else she was supposed to do. So she just hoped she could avoid the prying, questioning eyes and looks she knew she was going to encounter in the squad room and just go and talk to Cragen. And, then hopefully, she could get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.

The elevator dinged on the floor and the doors opened. So she gave Benji another small smile and gave the smallest tug on his little arm and hand and he started to follow after her. She guided him into the squad room, coming in so the backs of most of her colleagues would be to her – and so she could fully scan the area to see exactly what she'd be up against. Amaro and Rollins were there. Fin was nowhere to be seen, though, and as usual, it was too early for John to be there yet.

She glanced behind her as she walked into the room. Cragen's office door was open and he was sitting at his desk – looking tired and pissed – but he was on the phone, so he couldn't bark at her quite yet. Though, they made eye contact. He knew she was there now and she knew it would only be a matter of time until he hung-up on whatever conversation he was in the midst of and was calling her to come into his office for a reaming.

She had Benji on her left, and she wasn't sure if the Captain would've immediately seen him. The little boy might've been blocked from his view as she crossed in front of his door. But if Cragen had continued to drill holes into her back as she made her way to her desk, there was no way he could've missed the boy. She knew that would have him barking at her even louder.

She got to her desk, though, relatively unscathed, until Amaro glanced up from his work and watched as she pulled out the chair. She allowed him a little look, clearly telling him to not say anything, but he still continued to watch. At that point she could feel Rollins watching her too and glanced at the blond woman before she looked down at Benji.

"OK, Benj," she said. "This is my desk. So let's just get you set up here for a bit. I'm not going to be long."

Benji looked up at her but propped himself up in the chair and swung it back and forth a bit, kicking his feet. "This is a cop desk?"

"Yep," she told him.

He looked at it a bit. "It doesn't have cop stuff."

"Mmm," she said. She looked at John's desk and snagged a little police car he had sitting there and set it in front of Benji. "There you go. A cop car."

Benji picked it up and examined it for a moment before putting it back on the desk and rolling it around.

She opened up her drawer and pulled out a pad of paper and then grabbed a couple pens and set them down in front of him.

"You know, Benji, a lot of what I do is take notes. So maybe you can practice that while I talk to my Captain, OK? Make a drawing or something."

He glanced up at her and continued to roll the car around, making little zrooming and siren noises.

Cragen came out of his office door. "Olivia. Here. Now," he said and pointed on the ground. He might as well said. "Here, girl, sit," to his runaway dog with the tone of his voice and his hand gestures.

She gave a little sigh.

"Are you in t-ouble, 'Livia?" Benji asked a looked at her with his big blue eyes.

She gave him another little smile and crouched down to his level, next to her desk and stroked his little hand with hers. "Nah, I'm not in trouble, Benji. Not really. But I need you to sit here quietly for a few minutes, OK? This is Nick," she gestured at her partner, "and he's going to stay here with you, if you need anything, OK?" She was kind of directing it at the both of them and Nick allowed her a small nod.

"He fuzz too?" Benji asked.

She gave him a little smile, almost wanting to laugh at the slang coming out of the mouth of such a little boy and in such an innocent way. "Yes, Benji, Nick is a police officer too."

"He don't wear the right clothes too."

She gave him a little snort. "Well, we talked about that the other day, Ben. Remember? Nick doesn't wear a uniform because he's a detective like me and detectives don't wear their uniforms very much."

Benji examined her. "Does he have a badge?"

She nodded. "He has a badge." She glanced at Nick, but he seemed to have already taken the cue and had pulled out his ID and was flashing it at the little boy – who was looking across the desk with some suspicion.

Benji had been fairly comfortable with her so far – almost concerningly so. Kids that comfortable around strangers always set up some alarm bells. It didn't necessarily mean abuse – but it could mean psychological trauma. Though, she it was quite possible Benji did fit into that realm. He'd lost his mother and been moved out of his home and into a city and an entirely new living environment, with an entirely new routine and lots of new people. That's a lot of most adults to deal with – let alone a four-year-old. She also suspected he was badly hurting for some motherly-affection. That was concerning her too. She didn't really want to cross any lines or let him get too attached in a way that could be confusing or devastating to the boy. He didn't need to be hurt more.

But even with his seeming easygoing so far, Jack not appearing, after him being told his uncle would be back was arousing some suspicions in the boy. He'd been fussy with her in terms of getting ready to come out with her over to the precinct. He'd been a bit more closed-off in his personality and his affections. And, now, she had him sitting in yet another new environment and forcing his little mind to process that and all the new people – strangers – in it.

You could only call people police officers so many times before he didn't care they were supposedly the "good guys" and he just started to question what the hell was going on. She could see him teetering closer to it. She hoped she could keep him on her bandwagon until she at least got him out of there – or even better, until Jack decided to pull his head out of his ass, come back to the apartment and be the fucking uncle and guardian to the little boy he was supposed to be being. And, stop adding more confusion and stress in this little kid's life.

Benji glanced at Rollins. "Is she a girl cop too?"

Olivia nodded. "That's Amanda and she's a police officer too – a detective too."

"Hi Ben," Rollins allowed and gave the little boy a smile.

"OK. So you're going to stay here with them, and I'm just going to go into that room right there and talk to my Captain for just a few minutes."

"Where's Jee-Peedg?" Benji asked, though.

She sighed. "I'm not sure where Jack is right now, sweetheart."

"Will he be home soon?"

She nodded. "I'm sure he will, Benji. Hopefully when we get back to the apartment he'll be there."

She gave his hand another little squeeze and stood back up and walked the few metres to Cragen's office. She glanced over her shoulder and briefly made eye contact with the little boy who was still looking after her, and tried again to give him a reassuring smile, and then closed the door.

Cragen was standing at his window and had been watching. He kept looking out the window at the kid, so she crossed her arms and just waited, as he slowly turned towards her.

"What the hell is going on Olivia?" he said.

She shrugged and examined the floor, rubbing at her eyebrow. "I told you. I need to take some personal time."

Cragen looked at her. His eyes and body language were stern – but she could feel the concern radiating off him too. "Who's child is that?"

"I don't think that's pertinent to our discussion," she said simply.

Cragen jammed his hands into his pockets and glared harder. "Not pertinent to our discussion? He looks pretty pertinent to our discussion – if that's why you've been missing work."

She sighed and looked at the ceiling before meeting his hard eyes. "I think it would just be easiest if I get an VTR form from you and submit to take some of my vacation days next week," she said. "Rip me for today, if you need to. I'm not going to argue."

"Who is that boy, Olivia?" Cragen demanded, pointing out the window back into the squad room.

"Nothing to do with work," she said. "Personal issue that I'd like to deal with in my personal time."

Cragen looked at her and took a deep breath, his chest filling up and slowly falling. Sometimes she was amazed he'd put in so much time on the Force, and with SVU and with everything he'd dealt with in his own personal life too, and hadn't managed to have a heart attack. Silence hung heavy between them for what felt like far too long.

"You can assure me that whatever is going on out there has nothing to do with anything that has a connection to our squad room?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Is it anything that is going to have a connection to our squad room?"

"No."

"Does it have a connection to any other precinct or squad in this city that I'm going to be getting my ass reamed for?"

She shook her head. "Not that I am aware of."

He let out another loud breath. "Who is he, Olivia?" he asked quieter and a bit softer.

She just shook her head and rubbed at her eyebrow some more.

"You're putting my ass in a sling in more than one way here. We've been down a body part of this week with you out. You're asking to be out for another week. You've got a mystery child sitting out there. I think I deserve a bit of context in case any of this comes back to bite me in the ass. We've still got a pretty big target on us these days, Olivia."

She sighed and thought about it. She really didn't want to get into it. She didn't even know how to explain it. It had nothing to do with work. It was personal. She wanted to just leave it at that.

"A friend's grandson," she said finally, though.

"What friend?"

"A friend," she said again.

"Why's he with you?"

"Kid got hurt. Need some extra hands to get him through the first bit. That's all."

"That's all?"

She nodded. "That's all."

"And your friend can't manage that on their own?"

She shrugged. "Guess not."

Cragen sighed hard and looked out the window at Benji again. Nick seemed to be chatting at him – but Ben was acting shy. He kept glancing up at Nick but she couldn't see the little boy offering him any sort of response.

"Captain, I haven't taken vacation time in a long, long time. Give me the week. I'll get this sorted and be back at my desk."

He glanced at her and again seemed to weigh that statement.

"This isn't another Calvin situation is it?"

Yes, she thought, I hope so. Only she didn't. She couldn't do that again. And, why would she want this little boy to have to go through something like that anyways? Still, there was something about getting to help the little boy that felt so right. The night before when she'd again got to hold him in her lap, icing down his arm and waiting for him to drift back to sleep after taking his pills, it again had just felt so right. She again didn't want to have to let go of him – no matter how much she was telling herself that this too was temporary.

Next week, he'd likely be through his follow-up appointments and he'd hopefully have the all clear from his concussion and Jack would be taking him home. She was just helping out. She couldn't get attached. She couldn't be too touchy with the little boy and let him get attached either. She just needed to operate at arm's length, she told herself. Focus on helping Jack. It wasn't really going the way she was trying to coach herself into playing it out, though. Not at all.

"It's not that kind of situation," she said quietly, but made sure to meet his eyes. She didn't want her body language to give him any sort of suggestion that she might be lying. It was already pretty clear that he didn't believe her statement of facts. He knew she was leaving information out. That much would be clear to even the greenest of rookies.

"It's not anything to do with your brother?"

She shook her head. "No."

"Three strikes, Olivia," Cragen said. "Don't let this be strike number three. There'd only be so much I can do for you, if this is another one of those situations."

"It's not going to be, Captain."

He sighed and looked out the window again. "One week?"

She nodded. "One week."

**PLEASE NOTE: THERE WAS A TYPO IN THE PREVIOUS CHAPTER THAT SAID "IT WAS OLIVIA BENSON" IN REFERENCE TO THE MOTHER'S NAME ON JACK'S BIRTH CERTIFICATE. IT SHOULD'VE STATED "WASN'T". OLIVIA IS NOT HIS MOTHER. SORRY FOR ANY CONFUSION. THANKS TO FREQUENT READER, KATECHOCO FOR SPOTTING THE ERROR AND POINTING IT OUT. IT'S SINCE BEEN CORRECTED**


	13. Chapter 13

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She pounded on her bedroom door with an open hand.

"In about 10 seconds, I'm coming in there, so you better cover up anything you want covered up," she said loudly and purposely.

She was so pissed off at Jack. He'd finally reappeared at her apartment at 10 p.m. – still having never returned any of her phone calls and having sent Benji into an all-out teary tizzy. He'd claimed he had had to go to work. Why he'd neglected to mention he had to work that day or why he didn't take the time to return her phone calls or texts had gone unanswered. But at least he didn't smell of booze and didn't look stoned. So maybe he had been at work. She didn't really know.

She didn't know the truth of what the hell he'd been doing. She wasn't sure she believed his work story. But she also didn't have the chance to grill him on it – and even if she had, Benji had been right there and she hadn't wanted to upset him more than he was already upset. Jack had grabbed his nephew off the couch and stormed to the bedroom anyways. Apparently, feeling he had the right to be pissed at her for being pissed at him.

She'd laid on in the living room for the rest of the night – feeling all out anger at him. She'd almost wanted to kick him out of her place at that moment. To storm into the bedroom and start reaming him out. To peel Benji away from him and tell him to get the hell away from the kid. But the reality was that Benji being there was what had even forced her to keep her temper in check. It hadn't forced her not to stew, though, and she'd spent the whole night churning in her head what she was going to say to the kid.

Benji had gotten up early. Super early. He was out and standing and looking at her sleeping on the couch at just after 5 a.m. It had been a little disconcerting waking up to the feeling of someone watching her.

Again, thankfully, that was something that having Calvin in her home had almost prepared her for. She thought if she'd sat up and grabbed at Benji or made some other defensive move – it would've been beyond terrifying for the little boy. It had scared Calvin enough the first couple times she did it – and he wasn't four. Of course, it had kind of turned into a game for Calvin. He didn't stop after he realized it sent her heart racing. He seemed to think it was kind of funny – even though she repeatedly and calmly explained to him that it really wasn't.

So she'd managed to prop herself up and try to act awake and then make the little boy some breakfast and set him up with some of the sparse choice of toys, while she nursed a tea and really tried to wake up. She was really wishing she could just set him in front of the television. That would be easier, if not for his fucking concussion. He seemed OK at the moment, though, and it was now pushing 8:30 – and after another three-plus hours of playing babysitter for Jack the Ingrate, she had had enough, and had taken the opportunity to go and pound on the door.

She threw it open. Jack was still laying in bed with his eyes closed. He squinted them open to look at her at the door open but had just rolled over so his back was to her.

She closed the door – quietly, so as to not attract too much attention from Benji, who'd she'd sternly instructed to stay put. Then she crossed over to the bed and grabbed the pillow away from under his head.

"Hey," Jack protested and glanced back at her.

She grabbed his shoulder and pulled it down so he was laying on his back – looking a little surprised she'd touched him.

"You're going to look at me, and you're going to listen," she told him sternly. "And for the next three minutes, you aren't going to give me any lip back while I'm talking."

Jack rolled his eyes at her and moved like he was going to roll over again – but she wrapped her hand around his bicep and pulled his back down before he got too far.

"You're going to look at me, and you're going to listen," she said again.

He yanked his arm away. "Don't touch me," he said.

She pointed her finger at him. "You aren't going to talk. You are going to listen to me."

He crossed his arms across his chest and glared up at her from where he was still laying on his back. He was trying his best to look defiant and intimidating despite the submissive position she had him in at the moment.

"What you did yesterday was completely disrespectful," she told him – trying her best to keep her voice level but stern. "If you were scheduled to work – you should've told me. When you realized you weren't going to be back here when you said you would be – you should've called me. When I started trying to reach you – you should've picked up your fucking phone. Not only did your behaviour have implications on my workday – you scared your nephew, who you are supposed to be acting as a guardian to.

"I am not Benji's babysitter, Jack. I did not offer to help to be Benji's babysitter – and I will not be treated as a babysitter. You are the one ultimately responsible for that little boy – not me. But, right now, honestly, I don't feel comfortable with the concept of you walking out of here with that little boy. The way you are acting right now is nowhere fucking near an adult. Nowhere fucking near what would be expected of a guardian. You aren't even acting like what I would normally expect to see in an 18-year-old kid. You are acting like a spoiled brat – not an adult, not an uncle, not a guardian. You aren't even acting like the young man that I met previously.

"You keep telling me that I'm not your mother. And, you're right, I'm not. And, Jack, I don't want to be. I know that you've got a lot going on. I know you're struggling. But I am not going to coddle you. You are 18 – almost 19. You are an adult. You have responsibilities – maybe they are more than your share, and not what you asked for. But this is the hand you have right now – and you are going to have to figure out how to fucking deal with that. I am more than happy to talk about any and all of that with you – as adults. But I am not going to mother you. I am not going to stroke your head and tell you it's all alright. I am not going to take over all your responsibilities for you. I have work. I have responsibilities. I have a life. Whatever you think of it. And, I am not going to have a 19-year-old man snivel around my apartment and act like he's about 15 years old.

"Now, right now, I am going to take Benji – and I am going to buy him a winter jacket, and probably some boots and mittens too. And then we are going to go over to the bookstore – and I am going to get him some activity books to get him through the next week and something to fucking read to him. I am not asking you. I am telling you. Because, if you are so worried that ACS is going to get called – things like a winter jacket are really something you should be a little bit more interested in.

"But when we get back, Jack, you are going to be up, you are going to be dressed, and I am going to see that young man in my apartment again – not this fucking obnoxious kid in a fucking meltdown. You're a grown-up. If you need help – ask for help. Adult conversations, Jack. None of this fucking sulking. I don't have the time or the patience for that bullshit in my private life – I deal with enough of it at work. I'm not going to do it here, in my home.

"And, after you've got yourself up and pulled together, Benji is yours for the rest of the day. I'm not the nanny. He's your responsibility. It's a Saturday. You don't have class. You better fucking start figuring out how to take care of a kid in a cast – because you are quickly wearing out your welcome here.

"Are we clear?"

Jack fidgeted a bit in the bed. Though he'd honoured her request that he shut up and listen, he'd been avoiding eye contact during her entire monologue – and seemed even more reluctant to meet her eyes now.

"I need an answer, Jack," she told him.

He glanced at her. "I'm supposed to work today," he said flatly.

She rubbed her eyebrow. Her anger was still pulsing. "You're supposed to work today?" Her irritation wasn't hidden in the least.

He nodded.

"You better not be bullshitting me, Jack."

He looked at the wall ahead of him and adjusted his arms across his chest more, causing his elbows to flap up a couple times. "I'm not," he said quietly.

"What time are you supposed to work?" she asked.

"Ten to six."

"What do you usually do with Benji when you work on Saturdays?"

He looked at the ceiling. "Sometimes they let me have him with me. Depends on what I'm scheduled to do. Sometimes this woman in our building watches him for me."

She sighed again and rubbed her eyebrow some more. The kid wasn't fucking making it easy for her – at all.

"I'm not your babysitter, Jack," she said again and shook her head at him.

He sort of shrugged and kept his eyes ahead. "OK. I'll figure it out."

She crossed her arms tightly too and examined the ceiling for a moment.

"When Benji and I get back – I want there to be a schedule on the kitchen counter. You're going to write down for me all the times of your classes next week and when you're supposed to be working. I get to know where you fucking are and when you aren't going to be here – so I can plan my life too. I'm not a babysitter. He's your responsibility."

He glanced at her.

"And, right now, you are going to get your ass out of bed – and you're going to go into the living room and explain to him that you're working today, that he's staying with me, and that I am taking him out on some errands. You are also going to apologize to him for at least the stunt you pulled yesterday – I'll let you decide if he needs a larger apology for the last several days. And, you are going to assure him that it is not going to happen again. Because that was one very scared and upset little boy last night, Jack – and that is just unacceptable."

He looked at her and nodded.

So she gave a small nod too. "If you aren't out there in the next five minutes, I'm back in here, and I'm going to be more pissed off – and your ass is going to end up a lot closer to the door, if not out it."

He nodded. "OK."

"OK," she said and turned for the door, exiting the room.


	14. Chapter 14

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"It be lots faster if we skated 'Livia," Benji informed her from where he was gripping her hand as they walked down the street.

She glanced at him and gave him a big, almost involuntary smile and shook her head.

"You might be right there Benji, but there's lots of problems with that statement too," she told him.

He looked at her questioningly. "Wha problems?"

She snorted a little laugh. "Well, I can think of three off the top of my head," she told him. "One, you really shouldn't be skateboarding on the sidewalk like this where so many people are walking, sweetheart. It's kinda rude." He looked at her like he was considering that. "Two, you aren't supposed to be skateboarding right now – because you've got a broken arm and a broken head."

"My head not broken," he protested.

She nodded. "It's broken, Benj. You hit it hard and it's hurt on the inside so it needs time to get better just like your arm and your stitches. That's why you're resting and there's no TV."

He thought about that some more.

"And, Benji, most importantly," she looked at him, "I don't know how to skateboard," she told him with a seriousness.

He considered that some more and stopped suddenly, dropping her hand almost as though in near shock. "It's easy, 'Livia," he told her. "You just go like this." He stood in a quasi-skate stance and then pushed his foot on the ground.

She smiled and shook her headand grabbed his hand back. "Maybe it's easy for you – but not for me and you can't skateboard until the doctors say you're all better anyways."

"We can pretend," he suggested.

She looked down at him. "How do you pretend to skateboard?"

He thought about it. "Like this," he told her and jumped up off the ground, pulling up both of his knees and then landing hard on his feet. "Then you run and then you jump on something and then you jump off. Then you run. You practice all your tricks and you have to go really fast and jump really high."

"Mmm," she nodded. "Well, maybe we can find a playground for you to pretend to skateboard on after we do our errands. But I don't think we should pretend to skateboard in the middle of Fifth Avenue."

"Why not?"

She smiled at him again. "Because there's lots of people trying to walk, Benji."

"So?"

"How would you like it if someone ran into you while they were pretending to skateboard?"

He thought about that. "They pretending a real hard trick?"

She laughed out loud at that and shook her head at him. "No pretending to skateboard," she said seriously. "We'll go to a playground after errands."

"What are errands?" he asked as they finally started to walk again.

She glanced at him. "They're when you have to go out and buy something."

He looked at her. "What we have to buy?"

"Well, we're going to get you a winter coat and some mittens and boots because the weather is supposed to start getting colder next week."

"But I have a coat," he told her and looked at his fleece she'd just got him the other day.

She nodded. "But not a winter coat."

"Is it a skater coat?"

She gave him another smile and shrugged. "I don't know. You'll have to help pick so we can make sure it's a skater coat."

"Skater boots?"

She snorted at him and looked at him again and shook her head. "Are there such a thing Benj?"

He nodded vigourously.

She shrugged. "Then I guess you'll have to help pick to make sure they're skater boots too."

"So then I won't be a grom, right, 'Livia?"

She snorted again. "I have no idea what a grom is, Benji."

"Jee-Peedg says I'm a grom."

She shrugged. "Well, then I guess he'll have to judge if you're still a grom or not in your new winter gear."

He thought about that and swung her arm a bit.

"We're going to the book store first anyways," she said, "so you can think about what a skater coat and boots might look like. Maybe like a snowboarder coat and boots?" she suggested, starting to think he might be slightly too fashion conscious for a four-year-old, seeing as she was thinking more along the lines of practicality and economy.

"A book store?" Benji said and looked at her again like the concept was a foreign idea to him.

She nodded and then again nodded her chin up the street. "There's a great big book store in a couple more blocks."

"Why we goin' to a book store?"

She gave him another little smile and half laugh. "To get some books. For you," she added, hoping to make it sound more appealing.

He examined her at that.

"Don't you think it's a little boring at my apartment?" she tried.

He seemed to think about that and then shook his head.

She snorted. "No?"

He shook his head again.

She smiled. "Well, that's good. But I think that's likely just because your pills are making you sleep lots right now, Benj. I think next week when you're done your pills, you're going to think it's pretty boring."

"Why?"

"Because you still going to be allowed to watch television and you still aren't going to be allowed to go to daycare and you still aren't going to be allowed to skate."

"NOT ALLOWED?" he gaped at her.

She shook her head. "Not allowed. Because you aren't better yet."

"When I be better?"

"When the doctor says your better," she told him.

"I can play though, right?"

She nodded. "You can play. Carefully. So we're going to get a couple storybooks to read and maybe some colouring books and markers so you can draw or something."

"You don't have very good markers, 'Livia."

She snorted at him. "Because I have highlighters, Benji."

"You just have yellow and pink. Girl colours."

"Mmm," she agreed. "Well, I am a girl."

He examined her. "A grown-up girl."

She nodded. "Yep."

He swung her arm again. "How come Jee-Peedg didn't come on errands?"

"Because, like he told you Benji, he has to go to work today, so we get to hang out together until he comes home."

She almost stopped herself and considered the use of the word home. The apartment was her home. It was going home to her. But it seemed almost like a strange word to use with the little boy in reference to the place. He was far to small to notice or think anything of it. Still, it caught her.

She sort of liked the sound of it – or even the concept that someone would consider the place that she avoided so much anymore 'home'. That it could be a home that someone would actually go home to.

"Some time I go to work with Jee-Peedg," he told her.

She nodded and gave him another little smile. "He told me. But not today."

"I a good worker, though, 'Livia. Gecko says so."

"Gecko?"

"He's da boss."

She snorted and rolled her eyes. The skateboard shop sounded like a high-class place with a boss named Gecko. She was interested to see the place. Or to get a greater perspective on what exactly Jack did. But she likely should've staked out there before she'd waded into the whole Jack-and-Benji situation. She didn't think Jack would take too kindly to her appearing at his workplace now. Not that she much cared, though.

Benji stopped then, though, and tugged her hand to look at a window with him. She did, briefly, but glanced ahead then. They were little less than half-a-block to the completely old-school, raggedy Barnes & Noble she was dragging him to. She could see it just ahead of them. It was one of the chain's oldest and smack on Fifth Avenue, now almost smack in the midst of tourist and shopping mania. She'd seen more than a few tourists wander into it expecting to get their Starbucks and to lounge around for a break from the city in a typical 'burbs box store, only to be confused by its dinginess and it's maze of shelving and coloured lines taped to the floor directing you to each section, or more likely to stacks of university textbooks and law books rather than the piles of boardgames and puzzles and CDs that she saw in most supposed book stores anymore.

She wasn't much for Fifth Avenue – or for the tourists – but she still frequented the store. It was her bookstore – one she'd grown up with and one of the only mainstream ones her mother had taken her to. She now hoped she might find something age-appropriate to read to Benji that wasn't just a picture book.

Honestly, she thought the purchase was going to be more for herself than him in a way. So far he seemed happy to play with the couple toys Jack had brought for him from their apartment and the few of Calvin's she'd dug out. But, really, he had kept asking her to play with him, and imaginary play – especially when it apparently involved skateboarding robot-transformers shooting off laser blasters to save the world – was not something she particularly excelled at.

She thought if she had a novel to sit down and read to him – maybe that would keep him still and quiet for a bit, stop the endless questions for a few minutes. Harry Potter or something. Though, she kind of thought that might make her want to gouge her eyes out too. Her mother would be rolling in her grave to even know she was considering reading Harry Potter. Oh well, she thought, it was for good reason. Still, she kind of hoped after she got in there she might see some other title that piqued her interest and might pique Benji's as well.

"Is it a toy store, 'Livia?" he asked, still gazing through the windows.

She looked a bit more carefully at what had caught the little boy's attention in the storefront, as he again tossed a question at her. A giant plastic teddy bear was sitting a top of a spool in a window-display that was splashed with bright colours. It was designed to capture anyone's eyes – but definitely designed to lure in a child.

"Mmm, I don't think it's really a toy store, Benj," she told him, but he seemed transfixed.

"It has toys," he said and stuck a finger against the window.

She nodded. "Sort of," she agreed and gazed in a bit more. The flagship Build-A-Bear Workshop was already jammed-packed with tourists. It was barely after 10 a.m. – but apparently they were already out and overrunning the city. Yet another reason she avoided this area of town when she got a Saturday off. It was ridiculous. She didn't really get the appeal.

She wondered how many of the millions that visited the city actually ever saw the real New York versus the Disneyification that had happened around much of the place in its clean-up. She supposed there were pluses-and-minuses to the softening of the city. As a New Yorker, she liked to think she was sort of better than this sort of thing – ramming into some sort of commercialized Mecca on a Saturday morning when more real parts of the city where waiting for them literally just down the street.

But, she looked at Benji again – and the way he was examining the on-goings inside the store. So she looked too. She didn't really know what it was. She got the concept – you built a bear. But it was never anything she'd gotten to do before. She supposed it was never anything she'd really thought she'd get to do. She hadn't really had reason to think about it.

Though, she supposed she had had some flashes of potentially getting to do something like this when Simon had introduced her to her niece and nephew – especially her niece. She'd thought about getting to play dolls and maybe have tea parties before sitting down to the monthly Sunday dinner that her half-brother had suggested. She'd thought about getting to take those two little children to the park or to one of the city's zoos and spotting animals with them. She'd even thought about maybe getting t dress them up and have them for an afternoon to take them to the Radio City Christmas Spectacular. She thought maybe it could even become a tradition – something she could get to do for them, and with them, each year.

But, of course, she'd had to let her daydreams of ever having something normal get ahead of her reality. Of course, she should've known better than to trust that Simon wouldn't fuck things up. He hadn't talked to her in almost five years and she trusted that she might actual get something that resembled a family out of his reappearance. She should've known better than that. He'd fucked it up. She'd bailed his ass out of hot water as best she could given the circumstances. And, as usual, she'd ended up being the one hurt and holding the bag.

"What is it 'Livia?" Benji asked, looking up at her with those big eyes that were just eating into her soul and it'd only been a few days.

So she pulled her eyes away from him and looked back inside, rubbing at her eyebrow. "Ah, I think you make a stuffed animal," she told him.

He glanced at her. "Like Leo?" he asked of the badly battered-looking stuffed-toy lion that Jack had retrieved for the little boy from the apartment in Harlem.

She shrugged. "I think it's more bears than lions. I'm not sure." There was a giant plastic dog sitting in the window too – so maybe it was anything that could be stuffed. She didn't know.

She looked down at the little boy again, though, and wondered how many more times – if ever – would she have the opportunity to open that door and go in and see what it was all about. Benji looked so curious. And, she knew, even though part of her was just seeing the commercialism and the tourists – that wouldn't be what the little boy would see. He saw a giant bear and a giant dog and soft, fluffy things and bright colours and lots of other little children in there smiling and with their parents. She knew it didn't matter what the hell it was in there – that this little four-year-old with his good hand pressed against the window, would fucking eating it up and love every second of it. She had this opportunity to make it happen for him. And not just that, she could take part, she could watch it, she could see him be happy about something and get to interact with a situation that a four-year-old should be interacting with. It was something else she could do for him. It was something normal she could do for him.

"You want to go in and see what it's all about, Benj?" she asked him.

He glanced back up at her again and seemed to consider that. She'd expected a bit more of an immediate answer that didn't involve thought. But she was already learning that even the simplest things, when they were put to Benji, he seemed to weigh them in a way she wouldn't expect a four-year-old to. Though, even after he gave his thoughtful pauses – his answers and reactions were pretty pre-schooler-esque. In some instances, it'd actually be kind of funny already. Such deep contemplation on his little face and then him agreeing that, yeah, he did have to take a wee before they left the apartment.

He looked back inside the window. "Duhz it costs money, 'Livia?"

She nodded. "Well, it's a store, Benj, so it likely costs money to do it."

He shook his head vigourously at that. "No. We don't do it."

She looked at him. "Why not?"

"Becuz we don't have money. So we do free stuff like the park. It's free."

She didn't think it was bad that kids have some concept of money – but Benji having a concept that just existed around 'we don't have money' did not seem like a positive to her. She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow some more.

"Well, I have money, Benji, and I think I want to do it. So what do you say?"

He looked at her and scrunched his face a bit. "You rich 'Livia?"

She allowed a small laugh at that. "No, Ben, I'm definitely not rich. But I work really hard and get paid for it. So I get to decide what I want to spend my money on. And, today, I think I should spend it on this. So you going to come in with me or not?"

She held out her hand to him again – and he considered it a moment but then took it.

"You sure it not for rich kids?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head and looked at him hard. "No, Benji, this is for all kids and you deserve to do it just like the rest of them. So let's go see what this place is all about."

She gave a small yank on his hesitant arm and then held the door open for him. He considered it still.

"Jee-Peedg might say no," he told her.

She shrugged. "Jack is at work – and it's my money anyways. We can make one for me, OK? If you don't think you should make one."

Benji looked at her. "Then it yours?"

She nodded. "Sure. But you can play with it all you want."

"He can play with Leo?"

She nodded. "I think Leo needs a friend."

Benji gave a little nod in agreement and slowly inched inside the door. She followed after him and let the door drift shut behind them.


	15. Chapter 15

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She must've made some sort of noise of disgust, because Jack glanced at her.

"You don't like this movie?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't make a habit out of watching this sort of stuff," she commented about Se7en, which Jack seemed pretty engrossed in.

"It's got Brad Pitt," he offered. "Don't women your age like him or something."

She looked at him hard. "Women my age?"

He shrugged.

She snorted and shook her head.

"America's Next Top Model is on too," he offered, picking up the clicker-box.

She rolled her eyes. "Oh, please, put that on instead," she told him sarcastically.

He glanced at her again after his eyes had fallen back on the screen where some other grotesque crime scene was playing out. "You don't like murder mystery stuff?"

She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow. "Why would I want to watch this crap in my free-time, Jack?"

He shrugged. "Because it's a good movie."

She shook her head. "Watch what you want. I don't care."

She was actually hoping the movie was almost over, though, so he'd retreat to the bedroom and she could claim the couch and the television for herself. Sharing her space with a little boy was one thing. Sharing it with a young adult was another, she was learning very, very quickly.

Not only was he annoying the fuck out of her – he was eating her out of house and home. For someone that couldn't write out a grocery list, he sure seemed fine with eating everything in sight now. He'd claimed about the entire bag of grapes she'd bought and had them sitting on his lap as a "snack" now. A snack. That was supposed to be about five days worth of snacks. Not a fucking movie munchie.

Jack seemed transfixed by the movie for several more minutes but then as it broke away to yet another commercial break, he turned back to her.

"So why'd you break up with my dad?" he asked.

She looked at him briefly and laughed. "Oh, we're going to have this discussion between commercial breaks, are we?"

Jack shrugged. "I'll mute it," he offered and picked up the remote to silence the volume on the television. But then he looked back at her expectantly.

She shook her head again at him and rubbed the arm of the couch for a moment. "Ah, because we were at different places in our lives and in the relationship," she said.

He looked at her some more. "Well, what's that mean?"

She looked at the ceiling for a moment. "He was starting to talk about things like marriage and family and I was thinking about what I was going to do when I graduated – and it didn't include marriage or family at that time."

"So you dumped him because he liked you?"

She snorted at that comment. "That's a simplistic way to put it, Jack. My priorities were just in different places."

"And you couldn't do … whatever … your cop crap and be with him or something?"

She shrugged. "At the time, no, I didn't feel that the relationship fit into what I wanted to be doing."

"That's retarded."

"I actually think it's pretty common," she offered. "Would you give up your dreams – or what you wanted out of your career – for a relationship?"

"Sure. If I loved her. That's pretty fucking common too."

She let out a deep breath and met his eyes again. "I liked your dad a whole lot, Jack. I had a lot of fun with him and he made me pretty happy. But I was never looking at it as a long-term relationship. We weren't much older than you. It was a college relationship. I have good memories of it. But it was what it was."

He examined her some more and it was quiet. "So you didn't love him?" he finally asked.

She spread her hand on the arm of the couch and tried to decide the best away to answer that. She wasn't sure there was a right way.

She looked at the kid and shrugged and shook her head. "I liked your dad a whole lot, Jack," she said again. "He was a good man – and in a way, at the time, yes, I did love him. But … I never planned on marrying him or having a family with him. That just wasn't something I was looking for at the time."

"So you strung him along," Jack almost accused.

She sighed. "I don't think so, Jack. After we started having conversations in that realm, I was pretty clear with him about where I stood and our relationship ended pretty soon after that. He'd be the only one that could answer if he thought he was strung along – and I guess he's not around to answer that for you."

"So being a fucking cop was more important to you than him? Than family?" he asked with an accusation in his voice again.

She shook her head and looked at the ceiling. "At the time, Jack, getting back to the city, starting at the academy, getting my career going – those were my priorities. I wasn't thinking about family at that point. I barely 22, Jack. I thought I had lots of time for all of that."

"Sounds like you made a fucking stupid choice then," he commented. "Your life looks pretty lame and empty now."

She sighed and looked at him. "You get that you're a guest in my home, right?" she asked him purposefully. "That we aren't much more than strangers – no matter this little arrangements we've got ourselves into? You could try talking to me a bit more appropriately, Jack. You're really disrespectful."

He examined her. "Did you ever get married?"

She snorted and shook her head. "This is more respectful?"

He just gazed at her.

"No, Jack. I've never been married."

"Why not?"

"Because my job doesn't make it easy to establish long-term relationships. Because I never met anyone that I wanted to marry. Because I'm married to my job. Lots of reasons, Jack."

"You could've been married," he informed her and turned back to the television, picking up the remote to turn the volume back up.

"That's not what I wanted back then, Jack. I don't feel guilty about it – and I'm not going to weigh what-ifs from more than 20 years ago," she told the side of his head.


	16. Chapter 16

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Jack," she called out the bathroom door again. She was feeling frustrated with him again. "You really should come in here and see how to do this."

He appeared in the doorway and looked at her. "I don't even know why you're doing it that way," he snarked at her. "I put him in the shower. He can do it himself. We don't do baths."

She looked at him and then the ceiling – letting out another deep breath to keep herself from ripping into him in front of Benji.

"The nurse said he can't have showers, Jack, not until the cast is off. The cast can't get wet," she told him with a matter-of-fact flatness.

"So, you put a bag on it," he waved at where she had Benji's arm sitting on the edge of the tub in a grocery bag.

"And you think a four-year-old can manage a plastic bag, keeping the cast dry and bathing himself in a shower on his own?"

Jack shrugged.

"I don't think so," she told him sternly.

"Whatever. You put his cast in a bag. You put his arm on the tub," Jack said. "Got it."

"And you sit with him and give him his bath. He can't manage on his own right now," she told him directly.

Jack looked at her. "It's super creepy you're giving him a bath. I'm not going to be like … touching him. He knows how to do that stuff himself."

She looked at the ceiling again. "You're his uncle, Jack. You're his guardian. This is part of the job description for now."

He shrugged again. "I put him in the shower. He gets clean."

"You can't put him in the shower right now," she snapped at him again.

"I like showers 'Livia," Benji piped up from the tub.

She gave him a small smile and then looked at Jack again. "So since it's super creepy that I'm doing this for you – are you going to get your butt in here and do it?"

He shrugged. "I've got readings to do for tomorrow."

"You realize he's going to be in this cast for at least six to eight weeks, right? You have to bathe him at some point in all of that. Take care of him. You don't get to stop being his uncle just because it's more challenging right now."

Jack shrugged again.

She rolled her eyes. "OK. We'll talk about this later. Leave us alone."

She didn't know how Jack was going to manage Benji at all while he had the cast on. So far whenever Benji put up a fuss about anything – Jack still just insisted he do it on his own. It was causing fits of tears and growing frustrations in the little boy – and it was just pissing her off.

Making the little boy show some independence was one thing. Making him continue to do everything himself when he was an awkward four-year-old anyways – and now in a cast was a completely different thing. Benji needed help cutting his food. He even needed help just handling some of his food. Even with the pull-up pants she'd got him, he was still needing some help get things back up in a comfortable way. He was fumbling with zippers and any buttons were just impossible. Him getting his shoes on was a foot stomping endeavour, followed by a tantrum if she stepped in to try to help there. Handling some of his favourite toys didn't seem as easy, as he held them against his chest and fumbled around with him, trying to do whatever it was he was trying to do. There'd been some tears. And, even though he seemed to be taking to colour – or at least scribbling – that was causing fits of frustration too, as the paper moved around and he couldn't grip on the crayons and markers the way he wanted.

Benji needed help. Above and beyond what a four-year-old would normally need anyways – and Jack seemed to insist on providing the bear minimum. It had reached the point that even when Jack was around, Benji was seeking her out, because his uncle was just telling him to be a 'big boy' and do it himself. She didn't know how to get through to Jack that his parenting methods just weren't going to work in this situation. He was making it harder on everyone by denying Benji the assistance.

She shimmed down off the toilet seat and settled down on the ground next to the tub.

"How you doing there, Benji?" she asked him.

He looked up at her from splashing in the water. "I washed my belly and my neck," he informed her.

She smiled. "You want me to help? I bet it's pretty hard to wash that one side when you can't use this arm," she told him tapping it on the tub. She had already had to keep on grabbing at it and settling it back onto the edge of the tub, as the little boy almost involuntarily flailed it around and went to reach for the water with it.

He handed her the wash cloth and she carefully started wiping down his one arm and side.

"How come you don't have tub toys 'Livia?"

She smiled at him again. "Because grown-ups don't usually play with toys in the tub, Benj. Do you have tub toys at home?"

He shook his head, as she lifted up his good arm and washed down his armpit, before doing the same on the side of with the cast, washing down to where the bag was too.

"No?"

"At real home but not home now," he said.

"Real home?" she asked, now wiping off the back of his neck and behind his ears.

He nodded.

"At the farm?"

He nodded. "A boat and it 'quirted," he told her happily and splashed the water a bit with his free hand. "Jack say I'm too big for toys in bath now tho."

She shook her head. "Jack's just being grouchy."

"Jack say big boys shower and not bath," he said.

She sighed. "I don't think that's true either, Benji. I'm a grown-up and I still like to take baths sometimes. And, right now, your doctor said it's better for you to take baths – because your cast can't get wet. Alright?"

He examined her. "Mama give me baths," he told her.

She gave him a little smile and swiped the cloth over his little feet and between some of his toes a couple times. "Yeah, that's something mommys usually do for their little boys," she agreed.

"But you not a Mama," he informed her, as she started to wash down his back.

She shook her head. "I'm not. But someone needs to help you, right?"

He glanced at her and nodded. "Why you not a Mama 'Livia?"

She snorted and gave him a bit of a sad smile. "Mmm, because I haven't had any kids yet, Benj."

"Why?" he enquired and looked at her questioningly.

She gave him a small laugh at that and ran her fingers through the mess of long hair on the top of his head. It was starting to feel a little grimy in her opinion.

"Mmm, guess I haven't gotten around to it," she said.

"Why?"

She gave him a little poke in the ribs and he giggled. "You ask SO MANY questions," she told him.

"Why?" he giggled again, now clearly thinking he was quite the jokester.

She shook her head at him. "What you think, Benj? You going to let me wash your hair for you? It's kind of icky."

"I get to smell the shampy first," he told her seriously. "It's the rule."

"Ah, well, if it's the rule," she said, and stretched up to grab her shampoo bottle. She flipped the lid and handed it to him. And he stuck it up to his nose.

"It's smelly," he told her.

She snorted again and took it back from him. "Isn't it supposed to be?"

He snagged it back out of her hand and sniffed it some more.

"OK. You keep testing its scent, Benj. I'm going to just wet down your hair."

She stood back up and grabbed the shower head and played with it until she got a warm stream going for him and then tilted his head back a bit and ran her fingers through his hair getting it wet down.

"That a shower 'Livia," he told her.

She nodded, as she crouched back down and took the bottle back from him, putting some in her hand and starting to lather his hair.

"You're right, Benji. But we're just using it to get your hair wet. So it's not a real shower."

She lathered up his hair. It was so long. She wondered when the last time anyone would've cut it for the boy was. She suspected the spring – if not earlier. Maybe it was just the skater look – but if Jack wasn't going to be bathing the boy properly while he had a cast on, she didn't think it was practical at all. She actually wondered how he was managing the hair at all if Jack was leaving him in the shower to do his own thing already. She wasn't sure she could believe that a little boy who was barely four could manage washing himself and getting his hair clean on his own. It might actually explain why the matted mess looked and felt so greasy.

"How would you feel about us cutting your hair, Benji?" she asked, as she kept working her fingers through his hair. It was pretty thick and she could feel it kind of matted against his scalp.

"Skater hair?"

"Hmm," she said. "How about a buzz cut?"

He glanced at her. "Buzz?"

She nodded. "We'll take you to the barber and he'll buuuzzzzz it all off for you."

He giggled. "Buuzzzz," he intimated her sound.

"I think we're going to go and do that this week," she told him, as she started to rinse the shampoo out.

"Can we go have pancakes too 'Livia?"

She laughed and looked at him, as she kept running the water through his hair. "Hair cut and pancakes? That sounds like a pretty fantastic morning to me, Benj."

"Choco chips?"

She smiled at him. "Even better." She reached over and switched off the water. "OK, sweetheart, lets get you out of there. Keep that arm up OK."

He fumbled around but managed to get his other arm to the side of the tub and pulled himself into an upright position – and she lifted him up and out of the tub, settling him on the bath mat and quickly wrapping a towel around him; it reached all the way down to his feet, it was so oversized.

"Now you do cuddles and shakes," he informed her.

She raised an eyebrow at him. "I don't know what cuddles and shakes are, Benj."

"Because mamas do it after bath and you not a mama," he said a little defeated.

She gave him a bit of a sad look and sat back down on the toilet seat so she was more his eye level – or at least closer to it. "How about you teach me then so I know?"

He seemed to think about that. "You have to shake me like this," he informed her finally and shook his body around, back and forth.

She snorted. "You mean while I dry you?"

He nodded vigourously in agreement.

She gave a small nod. "OK," she said and reached out and started running her hands up and down his sides, making sure to shake him a little.

"You have to shake more," he told her.

She smiled and rolled her eyes a bit at him, but complied, making sure to get him dry and to towel at his mess of hair. He giggled at it and seemed to shake his body even more during the whole little exercise.

"There," she told him, as she finished.

"Then you cuddle," he told her loudly – and stepped into her, planting his still damp head against her chest, without any sort of hesitation.

But she hesitated and moment and looked down at him, where he had seemingly nestled right up to her, like it was perfectly natural for him. She could see his damp hair already leaving a wet spot on her shirt. But she only thought about it a moment more – and then brought her arms up and around him, rubbing the towel against him a bit more and then giving a couple small strokes down the side of his face, before resting her cheek against his little head.

"Thank you for showing me cuddles and shakes, Benj," she told him softly.


	17. Chapter 17

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She felt Jack looking at her and glanced up.

She'd taken her laptop over to her small dining table to allow him to use the desk for any homework or studies he was working on. But he'd still come over to the table as well, claiming the opposite side. It looked like he was working on some sort of design assignment and had paper and rulers spread across his side of the table – likely requiring more space than her narrow desk provided, so she was almost forgiving him for once again invading her space. She wasn't that excited by the fact that he seemed to be watching her and trying to catch glimpses of the files her had open, though.

She closed the one she had in front of her at the moment and met his eyes. He seemed to startle at the eye contact.

"Do your work," she told him. "You don't need to be looking at mine."

He didn't say anything and looked down at his paper, taking his eraser to something and swiping away at it. She watched him for a moment. He had some textbook open too. She wasn't sure if it had the assignment in it or if it was maybe describing whatever it was he was trying to draw. So far it just looked like a lot of lines to her.

"What is it?" she asked him.

He glanced up. He shrugged. "Just a visual communication assignment. It's just a weekly thing. It's nothing."

She looked at him a bit harder. "OK. But what is it?"

"Ah," he looked at her and then put his hand against his temple and examined his work a bit more. He shrugged. "I don't really know."

She watched him some more – and he glanced at her and tapped his pencil on the paper.

"It's supposed to be a tension structure – like you'd see at the entrance to a building or whatever. A temporary one. And, it's supposed to be conveying the sense of the coming of winter in the city."

She looked at the paper again.

Jack shrugged at her. "I don't really know," he admitted. "It's just a weekly assignment anyways. It's hardly worth anything. I've got my end of term project to work on anyways. It's more important."

"What's that one?" she asked.

He rubbed at his temple again and glanced at her. "Ah, 3,000 square foot education pavilion to be incorporated into city park space. And it has to use light wood construction techniques and incorporate history and biodiversity of the area and shit into the structure."

"And that's going better?"

Jack shrugged. "Well that I actually get what I'm supposed to be doing. This thing seems like … an art project or something. How do you make some temporary structure look like winter coming to the city?"

She shrugged. "Make it look frosty?"

"The snowman?"

"No," she rolled her eyes at him. "Just dripping off of something. We get the frost first – and it melts throughout the morning in the morning sun. Stays longer in the shade … the skyscrapers."

Jack examined her and shrugged. "Yeah, I guess. Maybe."

So she just shrugged back to him and looked back to her own work, clicking around on her computer a bit and opening up a report from the M.E.'s office to look over.

"Why are you doing work anyways?" Jack asked. "Aren't you supposed to be away for the week or something?"

She glanced up at him. "Well, this isn't exactly planned vacation time, is it, Jack? I don't want to get too far behind."

"Don't they just let someone else deal with busting the guys when you aren't there?"

She looked at him and rubbed her eyebrow, shaking her head at him. "My job involves a lot more then just going out and picking someone up, Jack."

"Like what? Asking them some questions and getting them to cop-up to it?"

She sighed. "You have to find the person who did it first, Jack. You have to collect evidence. You have to interview people. Collect statements. Do a lot of paperwork. I don't just … go out and slap handcuffs on people."

"So what are you doing now then? You can't do any of that stuff here."

She rubbed at her eyebrow again and looked at him. "I'm finishing up some paperwork that needs to get to our ADA ahead of a case. I'm looking over some information that just came back from the medical examiner's office on one of my open cases. I'm going back and reading over a file for a case I'm scheduled to testify on next week."

"You just made your job sound a lot less interesting," he commented and looked back at his project.

"Well, being a cop is a lot of paperwork, Jack. It's not all guns and handcuffs and crime scenes."

He glanced up at her. "But you do go to crime scenes?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"But like just ones where the girl's been raped?"

She let out a breath. "Rape isn't a 'just' kind of thing, Jack. But, yes, I go to crime scenes where a rape has occurred."

"What about murders?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "If there's a sexual component to how the person died, then, yes, I go to those crime scenes too."

"So you've seen dead people? Like people that have been murdered?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"That's fucked up."

She shrugged and shook her head. She didn't like the way he was portraying it. He was sounding a bit like the jack-asses that she'd dated in the past and usual never saw again – because of their fascination or their flippancy about her work.

"Yes, usually, it is pretty fucked up," she agreed flatly.

He examined her. "Have you ever shot anyone?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"Did they die?"

She let out another breath and met his eyes. "Some of them."

"How many?"

She shook her head. "I don't think we need to get into that."

"So you're like a killer too, then?"

She sighed harder and examined the table. "No, Jack. I'm a police officer and I do my job."

"What'd it feel like?"

She met his eyes and looked at him hard. "Not good, Jack. It doesn't matter who it is – it doesn't feel good to take another life."

He looked away from her.

She watched the top of his head for several moments. "Why's Benji with you, Jack? Why didn't your uncle get guardianship of him?"

He glanced at her and shrugged. "Because he didn't want it."

"Don't you think it would make more sense for Benji to be there, though? With someone a bit more mature? More established? In his own home?"

Jack shook his head but offered not further explanation.

"Why not?" she asked.

He just shrugged.

She tapped the table. "You just seem like you're really struggling, Jack," she said.

He glanced at her briefly. "We're OK," he said quietly.

"You don't seem that OK to me," she said.

He just shrugged again.

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow and watched him. The amount of sadness in the young man had been apparent to her since the moment she met him. Spending time with him over the last several days had just depicted to her how much anger was in him too. He was hurting – badly. And, he was clearly really struggling with the situation he was in with Benji - and school, and working, and just trying to be an 18-year-old kid. It was understandable. But she also thought it could be better.

"Jack, I'm sure that when your sister died, there were a lot of really high emotions going on in your family – that maybe some hurtful things got said, maybe some split decision got made in the moment. But, maybe now that some time has passed, everyone will be able to step back and take a look at what's really going on now – and reassess what's best for Benji. And what's best for you too, Jack. I know this isn't an easy situation for you. Being a parent is hard work …"

"What do you know about it?" he spat harshly and glared up at her – but his eyes lost their anger quickly and he went back to looking at his assignment, swiping at some eraser shavings a bit more.

"I might not know much about being a parent, Jack. But I have parented. And, I do deal with a lot of children. And, I have dealt with a lot of young mothers too. I know it's a lot of hard work. And, I know you're trying to balance it all with school and work. I know you're trying to do what's right."

He glanced up at her again but offered no response.

"Do you think that maybe if you and Benji went home on Thanksgiving and talked to your uncle – maybe things could be different? Maybe your uncle might want to help some more now that things have settled down a bit?"

He just shook his head without looking at her.

She spread her hand on the table and let out another breath.

"Jack, if it's the expense of getting back up to the farm – I can help you out with that."

"I don't need your money," Jack said quietly but with a firmness to his voice.

She sighed. She knew that wasn't true. It was pretty clear how much he was hurting for money. She didn't want to think about the debt he was getting himself into or what he was doing with the credit card she'd seen him pull a few times. He didn't need to be swiping things. Though, she didn't imagine he had the cash to be paying for things.

She nodded. "OK. I just feel like maybe if you and Benji went and saw your uncle and you all sat down and talked – you might be able to come up with a better arrangement for you guys."

"That won't happen," Jack said.

"Why not?" she asked.

He glanced at her. "Greg's an ass."

She snorted. "Jack, you seem to have a bit of an issue with authority. Most people are assholes in your worldview, aren't they?"

He looked at her hard. "His ex-wife won't even talk to him. His own kids don't want to see him or talk to him."

She watched his body language at that. The agitation was starting to roll off him again. She could see him starting to shutdown.

"You guys aren't his ex-wife or his kids, Jack," she said flatly.

"He hates us," Jack said. "He doesn't want anything to do with us."

"Maybe that's something he said in the heat of the moment after Izzy died," she suggested. "That might not be how he feels now."

Jack shook his head. "It's how he always has felt. He hated Izzy and he didn't want anything to do with Ben. I couldn't just leave him there."

She gave a small nod. She still didn't understand the whole situation. She felt like he was leaving a lot of information out. She had trouble understanding how a grown man would just cast aside a little boy on his teenaged nephew. But she'd seen a lot of grown man do stupid – or horrific – things to their families.

"What about Ben's father?" she asked. "Where's he?"

Jack snorted and looked at her. "Like I fucking know," he spat.

"Well, do you know his name? Does he know what's going on?"

Jack rolled his eyes at her and shook his head again. "Izzy slept with anything that moved within five counties. Who knows who Ben's dad is? Izzy was so drunk and stoned off her ass most of the time – she couldn't even tell you who she fucked."

She let his comment hang in the air. It didn't surprise her – at all. It was about what she expected to hear about Ben's father situation. But it just made her feel even more badly for the little boy – and for Jack.

"You don't need to be doing this all on your own, Jack," she said finally. "All parents need help. You deserve help – and Benji really deserves it. He needs more than just you."


	18. Chapter 18

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She made an oof sound as Benji's little body flew into her at about 100 miles an hour. She was still kind of amazed at how fast a little boy could move. She'd heard the front door open and had hardly managed to sit up on the couch before he thumped into her chest in a fit of giggles.

She let his impact sent her back into the cushions and once again involuntarily gave him a smile, as what initially looked like it might be a hug, turned into the little boy squirreling around on the sofa and looking up at her giggling about God knows what. He seemed to think most things were pretty funny.

"Hello," she said and teasingly poked at his belly, just sending him into a bigger wriggling warm of fits. "Welcome back."

Jack had been gone with Benji for so long, she'd actually had started to think that maybe they weren't coming back. That Jack had just decided to take him back up to their apartment. She didn't know where the week had gone. It kind of felt like it had disappeared into a black hole. She was glad to be getting her space back – or at least getting Jack out of it. But she was more than a little sad about having to watch Benji leave.

She'd almost hoped that Benji's doctors would've said something that could've prompted her to urge Jack to stay with her for a while longer. But the x-rays on Benji's armed showed his wrist was set and healing the way his surgeon wanted. His sling was off and he was flailing his cast around almost like a battering jam half the time.

He was going to have to go through some physical therapy – assuming Jack would actually pay and take him to it. But that was still down the road yet. She couldn't use that as enough of an excuse to try to get him to let her continue to help. Maybe if he let her keep contact with them she'd be able to ensure that the little boy did get the rehab he needed when the cast came off, though.

The visit with the neurologist had been just as positive. He wanted Benji away from the television and videogames until the weekend was through – and they'd been urged to be careful with him. That Benji would be at a greater risk of a concussion and more damage now if he hit his head again. That the little boy should be brought back if struck his head at all over the coming months.

The doctor had also suggested that maybe skateboarding wasn't the best idea for him until he'd grown more and was a bit co-ordinated. But that had gone over like an lead curtain with Jack. Benji seemed to catch wind of that comment too and there'd been tears. She'd had to sit with him a while that afternoon when they got home and assure him that he'd still get to skateboard, but with his helmet all the time, and not as many tricks and lots of supervision. She had to hope that Jack was hearing it all too and being realistic about it.

She understood that the little boy clearly loved skateboarding and she'd seen enough to know that he was good at it – for a child his age. She knew that Jack was clearly using it as both a coping mechanism for the two of them – as well as a parenting tool. She knew it couldn't be taken away from either of them – but they needed to be smart about it. But, she also knew she hadn't completely gotten through to Jack about much of anything. She doubted stressing to him the importance of Benji being safe and not hitting his head again anytime soon was really sitting with him the way it should.

She wished she had more time to chip away at his angry and to try to get to the root of what was going on with him – what he wanted from her, why he'd appeared in her life, why he'd brought this little boy into her life. She wanted to understand more about their situation. She'd tried bit-by-bit each day and had managed to get tiny pieces each time. But he so quickly shutdown. Even the moments he seemed more open – a misplaced question and he'd tailspin into that tiding rage that he really didn't keep hidden very well beneath the surface.

The kid was damaged. She'd heard enough to know that – seen enough. It made her a little sad for Jay. She couldn't imagine that this mess would've ever been something he wanted for his children. She felt compelled to try to help clean it up – but she could only do so much when Jack kept putting up barriers to keep her out. She didn't understand why he so clearly wanted help but was so insistent he didn't. Teenaged boys, she thought, young men. They think they can do it all on her own.

She supposed she could understand that. She'd spent enough of her life convincing herself that she could do it all on her own too. That had never really been true and over recent years – as the few people and things she did have in her life seemed to slip away – she was experiencing just how untrue it was. One isn't enough – for anybody.

She didn't really trust Jack walking out her door with Benji. It wasn't that she didn't think the little boy wouldn't be cared for. She knew Jack cared and that he was trying. Benji would be fed. He'd be clothed. He'd have a place to sleep. But she knew it wasn't the best possible care for the child. She knew it wasn't the care he deserved. How could it be? He was being cared for by another boy – one who hadn't even figured out how to b an adult yet, let alone a parent or guardian – no matter the effort he was putting into it. And, based on the week, she'd seen in some areas, he just wasn't putting effort into it. He was frustrated. He was confused. He was scared. He wasn't sure what the hell he was supposed to be doing. So he was skirting some of the issues. Jack could only do that so much while Benji was healing, as far as she was concerned.

But, really the only real way for her to stop him from taking that little boy back up to their apartment was to get ACS involved. She didn't want to do that. She knew how the system worked – and she didn't want to throw Benji into the system. Then she'd really likely never see him again – and she wasn't sure things would work out for him much better than what he'd already ended up with. It would likely just cause more pain and confusion for this wrecked little family than they were already in. She didn't want to do that to either of them. She didn't want to do that to Jay – or his memory. So, she was just hoping beyond hopes that Jack wasn't going to shut her out when they walked out the door the next day.

"OK, Benj," she said, yanking his shoes off his feet. "Let's not wear shoes on the couch, please."

He seemed to feel it was a game, though, and just kicked and wiggled even more. So she'd snagged the first one off OK but had to fumble around with him to get the one off his right foot, as he dodged and kicked his leg away.

He finally sat up and bounced on his knees on the cushion in front of her and held out an oversized Hershey's bar at her.

"We got you a th-ank cho," he informed her.

She smiled and took it from him – and glanced over at where Jack was loitering over in the kitchen area, looking sort of embarrassed. "Well, thank you, Benji, that's really nice of you guys."

"We got a big'em so you can share," he told her even more happily.

She snorted at him at that and rubbed down the side of his head. His hair felt so soft now that it'd been shaved down to a more manageable length. She'd had the barber leave just stripe of longer hair on the top of his head for the kid. She didn't really know much about skater culture but had thought that a faux-hawk might fit. Some sort of motherly-genes deep-inside her had also decided it was probably on the list of cutest things she'd seen as of late. And, more importantly, Benji seemed to think he looked pretty damn cool. Though, she'd spent the better part of the week now having to become his stylist and getting it 'spiked right', which apparently she wasn't an expert at.

Benji seemed to better achieve the effect he wanted by messing it up even more. He couldn't keep his good hand out of it during the day. He'd done a good job at clobber himself with his cast too while he tried to "fix it", which likely wasn't helping the doctor's orders to keep him from hitting his head. But he was constantly trying to get it into spikes. He'd told her the best spikes were after he woke up from bed. So, she supposed, bed-head being an ideal fashion, should hopefully make things easier for Jack. Not that she thought Jack had been paying much attention to washing, cutting, or brushing out the kid's hair based on the state of it when Benji had arrived. But now that shouldn't be an issue either. At least for a few months.

"You gonna open it, 'Livia?" Benji asked, pulling her out of her examination of him and her efforts to enjoy the bit of time she had left with him.

"How about it we save it until after dinner, Benj?" She poked at him. "I made your request. Lasagna."

"Sagna!" he near squealed.

She poked him in the belly again. "'Sagna! It's in the oven. Almost ready. So let's not ruin dinner with chocolate. We'll save it for dessert."

She got up from the couch and walked over to where Jack was in the kitchen, leaving Benji to work at wrecking her sofa as he continued to bounced on it on his knees. She figured he couldn't do that much damage. The couch had survived Calvin and he'd used the thing as a stage to practice his air guitar on with her stereo blaring at ungodly levels, that had actually prompted an embarrassing complaint from her own neighbour.

Jack was picking baby tomatoes out of the salad she'd left sitting on the counter waiting for their return. She eyed him somewhat disapprovingly and he caught sight of it and looked a bit more embarrassed but still popped the one he'd already touched into his mouth.

"You didn't have to make like a special dinner or something," he sort of mumbled, as he chewed at the thing.

She shrugged, opening the oven to take a peak at the status of her efforts. It'd been a really long time since she'd attempted lasagna. But really how difficult could it be? Or she hoped. She thought it looked edible. They were boys. How picky were they?

She really hadn't seen that much pickiness out of them at all during the week. For all Jack's initial protests that they didn't eat salads – he'd certainly dug into it whenever she put it on the table, though loaded down with a disgusting amount of parmesan and dressing. And, as for fruit, he'd ploughed through that with just as much vigour too. Fresh, whole foods were clearly something his body had been needing.

Benji had also eaten just about anything she'd put in front of him. He'd approached some of it with trepidation – hummus in particular. But after a couple small tastes of the things that apparently were mystery foods to him, he'd been asking for more all week. He'd about gone through a bag of baby carrots and a tub of hummus all on his own over the course of their stay.

"I thought whatever you guys don't eat, we could package up for you to take home," she said.

Jack glanced at her again and then kind of examined the counter. "That'd be good," he said quietly.

She nodded. "You can take some stuff from the fridge and cupboards too," she added. "It will spoil if I've got to eat what's left on my own."

"Thanks," he said even more softly, not making eye contact.

"You were gone a long time," she said casually, as she grabbed the loaf of Italian bread she'd picked up to make them some garlic toast with their meal.

He shrugged. "He really likes that playground," he said flatly.

She allowed a small nod at that. She'd spent part of every day of their stay over at St. Vartan's with the boy. With the painkillers and the antibiotics working their way out of his system – he'd been a ball of energy. Letting him run around the park and its playground like a maniac had been about the only way to get him to sit still – briefly. Though, she'd had a couple oh-shit-moments where she was sure he'd jarred his arm badly or that he was just playing far to rough and was going to scramble his brain more on her watch. But even with the couple spills and whacks of the cast, he'd seemed mostly unfazed.

He'd loved the spot so much that when Jack had been getting back into her place on the evenings he wasn't working, Benji had been demanding he take him back over to the park. At least, it had given her a chance to make supper-hour meals for them without them underfoot.

She was really feeling sort of domesticated during the week. There were aspects of it that were driving her a little crazy and made her feel a little silly. But at the same time, it felt nice. It felt normal. It felt like something she should be doing. It made her realize how much she was missing that in her life.

It had all just kind of kicked in. It had when Calvin had been with her too. You just did it. Little boys needed to be fed. They needed you following after them cleaning up. They needed to be parented, played with, talked to. She'd rediscovered the laundry room in her building. Dry cleaning had become a bit of a habit for her. But she sure wasn't going to pay for a four-year-old's clothes to get cleaned. She'd also rediscovered running her dishwasher more than once a week and having to mop up the dishes at her sink before it got so full it disgusted her. Three people – especially when two were boys – made a mess a lot quicker than one. Still, she already knew she was going to miss it.

With Calvin she hadn't known it was coming. She almost thought it was better that way. He was just gone. With Benji – she'd spent the week knowing it was temporary and that he'd be gone sooner rather than later. The last couple days had been even harder. She knew it would pain her watching Jack take him out that door. Maybe it wouldn't hurt as much as Benji being ripped away from her. But she knew it was still going to ache – no matter how much she was preparing herself for it.

Jack slid an envelope across the counter at her, and she glanced up from where she was smearing the garlic spread onto the bread.

"Got that for you too," he said.

She looked at the card envelope and then at Jack. He wasn't making eye contact at all. He looked uncomfortable and embarrassed.

"Do you want me to open it now?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Nah. You can do it later. It's just a card anyways."

She nodded and picked it up, sliding it into the little space at the side of her counter where she jammed all her mail – that was usually just bills and junk. So it always seemed to remain unopened until she went on a cleaning spree and then just chucked most of it into recycling. She knew, though, with Jack, even just a card was a big gesture for him. She thought that meant something – counted for something. She forced herself not to comment on it, though. He clearly didn't want her to. So she turned back to what she'd been doing.

"What time do you think you guys are going to head out tomorrow?" she tried to ask casually.

He just shrugged. "I don't know. Sometime in the afternoon, I guess."

She nodded. "You know I can help you guys get back up there and settled," she offered. "You've got a bit more stuff than when you got here – and if we pack up some of the food…"

Jack shrugged. "Maybe."

She glanced back at him. That was better than the outright no she expected. "OK. Well, just let me know."

He allowed a small nod but didn't say anything. He did pick up the salad serving bowl, though, and took it to the table. It was the first-time during their stay that he'd done anything that could even remotely be related to helping her get food for them on the table. Maybe that counted for something too.


	19. Chapter 19

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

For probably the first time in her life, she actually felt glad that she had had to deal with a kid throwing a fit. If Benji hadn't had a bit of a meltdown when Jack had started preparing for them to head back up to their apartment, she was pretty sure he'd been leaning towards not letting her come. Benji, though, had different ideas on the matter.

Apparently Calvin's leftover toys were a bestseller in his mind. She'd had to tell him multiple times he could take whatever toys he wanted with him. He just didn't seem to hear.

"But 'Livia has Bumblebee," he kept crying at Jack.

It took her a while to realize he meant the damn Transformer, which apparently had a name. She'd somehow missed that with Calvin, despite having watched the fucking-awful movies with him, which probably said something about how bad they were and how much attention she was paying to the things while he had them going on the TV. She kept telling Benji, he could have the thing, but he seemed to convinced it had to stay at her apartment. She was starting to wonder if he was running similar logic to Calvin. Leave the toy and you'll eventually come back to it? Kids' minds sometimes worked in strange ways.

The tears had reached even more epic levels when he realized that the dragon he made at Build-A-Bear was "hers." So, apparently, then he really couldn't take it home – because it wasn't his. She'd again had to tell him multiple times that she was giving it to him; that she thought he could take much better care of Flame than she could. It took a lot of convincing – and Jack had rather conveniently stayed out of the whole thing, letting her deal with it.

The whole meltdown had again made her wonder how he dealt with any of Benji's crying spells, because the approach he seemed to take in her observation was that if he ignored it, the little boy would just shut up. That only worked to a point. Self-soothing couldn't be applied in every situation. That was just negligence.

The tears had continued about "good dinner" and even the fucking hummus and carrots. Worst had been when he started putting up a fuss about leaving her bedding. It really made her wonder what the hell the poor kid was sleeping on. She'd seriously considered packing up her duvet and just giving it to them. (Standing in their apartment now, she kind of wished she had.)

So it had been a long hour-or-so of her taking the lead role in convincing Benji that it was time for him and Jack to go home and that she'd see him again later – that they could come over for dinner on the weekend, if they wanted, and to play. It had been a shitty lead to take when all she wanted to do was say that the little boy should stay. That she didn't mind. That she'd take care of him.

Her apartment wasn't anywhere near being set up for the ongoing care of a little boy. But she'd made it work with Calvin. She'd made it work with these two over the past week. She could figure out. She thought she was better established to figure it out than Jack was. Standing in their apartment now, she was even more sure she was in a better position to figure it out than Jack.

He'd finally relented and said she could come and help them get back to the place. She thought he was basically just saying it to get Benji to shut-up, even though none of his protests about leaving had been specifically about leaving her. It had mostly been about what she was providing him – food, shelter, a bed, toys. But, she thought that kind of counted for something. Though, also terrified her a bit more about what exactly the kids' living situation was.

It wasn't bad. In some ways it was pretty much exactly what she expected. In a lot of other ways, it just wasn't great. It might've been OK for a sophomore university student slumming it up while they worked through school. But, she really didn't think it was any place for a little kid to be living.

It was a small – small being the operative word – studio apartment that was definitely well-lived in even before these two had moved in. The appliances in the place's kitchen hardly looked like they worked and their colour, which was likely once white, now looked almost grey. Some of the cupboard doors were just barely hanging on their hinges.

The raggedy couch that was in there looked like it was likely something Jack had claimed from the garbage area of some apartment building. Their coffee table was four milk crates turned upside down. It looked like he was using more milk crates as toy boxes and bookcases in the place too. She was wondering if he'd dragged those down to the city somehow from the diary farm somehow or if he'd snatched them from the loading area of some store. The TV looked like it was from at least a decade ago. She was actually surprised he was even modern enough that he'd been able to hook up his videogame system to it – or that its screen was large enough that they'd want to play any games on it. He did have one beaten up looking bookshelf and an even sadder-looking desk shoved off against the one wall.

She'd lived in some real shoeboxes when she first moved back to the city after college and had been working through the academy and then in her early years with the NYPD. But this place really took it to a whole new level. She didn't want to think about having to share the little space with two people – especially when one of them was a little boy that couldn't sit still for very long.

So she was even less impressed with their sleeping situation. She was expecting to see a mattress on the floor. That wouldn't have surprised her. But it wasn't even a mattress. They had two twin-sized camping air-mattresses piled on top of each other in another corner with just some thread-bare sheets and old-looking wool blankets on them. Benji had jumped on top of them when they got in and told her it was like sleeping on a pool toy. He was right. They might has well have been Dollar Store inflatable longer for the pool. To her it looked like a back-misalignment waiting to happen.

The whole place was a bit of a messy. Benji had toys scattered on the floor and there were just as many clothes on the floor. But it didn't look like they had drawers to put them in – and apparently weren't using the closet for that. Even the clothes that looked clean were folded in a pile against the one wall.

She was also kind of questioning if the place had been cleaned since they moved it. It wasn't disgusting but it really didn't look like they'd taken a duster or a mop to the place any time recently. She didn't want to think what the bathroom looked like. She figured she'd probably go into it before leaving – just to check out the situation – but she really didn't think she'd actually be using it. If this was what the living space looked like – she could only imagine the grime in a boys' bathroom.

She pulled open the fridge door. There was nearly nothing in it, which also didn't surprise her. Cheez Whiz, strawberry jam, ketchup and a jar of pickles were accompanied by some badly blacken bananas, some really dried up looking apples and some deli Black Forest ham that likely should just be tossed in the garbage after sitting there for at least a week, if not longer.

"Stop looking through our stuff," Jack snapped at her, coming over to the small kitchen area.

She glanced at him and hoisted the bag of groceries she'd packed for them from her fridge. "I was just going to put the food away for you," she tossed back at him.

"I can do it myself," he said.

She just shook her head and shrugged, letting him grab it from her hands.

"Wanna see my Tech Decks, 'Livia," Benji called at her from where he was near bouncing with excitement over by the little bookshelf.

She left Jack to banging away in the kitchen-space she was apparently unwelcome in and moved over to Benji.

"Sure, Benj," she agreed, and stood listening to him babble about how the little toy set that looked like a skate park, and the mini skateboards, let him pretend to skateboard but not really skateboard … and you could do tricks but he couldn't really do tricks but he could still pretend to skateboard but Jack knew how to do tricks but you had to use your hands and you had to be very good and he wasn't very good … but it looked like a skate park so you could still pretend. As fascinating as the conversation and the ongoing demonstration was, she found her eyes instead settling on a framed picture on the shelf.

In the photograph in the cheap-looking wooden frame, a younger Jack and a girl, that she knew must be Izzy, were standing with a much older looking Jay than she'd known. It was definitely still Jay but his hair had hints of grey in it and his hairline was showing the starts of receding. He'd put on some weight – but who ever maintained their weight from when they were 21? It was his smile, though, and his eyes still had that sparkle in it.

He looked happy and comfortable – almost like he didn't have a care in the world. Though, she knew that couldn't have been true. His wife had left him with two little kids to raise on his own. He'd given up whatever life he'd established in the city to move back to the family farm. She knew none of that had been in the life-plan of the man she'd known. It didn't sound like the kids had made it easy for him either.

The way Jack told it his sister was rebellious, a party-girl with an affinity for drugs, alcohol and older boys. Olivia was actually starting to wonder what sort of drug-use or alcohol consumption Jack's sister had partaken in during her pregnancy. Benji was a nice little boy – but she definitely was seeing some hyperactivity, impulsiveness and his anxiety levels issues. Though, she supposed that could be related to several psychological issues as well, and not necessarily cognitive or developmental problems from whatever was inflicted on the fetus during the pregnancy.

Still, she knew from the bit Jack had said that Izzy had made a habit of getting herself in situations that she needed help getting out of – and it sounded like that had fallen on Jay, her father. Even in the picture she looked morose. While Jay and Jack were smiling at the camera, she was dressed in black, with jet-black hair to match, and was glaring at the camera.

And, then there was Jack. She wasn't sure if it was Jay's premature death or just his whole growing-up situation in general – an absent mother, a troubled sister that demanded his attention, a small community that likely didn't cater to his interests - but whatever it was, he was now a very hurt and angry young man. He didn't have the same smile as the kid she saw in the picture. She guessed he was likely about 12 in it. He looked small – Jay still had a lot of height on him. He wasn't the six-foot kid that she'd had sulking in her apartment for the past week. He did have his arms crossed over his chest, though, and a defiant-look intermingled with his smug grin. Still, he looked perfectly comfortable with the way Jay was hanging his arm over his shoulder. His father clearly had him pulled slightly against his chest in a casual embrace.

She wondered what the significance of the photo was. Why Jack had decided to put that one on display? His sister, who he hadn't had much nice to say was in it, and her presence certainly didn't seem to make it that much of a happy family photo. She wondered, though, if maybe that was the last photo of the three of them as a family. From what Jack had said about the sister, it sounded like her teens had been wild and a downward spiral. She suspected the girl was likely 14 or so in the picture. She might not have been posing for family photos much after that.

Olivia started to scan the shelf to see if Jack had any other hints about his family life or back-story hanging around. But her eyes instead fell on a book, he had sitting out in plain view on the second shelf. It was from so long ago – but she near instantly recognized the brightly-coloured hardcover.

The Windermere Reader publication with the rabbit on the front, the knight on the horse, the phoenix rising in the top corner and the pirate at his treasure chest. Even more images from classic children's novels spanned across the back, she knew. She reached for it – picking it up and running her hand across the cover, before flipping it over and smiling at the rest of the drawings on the back – Heidi, Gulliver's Travels, The Three Musketeers, 2,000 Leagues Under the Sea. But the story inside the 1950s re-print was Treasure Island.

She opened the cover – and there it was: "Happy Christmas, 1976" in her mother's neat, cursive hand. She ran two of her fingers over it, trying to feel the indents in the page that her mother's pen and hand had made all those years ago. She hadn't thought of that book in years. But she didn't have a chance to think about it now, either.

Jack snatched it from her hands. "Don't touch my things," he near yelled at her.

She gaped at him a moment – but let a small breath and rubbed at her eyebrow.

"Sorry," she offered, again forcing herself to try with him – to not return the anger he so readily seemed to switch on-and-off with her. She nodded towards the book he was clutching almost protectively to his chest. "That was my book," she said. "I gave it to your Dad."

It was a bit of a white lie. She'd lent it to him. But with the way Jack had grabbed it from her and how he was clutching it now – she really doubted he wanted to hear it was still out on loan.

But, it really had just been meant to be a loaner. Her and Jay had been fooling around in her dorm room and had just been lounging in the bed, taking a bit of a break. She remembered the two of them laying there in their underwear in the dim light. She could distinctly remember that she'd had her hand intertwined with his and had been looking at at the way their finger and knuckles laced together with some sort of fascination. But Jay apparently had gotten restless with the quiet time and the cool-down period she'd imposed. He'd rolled away from her and he started examining the books on the narrow shelf at the head of her bed, pulling nearly every one off to look at more closely. She'd watched him for a bit but had then started trailing kisses across the back of his shoulders – deciding she'd rather keep up the contact then have him digging through her things. It hadn't deterred him from what he was up to at that point, though.

"Why do you have all these?" he'd asked, as he examined each of the bound classics along the shelf. "Don't you have enough reading to do without all this crap?"

The way he'd phrased it, had pissed her off. She still remembered that. She'd stopped the kisses, and grabbed the copy of Pride and Prejudice he'd had in his hand at the time – much like Jack had just done with her – and shoved it back onto its proper spot on the shelf.

"They aren't crap," she snapped at him. "They're classics."

"Classic crap," he'd offered with a smug grin that wasn't that dissimilar from the one Jack kept flashing at her now whenever he said something particularly smart-assed. Then he went back to pulling more of her collection out to examine.

"Leave them alone, Jay," she'd near demanded, pulling his hands away, only for him to struggle them out of her tight grip and return to tipping the spines out one at a time. "My mother gave them to me. I get one every year at Christmas. It's about as close to nice as she gets – one of our only traditions. So just … leave them alone. Please."

He glanced at her when she said that. He knew enough about her family life at that point – or at least the lack of family stories she brought back from the few holidays she did bother going home for, that her relationship with her mother was strained. But he still pulled out the one his hand was on then.

"Treasure Island?" he nearly teased. "Isn't that a boys' book?"

She grabbed for it too, but he held it out of her reach, being a bit of a jerk. She'd decided at that point that he wasn't getting anymore than what he'd already gotten that night. Their underwear would be staying on and he'd likely soon be out the door.

"It's a good book," she'd just told him sternly. "Put it back."

He pulled it down to his chest and ran his thumb through the pages.

"Jason, don't be rough with them," she'd protested and grabbed at it again, but he'd pulled his shoulder forward protectively so he could continue to examine it out of her sight and reach.

"I've never read it," he eventually said, as she continued to bat at and wrestle at his shoulder, him seeming to think it was a bit of a game to pull away from her efforts. He glanced over his shoulder at her. "Can I borrow it, Liv?"

She glared at him. "No," she'd told him simply.

"Ah, com'on," he'd protested. "Don't get all wadded up about it, Liv. I was just teasing you. I'll be careful with it. Promise."

She'd shaken her head at him. So he'd snuggled up to her and started trying to be cute, kissing up her bicep and shoulder and then neck and ear – even as she squirmed away from him a bit. She was still pissed with him. But it felt nice and he was giving her that ridiculously silly look of his that nearly always ended up getting him laid. The fucking asshole.

"I'll be careful with it," he promised again, between nibbling at her ear. "I swear."

She looked at him. "I'll be really upset with you, if you return it to me damaged or you lose it," she warned him. "Really upset."

"I won't lose it," he said and crossed his finger over his heart. "I hope to die."

She snorted at him and rolled her eyes. He was still giving her that look that always killed her and seemed to get him what he wanted about 75 per cent of the time. She gave him a small nod. "OK," she relented – and then relented to the rest of what he was after that night too.

But she never had gotten the book back. A couple months after that there'd been the pregnancy scare and then their relationship-status arguments and break-up. And it was all in the midst of her trying to finish up her term and graduate. She hadn't even been thinking about the book and didn't realize that it was still missing until she was packing up her room. She'd sought out Jay to get it back – but he'd already moved out of residence and disappeared to the rest of his life. So it had just remained missing from her collection.

She thought about it whenever she moved and had to pack up her books and then order them on her new bookshelves. She always put them on the shelf by the year her mother had given them to her – and that year always got skipped. Her only missing one from 32 Christmases. But she hadn't moved in several years now – and the little recognition that one was missing hadn't hit her for years. Really, with each move and each passing year, she'd thought about it less and less. Much like her relationship with Jay all those years ago – she really hadn't thought much about it until now.

"No you didn't," Jack spat back at her – pulling her back to the present and this reincarnation of Jay. Or at least a very angry Jay. "My grandfather gave it to my Dad when he was a little boy."

She shook her head. "My mother gave it to me when I was a little girl. That's her writing inside the cover."

She saw a recognition flash across Jack's face at the mention of that. It clearly looked like a woman's writing – not a man's. But he clutched it to his chest even tighter with her saying that. "My grandfather gave it to him. My Dad read it to me. He said it would be mine when I got older. It's mine."

He sounded near tears. In fact, she was sure she saw his eyes starting to glass in the shitty yellowy-orange light in the apartment. So she just nodded.

"OK, Jack. It's yours. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong."

"You are wrong," he spat at her harder.

She nodded. "Maybe I am. It's your book now. I wasn't going to take it."

He clutched it tighter to his chest and kept eyeing her and blinking hard. He was going to cry and she could see him fighting it so hard. She reached out to touch his shoulder – a small gesture to calm him, but he jerked away.

"It's OK, Jack," she told him softly. "I'm sorry I touched your things."

He nodded and blinked harder and then swiped at his face – diverting his eyes from her.

"Ah, I guess, I should get going," she said after an awkward silence hung there for several seconds and Jack was clearly still trying to get his emotions into check. "I've got things to do before work tomorrow. I'm sure you guys do too."

"DON'T GO 'LIVIA!" Benji had protested next to her where he was still playing.

She gave him a little smile and caressed his head. "I've got to, Benj," she nodded at him. "I've got a lot of things I need to do before tomorrow morning – and you need to get all rested up for daycare."

"NO!" he'd nearly yelled.

She nodded again, now trying to keep her emotions in check. "I've got to Benji. But Jack has my phone number – so you call whenever you want to talk, OK?"

"I CALL NOW," he told her.

She crouched down and looked him in the eye. "Not now, Benji. You can give me a call in a few hours when you're going to bed, OK? And, you and Jack will come and visit me, OK? And, hopefully I'll get to come and play with you and Jack on the weekends too," she said, and glanced at Jack hoping he'd give some positive affirmation to Benji (and really her too) but he still seemed distracted about the whole thing with the book. He looked spaced and still like he was about to fall apart. She really hoped she hadn't sent him off the deep-end with touching the bloody book.

"The weekend is forever away," Benji whined. "I want to go to the playground."

She gave him a small smile. "Well, Benj, you're just going to have to wait until the weekend. Jack will have to find you another playground around here."

"NO!" Benji protested again and this time stomped his foot.

She gave him another little nod and placed her hands on his little arms. "Yes," she told him sternly but softly.

"NO!" he yelled again, this time the tears starting down his face.

She bit her lip. Fuck, she thought. She didn't want to get emotional. She was trying so hard not to. But she pulled him to her and engulfed his little body in a hug.

"Com'on, Benji, don't do this. We talked about this. You and Jack are home now. But you'll come and visit me and we'll play again then."

"I want to play now," he cried into her ear.

She rubbed his back. "I know, sweetheart. But right now, we all need to start winding down to get ready for our Monday mornings. So you and Jack are going to stay here and do that – because this is your home. And I've got to go to my home now and do the same."

"Don't leave 'Livia," he cried against her.

She rubbed his back and placed a small kiss on his temple. It was the first time she'd kissed him during their stay and she knew the moment she did it, it was a mistake. The water she'd felt pushing against her eyes turned into a tear that streaked down her cheek and she fought so hard to keep the rest that were pooling to stay put.

"OK," she said, standing back up, even as Benji grabbed at her still. "I need to go."

She nearly had to extract herself from the little boy's grip and almost push his arms that were still reaching for her away while he continued to cry. It broke her heart into a million pieces. But the situation was escalating and she couldn't drag it out. It was only going to make things worse. He crumpled onto the ground in a mess of hysterics. Her being was screaming at her to get back down onto the ground and comfort him until he calmed. But she knew the tears would likely just start again the next time she moved to leave. She couldn't drag this out for him. She just had to get out of there. Let him get back to his normal routine. Get herself back to her routine. It was for the best, she kept on telling herself.

She turned towards Jack, who was still clutching the book and watching her and Benji's interaction in a near daze. She gave him a thin smile through her glassed eyes and her closing throat.

"I'll be in touch," she told him. It felt like it came out in a near croak. "I'd really appreciate if you were too."

His eyes tracked and finally met hers. "The picture," he said quietly.

She glanced behind her at the framed photo that she'd been looking at before and then gave him a questioning look.

"Of you and Dad," he said at a near whisper. "It was in the book. It's what we used as a bookmark when I was a kid. He'd read me a chapter and tell me a story from college – from the picture. It was still inside the cover when he died."

She watched him. She didn't know what to say to that.

Jay had kept her book. He'd told his son a story about where it had come from – but he'd read it to the boy. And he'd kept the old photo there. He knew the book was hers, clearly. He remembered that. He'd placed an extra reminder there that it wasn't his – and then he'd given it to his son.

To her it just sounded like a touch of guilt in Jay about keeping something that wasn't his. But it seemed to mean more to Jack. The way he was treating the book, it was like it was one of the only tangible items he had left of his father. If the photo was inside that book – it at least added a bit more context about why he was carrying the thing around with him in his back pocket and why he'd sought her out, generally. It was still such a screwed up situation, though. What stories had Jay put in this kid's head? What ideas? What misconceptions? What the hell was she supposed to be doing for him? What could she do for him when he kept putting up walls?

Tears started to stream down Jack's face – and he madly wiped at them. She stood the few feet from him and watched for a moment. He was so reluctant to even talk to her – her touching him seemed like it would be even worse. But she reached out and pulled the kid – the fucking kid, who stood at least five inches taller than her – to her and rubbed his back.

"It's OK, Jack," she told him.

His body was shaking so hard she thought he might be starting to hyperventilate.

"It's OK," she assured him and rubbed his back a bit more. He had kept the book clutched to him and wasn't returning the hug but he wasn't making any move to pull away from her either.

"I don't know how to do this," he finally managed to sob out, shaking some more.


	20. Chapter 20

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

It had taken her quite a while to calm the two boys. In the midst of Jack's breakdown, it had come out that he'd gotten one of his midterms back on Thursday and had done poorly. He needed to ace the rest of the assignments for the term in that course and get at least an A- on the final exam, if he wanted to have the grades to keep his scholarship in the winter term. There was still almost a month left of classes before the university went into its exam schedule. He had time – but it'd be a lot of hard work and he just didn't seem to think it would be possible to do.

"I'm going to end up a nobody doing nothing just like my Dad," he'd said with so much disgust.

She'd been sitting on the couch with him at that point and rubbed at his back. "Your Dad wasn't a nobody, Jack," she'd told him.

Jack nodded. "He was. He didn't do anything with his life. He always said I'd do something with my life but I won't be doing anything now."

"Jack, everyone has some bad tests in college, some bad assignments. No one is perfect. I had a midterm that I got a D+ on. I freaked out too. But I worked my butt off on the end-of-term essay and got a good mark. I passed the course just fine – with a decent mark. I know, for a fact, that your Dad had more than a few blips in his grades too."

"He wasn't on scholarship," Jack spat back. "And, look what he did with his life anyways – nothing."

"He raised a family, Jack," she told him seriously. "That's a big something. He worked your family's farm – kept that business and tradition going. That's something I'm sure your grandparents really appreciated. That's something too."

Jack made a snorting sound. "Yeah, and what's he got to show for any of it? He's dead."

"He's got you and Benji to show for it, Jack," she told him and rubbed his hunched shoulders some more. "We all die, Jack. We just have to try our best to honour the memory of the person when they're gone - and to live up to that memory."

"What do you know about it?" he'd demanded almost accusingly.

Her hand had stopped the movement on his back nearly mid-rub. She gave a small sigh and then continued the gesture.

"Well, I didn't lose my Mom when I was a teenager like you. But she died unexpectedly in an accident about 12 years ago. I was in my early-30s – and coping with that even as an adult was challenging. It was hard. It took me a long-time too, Jack. Sometimes it's still hard – I'm still grieving in a way now."

He glanced at her a bit. "What kind of accident?"

She met his eyes and rubbed at her eyebrow, thinking about how she wanted to answer, but decided not to sugarcoat it. "She fell down some subway stairs. She was drunk. … She was an alcoholic, Jack."

He examined her for a moment and then went back to examining the floor – hiding his tear-bloodshot eyes from her again.

"None of us have perfect childhoods, Jack," she said. "At least no one I know. We've all got baggage. Sometimes letting other people carry some of the load for us helps."

He'd gotten quiet as he calmed, though, and she just left him to deal with it his own way – turning her focus to soothing and playing with Benji. She'd eventually called out an order of Chinese take-out for the boys. They didn't have enough in the fridge to even get them through the week – if they did come back to see her on the weekend so she could restock them. She didn't want them to start eating through it that night.

She watched Jack as he picked away at the order of General Tso's chicken. He was eating about the slowest she'd seen him eat. Her experience during the week was that the kid generally attacked his food.

Benji wasn't paying too much attention to the meal. He kept coming back to the makeshift milk-crate table, taking a bite of the egg roll she'd put on his plate or a forkful of fried rice and then buzzing off to play with his toys again, chattering at both of them about what he was doing – even though neither of them were really giving him much response. She was focused on Jack and trying to decide what to do – or how to frame any of her ideas in a way that he wouldn't recoil from.

"So what do you want to do Jack?" she finally asked casually. She purposely didn't even look at him, focusing on putting a bit more of the vegetable lo mein on her plate instead.

He glanced at her, so she turned to meet his eyes.

"Do you want to put some more of your stuff in a bag and come back down to my place?" she asked.

He shook his head – but gave no verbal response.

She put her fork back on the plate and rested it on her knees, watching him as he stabbed at his chicken awkwardly with some chopsticks. She rubbed her eyebrow and let out a deep breath.

"Do you want me to take Benji for a few days so you can focus on your studies?"

He glanced at her more quickly and she saw his eyes starting to glass over again – so he looked away and shook his head hard.

"I think you need some time to really focus on your studies, Jack," she tried again.

"I'm OK," he said quietly.

"Jack," she tried to say sternly but kindly, "I think we've established that you really aren't OK."

He looked at her sideways.

"I think keeping your scholarship and being able to finish your schooling is something you want," she told him. "I think that's something your dad would want too."

He just gave her a shrug.

"Com'on, Jack, we were doing really good at having grown-up conversations here. Don't revert back to this again."

"You're trying to take him away," he said quietly after a lengthy silence, and he didn't make eye contact.

She sighed hard. Maybe in a way she was. But she wasn't. "I am not trying to take him away, Jack," she told him. "I'm trying to help you get through what looks like a pretty difficult period in your life."

"Why?" he asked quietly and pushed his food around his plate some more.

Why was right. She'd been asking herself that a lot. Why did she ever get herself in situations like this? Why couldn't she just let this one go?

She put her plate back onto the milk crate and turned herself more towards him. "Because if I had a son your age, and he was in a situation like this, I would want someone to help him. Your Dad would want me to help you."

"You don't know that," he said.

She nodded. "Yes, I do, Jack," she said. "I may not have known the man your Dad became – but I know the Jay that I spent 18 months with, and that man would've wanted me to help you. That man would've tried to help someone if they were in this kind of situation.

"He was a good man. He could be a bit of an ass – kind of like you – but he had a good heart and was always interested in people and learning about people and doing even the littlest things to help them out. I literally saw him give people the shirt off his back, Jack. That was just Jay. And, I know that even back then, family was important to him. So I know how important you and Benji – and the both of you being OK – would've been to him now."

"We're OK," he said again.

She shook her head. "No, Jack, you are not OK. Look around. This is not OK. This is not a normal situation for an 18-year-old college student. This is not a normal situation for a four-year-old boy. You both deserve better. Let me help. I'll take Benji for a few days this week. You'll work on your assignment. You'll get caught up on your readings. Whatever you need to do."

"A few days isn't enough anyways," he said quietly.

She nodded. "OK. We'll start with a few days – and then you and I are going to sit down again and we're going to have a real conversation about all of this. We're going to talk about potential solutions for how you can deal with this – in a way that's best for you and for Benji.

"You're going to take a few days – focus on your studies and you're going to think, like a grown-up, about potential solutions to this mess. You do have options. We're going to talk about them. We're going to start looking at some of them."

He shook his head.

"Yes, Jack," she said with a quiet sternness.

"He won't like it," he said eventually.

She glanced at Benji. He was sitting near the one wall basically unaware of their conversation connecting some Duplo blocks into something unrecognizable, though she was sure they'd be told what it was when he was done.

"I think he'll do OK," she tried to assure him. "You're going to be calling and talking to him. And, you're going to pick up the phone when I call too. And, you are keeping the keys to my place – so you can come over anytime you want."

"He'll be scared."

"I'll deal with that. You don't have to worry about it. You are going worry about just your schooling for a few days."

"You work."

"I'll deal with that too. That's not something you have to worry about either."

"His daycare is up here."

She shook her head. "Not for the next few days. He'll be cared for. You don't have to worry about that."

"What if something happens?"

"That's why you are going to pick up your phone when I call. You're his guardian, Jack. I can't make any decisions. I can't just take him away. I'm just going to take care of him for a few days. Just like what I've been doing – only difference is that you don't have to come back to the apartment each night if you don't want to. You're welcome, if you do. But, I think you should take a few days to yourself – focus on your studies, think about how we're going to deal with this situation."

He shrugged.

"Words, Jack," she said.

"It sounds like a dumb idea," he said finally.

"The way you're living right now is a dumb idea, Jack," she said flatly. "Think about that. Let me help."


	21. Chapter 21

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She glanced at Benji.

There'd been some tears but he'd calmed fairly quickly – especially after he got the option of having the first bit of TV time he'd seen in over a week. Apparently whatever qualms had had about being alone with her had faded quickly after he had a screen to stare at.

He'd started out over on his own side of her couch but after she'd sat down, he'd slowly worked his way over until he was cuddled against her. She'd eventually spread herself out on the couch, laying down, and he didn't seem to think anything of basically flaking out half-ways on top of her either. She'd hesitated with the positioning at first, but quickly found her arms wrapping around him and rubbing his back and smoothing out what was left of his hair.

It felt ridiculously natural – like those mothering genes were just ingrained somewhere in her genetic makeup and where just sort of kicking in now that this little boy was there. It was something she'd felt the pull of more than a few times as she got older but had had to force herself to push aside or ignore. But now she had this little kid sprawled out on half on top of her – half his body wedged against the back of the couch, his little feet restlessly kicking at her every time he decided to move, and his head near curled under her chin. She couldn't ignore it. And, the reality was, it felt good.

He rolled a little bit again and brought his hands up to her hair. She watched him for a moment and gave him a little smile but turned her attention back to the television. She was kind of shocked at the dearth of family programming on television on a Sunday night. There was really nothing on that was age appropriate for Benji. She was really wondering what happened to The Wonderful World of Disney from her youth or a Sunday night family movie – or something.

She hadn't really noticed how bad the television options were when Calvin had been with her. He seemed content to watch basketball or football – and then there was always the Simpsons. But she wasn't going to let Benji watch the Simpsons – or Family Guy or the Cleveland Show or American Dad. It seemed like a show being animated made it suddenly appropriate to put the show in family-viewing timeslots. It definitely wasn't her definition of family viewing – at least not with a preschooler.

She'd flipped through the channels multiple times for him and hadn't really been able to find anything. She thought maybe her cable package was lacking in terms of having a kid in her home. She'd eventually found Hook playing on some channel. Benji had seemed enthralled for a period – but that must've just been the excitement of getting to watch any television. His attention had clearly faded now. She was kind of interested in seeing the rest of the movie. But she didn't think she was going to get that chance with how he was it starting to stir, though.

"What you doing, Benj?" she asked him, as he continued to work at her hair – now with both of his hands, rapping her occasionally with his cast.

"Fixing it," he told her.

She gave him a little smile. "Fixing my hair?"

He nodded.

"Mmm," she said. "Does that mean you're spiking my hair?"

He nodded again.

"I don't think long hair spikes very well, Benj. That's why we got yours cut short."

He looked at her and thought about it. "I make it messy for you, tho," he offered.

She gave him a snort and again couldn't help but smile at that. "Ah, thank you. I appreciate that."

He nodded. "Welcome."

She shook her head at him and his ridiculousness – but he didn't seem deterred from his efforts.

"You don't like the movie?" she asked, glancing back at it again.

"Boring," he told her.

She snorted. "I think it's pretty good."

"Boring," he told her again.

"Mmm," she said, and held her wrist up to look at her watch. "Well, it is actually almost your bedtime, I think."

He shook his head hard at that.

But she just nodded. "Yea, Benj. It's getting late."

"Jee-Peedg isn't here yet."

She looked at him hard and reached to still his hands, pushing herself to sit up a bit more.

"We talked about that, Benji. Jack isn't going to be here tonight. He is going to stay at the apartment for a couple days – and you're going to stay here with me. He has lots and lots of schoolwork to do and needs time and quiet to concentrate."

"But he isn't here yet," Benji interjected again.

"He's not," she agreed, "and he's not going to be tonight. He'll come over in a couple days."

"But he was crying," Benji said.

She nodded and rubbed his back a bit. "He was. But he wasn't crying anymore when we left, was he?"

Benji shook his head. "But he was."

"He was," she agreed again. "But not anymore."

"Why he crying 'Livia?"

She rubbed his back again. "I think Jack is just missing his dad a bit today."

"Because Pops is dead."

She nodded. "Yes, sweetheart, because his dad is dead – and your uncle was missing him very much this afternoon."

"Mama's dead too."

She nodded and rubbed his back a bit harder. "Yes, sweetheart, your Mommy's dead too."

"But now they together, Jee-Peedg says. So they see each other but we can't see 'em. But we can still talk to 'em." He'd moved to examining the necklaces on her chest, picking up each one and flicking at it.

That coming out of his little mouth wrenched her a bit. She wasn't expecting him to say it – and it just hit her. She'd heard similar things out of the mouths of child victims or witnesses trying to explain things to her. But this was a little boy in her home – laying so close to her that she could feel his little breaths and his little beating heart against her. She must've been losing her edge in her old age – getting too sentimental, she blamed it on fucking Elliot and Calvin and David – because she felt her eyes glass again.

She nodded. "Jack's right," she said. "Your uncle can be pretty smart."

"Mama has a necklace but it a dragon," Benji told her, still looking at hers.

She watched him, as his little fingers moved around each of the three medallions around her neck. "Like Flame?" she asked.

He nodded. "But her dragon has a crystal ball ba-cuz he took it from the bad king. His name is Egon."

She gave him another smile. "That sounds like a pretty neat necklace."

"You don't have a dragon," he told her.

She rubbed her hand from his temple, down to his chin and looked at him. His mother had clearly made poor choices and was obviously a confused and hurting girl – but she had managed to produce a beautiful little boy. And, despite the things Jack had said, the little anecdotes from Benji – cuddles and shakes, the story of a dragon necklace, his general comfort with her as another woman – made her hope that the girl hadn't been all that bad. She might not have been the best mother – but she certainly hadn't been the worst either; save for the whole stupid choices that had left this little boy without a mother for the majority of his life now.

"I don't have a dragon," she agreed. "But I do have this."

She lifted the longest chain for him and let the medallion dangle until he took it. She watched him examine Elliot's Semper Fidelis medal with some interest.

"That's a military medal," she told him, as Benji looked at it. "An army medal," she clarified for him, realizing that military likely didn't mean anything to him.

"Like an army man? I have Army Men."

She gave him another smile. She knew he had army men. The bucket of the cheap plastic toys been one of the things they'd packaged up to bring back to her place. Actually, they'd ended up with a whole milk crate of toys to bring back down to her apartment, in addition to packing up more of his clothes.

"Like an army man. My good friend was an army man …"

"A real army man?" Benji interrupted with some excitement.

She nodded. "A real army man – a Marine. And he gave me this medal of his."

"Real army man get medals when they shot, 'Livia, and they hav-ta be very brave."

She nodded. "That's true too. You're pretty smart too, Benj."

"He very brave 'Livia?"

She nodded. "He is a very brave man."

"He get shot?"

She nodded again. "He's been shot."

He looked at her wide-eyed and looked back at the necklace. "He have a gun?"

She snorted. "Yes, Benji. He had a gun."

"A grenade launcher?"

She laughed. "How do you even know what a grenade launcher is?"

"Jee-Peedg say Master Chief have a grenade launcher."

She rolled her eyes. Well, there's a fantastic toy, she thought. But what did she know – she bought it for Calvin and had also bought him toy guns. She clearly didn't excel at appropriate toy choices. Of course, she'd let him do the picking and had just been happy to watch his excitement at getting to pick whatever he wanted. She hadn't put regulations on it. Maybe she should've.

"I don't think he had much use for a grenade launcher," she said. "That's not a very practical thing."

"Prac-tic-call?"

"It's not something someone would ever have to use very much. What would you use a grenade launcher for, Benj?"

"To blow stuff up - BOOM!" he declared and made a giant arm motion, dropping the necklace back onto her chest.

She laughed. He was definitely a boy. "Ah, well, I don't think you need to be blowing anything up, Benj."

He flopped his body weight back onto her. "Why?"

She rubbed his back. "Blowing stuff up isn't very nice. It's not good behaviour."

"But it goes boom."

She nodded. "Yea, it does go boom."

"When Jee-Peedg coming, 'Livia?"

She sighed. "In a couple days, Benj. But we'll call him – and he's going to call you. How about we get you into your jammies and then you can call him before you go to bed?"

He rubbed his cheek against her shoulder. "I want snack," he informed her.

She looked at the top of his head. "You aren't still full from your dinner?"

He shook his head against her.

"OK," she said, and pushed herself into an upright position even more, but Benji wrapped his arms around her neck. "You need to let go, if you want me to make you a snack, Benj."

"Carry," he demanded.

She examined him. "You don't think you're a little big for that, Benj? I think maybe you're just acting a little tired."

He rubbed his face against her arm – further proving her point, as far as she was concerned. But she wasn't going to argue about it. She didn't want to establish bad habits in him – but she also was kind of seizing onto each opportunity she got to treat him like the little boy he was and to do the mothering of a child that age that she'd never gotten to do before, and maybe never would again. So she wrapped her one arm around his back and shoved her other under his ass for some support and hoisted them both off the couch, settling him against her hip as he wrapped his legs around her waist and returned his head to her shoulder.

She was consistently surprised at how light he was. She'd put him on her scale at one point the week before, just because she was curious, and he'd come in at just over 32 lbs. She knew he was barely four, but she could tell just by looking at him, he was a little small for his age. A little bit of online research had confirmed that. He was within acceptable weight and height range for a kid his age, but he was he was at the low-end of things. It had just added to her wondering about what had gone on during the pregnancy.

She carried him into the kitchen. "So what do you think you want? Some cheese and apple slices?"

He shook his head against her.

"Yogurt cup?"

He shook his head again.

"Piece of peanut butter toast?"

He nodded.

She looked at him. "Yeah?"

He nodded again.

"OK," she agreed and grabbed the bag of bread from the counter and fumbled a bit to get the tie off one-handed.

She was still getting used to the multi-tasking thing with a kid underfoot, clinging to her, or literally taking up one of her arms or hands. Calvin would get underfoot. But he was 11. He was easier to dodge around or to direct to do things himself – or to just tell him to get lost.

She got a piece of the whole wheat out and went to put it in the toaster.

"I push it," Benj told her a little more loudly than he needed to since his mouth was nearly against her ear.

She nodded. "OK," she said and bent him over the counter so he could reach out and push the lever on the toaster down himself.

She bounced him back into place on her hip again, after he'd completed his contribution to the snack-making effort and opened the upper cupboard for him.

"Grab the peanut butter," she told him.

He seemed to examine the shelves in the cupboard for a second – like he wasn't too sure which was the peanut butter, but then choose the right jar and handed it to her.

She gave him a smile. "Thank you, Benji."

She opened the next cupboard over. "Now a plate."

He reached out his hands again and awkwardly took down a plate – it drooping a bit in his partially cast-encased hand. So she grabbed it before he could lose his grip and put it on the counter, pulling open a drawer and grabbing a knife for when the toast popped.

"Your peanut butter has crunches, 'Livia," he told her while she stood with him in front of the toaster, watching the red of the coils inside it.

She nodded. "It does. It's the crunchy kind. You like that? That why you're such a peanut butter monster here?"

He nodded against her.

"Mmm, I'll have to remember that the next time I buy peanut butter then – because I think you're going to be done this jar pretty soon."

The toast popped and she grabbed it and put it on the plate.

"So what you think, Benj? Want me to spread it for you or you want to do it?"

He rubbed his cheek against her shoulder more. "You," he said, sounding more and more tired. She actually thought that was a better idea anyways. It was organic, natural peanut butter, so it wasn't chock-full of sugar, but she still didn't think he needed too much before being put down for bed.

So she set the knife on the plate, tucked the jar of peanut butter under her free arm, and picked up the plate – taking him to the table.

"OK, sit down," she told him – pulling out a chair and leaning over it until his legs and ass were in range and he hesitantly let go of her neck and slid into the seat. When he finally did, she took the seat next across from him and opened the jar, spreading a thin layer of the peanut butter onto the toast, cutting it in half and then sliding the plate across to him. He examined it for a moment but then picked up a half and took a bite, chewing with some enthusiasm.

She watched him for several seconds and then glanced at her watch again. It was pushing 8:30. She really wanted to have him in bed in the next 30 minutes. She still hadn't managed to do the few things she wanted to do to get ready for her morning – not to mention, she hadn't sorted out what she was going to do with him yet. Cragen wouldn't be happy if she took another day off – especially when she'd promised him that she'd have things sorted in a week and be back at her desk. She had commitments at work and in court that week too that she couldn't really skirt.

She rubbed her eyebrow. "OK, Benj, you work on eating that. I need to make a phone call and then after I'm done that – we'll put on your jammies and call Jack to say goodnight."

He barely acknowledged she'd spoken, he was so absorbed in his food – so she stood from the table and went and grabbed her phone from where she'd left it on the counter. She flicked through the contacts.

It was going to be a long shot – and she knew it was likely going to mean answering questions she didn't really want to get involved in answering. But, she wouldn't be able to sort out a much better plan at this point on a Sunday night. So she was just going to have to see if this could work out – at least for Monday. She could figure out the next couple days tomorrow.

She sighed and hit talk to dial the number. It rang several times but then Nick finally picked up.

"Hey, it's Olivia," she said. "Look, I need a giant favour. What are you doing in terms of Zara's daycare these days?"


	22. Chapter 22

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Benji nearly had her hand in a death-grip as they walked up the few stairs to Amaro's front door. They hadn't even got to it before it opened, though, and Nick stood in the door, clearly having seen them coming up from where she'd parked the sedan in front of the place. She suspected he must've been watching for them from the front window.

He gave her a thin smile and then looked down at the little boy. "Hey, Ben," he greeted, but it just caused Benji to huddle closer to her.

"You remember Nick, Benj? From the police station?" she asked gently.

He gave a small, and almost unsure, nod as Nick held the door a bit more open for them, gesturing for them to come in.

"I hear you need a playmate today, Ben," Nick said, as Liv near pushed him into the house. "I told ya the other day, I had a little girl about your age, right?"

Benji nodded again and moved to clutch Flame even closer to him, from where he had the toy under his casted arm.

"Who's that?" Nick asked, as they got inside enough that he could close the door.

"Flame," Benji offered back quietly.

Olivia looked down the hall a bit, and saw Nick's little girl peaking from around a doorframe. Amaro caught the direction of her gaze and glanced behind his shoulder. He waved for her to come over.

"Come say 'hi' to Olivia and Benji, Zara," he told her. She continued to cautiously look at them, but then came down the hall, her own doll in her arms.

"This is my friend Olivia from work," Nick told her, "and her friend, Benji. Benji is going to stay with you and Abuelita today and play."

Benji examined her while she examined him back. He looked at her doll.

"Dragons eat princesses," he told her, and held out Flame in about as threatening of manner possible for the floppy, smiling stuffed toy.

Olivia near had to choke back a laugh. But Zara didn't see the humour and quickly clutched her doll to her chest and glanced at her father.

"They do not," she near yelled at Benji.

Benji nodded vigourously at her rejection of his statement. So, Olivia crouched down next to him, trying not to get too upset about Zara whispering to Nick that she didn't want to play with Benji or Flame.

"Hey," she said to Benji and pulled him closer to her, so she could talk to him quietly. "You need to play nicely with Zara today. Flame can't eat her toys."

"Dragons eat princesses," he told her again.

She shook her head at him. "Flame isn't going to eat Zara's dolls. You're going to play nicely. Zara's a girl. She might not want to play dragons the way you play dragons, Benji."

He examined her and looked over at Zara.

"I bring robots to play with," he told the little girl instead.

Zara was huddled closer to Nick now, her doll still held protectively against her chest. "Robots are for boys," she spat back at Benji.

"I bring you Megatron," Benji said. "He's a plane. I be Bumblebee. He's the car."

Zara glanced up at Nick. "Daddy, I don't want to play with him," she whined.

"Sweetie, I already told Olivia that Benji could play here today," he told his daughter. "So, you guys are going to make some muffins with Abuelita, and she's going to take you over to the park and you'll play a bit here – and then I'll be home and Benji will be going home with Olivia."

"I have to go to kindergarten, Daddy," Zara protested again.

Nick shook his head. "Not today, Zara. Today you're going to stay home and play with Ben."

She sulked a bit and looked at the ground. "I don't want to."

Benji looked at Olivia. "I don't wanna play with 'tupid head either," he declared.

She pulled him tighter to her and glanced at Nick, giving him an apologetic look. "Benji – you don't talk to other people like that," she told him sternly. "Apologize to Zara."

Benji glanced at Zara and scrunched up his face and then looked back at Olivia and shook his head.

She put her mouth closer to his ear. "Benji," she whispered into it, "I've been so impressed with what a good and polite boy you are – but calling someone that, is very rude, and it makes me very disappointed in you. You're going to apologize."

He put his arms around her, jamming his body against her with enough force that she rocked slightly on the balls of her feet in her crouched position and almost lost her balance. "I sorry," he said.

She rubbed his back. "Not to me. You apologize to Zara."

He glanced at Zara again, still clutching to her, his face half-buried against her shoulder. "I sorry," he said quietly.

Zara just eyed him.

"What do you say when someone tells you they're sorry, Zara?" Nick asked.

She gazed up at him and then considered Benji. "Apology accepted," Zara said, but didn't sound overly sincere about it.

Olivia rubbed Benji's back again. "OK, good boy," she said. "And I need you to be a good boy for the rest of the day – play nicely with Zara, don't say mean things, and you behave and be polite to Zara's grandma too."

He clutched to her tighter and rubbed his face against her shoulder. "Don't wanna stay here, 'Livia," he whined.

She nodded. "This is where you're going to stay today, sweetheart. It's just like daycare. I know you're a big boy and go to daycare every day and behave there until Jack comes and gets you."

"I go to daycare today," he told her.

She shook her head. "No. Daycare is too far away for me to take you to today. Today you are going to play with Zara and her grandma."

"I go to work with cho," he suggested.

She shook her head again. "No. Nick and I are going to go to work – and you're going to stay here and play with Zara and her grandma."

Benji rubbed his face against her shoulder again in a vigourous head shake.

She patted his back and stood up. "Yes," she said, taking his hand. She looked at Nick. "You ready to go?"

He shrugged. "He ready for you to go?"

She gave Benji's arm a little swing and gave him a smile, while he continued to sulk next to her. "Benji's good. Right, sweetheart?"

He looked up at her with big eyes and shook his head. "Don't go, 'Livia."

"I need to go to work, sweetheart. I'll be back before you know it. I think you and Zara are going to have a lot of fun today."

He shook his head.

She nodded. "You are."

Nick watched and stroked his daughter's long hair a bit where she was still standing somewhat unsurely next to him. "Zara, why don't you take Benji to the living room and show him some of your toys?"

She looked at Nick. "Do I have to?"

He gave her a thin smile and a nod. She made a bit of a huffing noise but slowly moved away from him and back the way she'd come from, so Olivia nudged Benji.

"Go on," she told him.

"You gonna go, 'Livia?"

She nodded. "Yes, Benj. I'm going to work now."

"Jee-Peedg gives hug before daycare," he said quietly, glancing at Nick.

She nodded again and crouched back down. "OK," she told him and pulled him back into her arms and he again wrapped his arms around her and held her neck. She looked at Nick, watching his steady gaze while he examined their interaction. But she ignored the questions she could see brewing in him and put a small kiss on Benji's temple. "Be a good boy today, Benj. For me, OK?"

He just rubbed his face against her shoulder some more, offering no response, so after several seconds, she loosened her grip on him and rose back to full height, giving him another small nudge. "Go play with Zara," she said.

He took a tentative step away from her, and as he did so, Nick called down the hall. "Mom, we're heading out, if you want to come meet Ben and Olivia quick."

A woman stepped out into the hall from the doorway that Zara had originally appeared from, she was drying her hands on a tea towel, and nodded towards them.

"Hello, I'm Cesaria," she offered to Olivia and gave Benji a small smile. "Hello Benjamin."

Benji glanced back at Olivia again with the appearance of the new person in the hallway.

"Don't worry, we'll take good care of him," Nick's mother offered, sticking out her hand to take Zara's, who was still loitering in the hall and giving Ben some suspicious looks.

Olivia nodded. "Thank you so much for doing this," she said.

She just smiled thinly again. "It's not a problem. I'm here any ways."

"Ah, I've got some ibuprofen in his backpack, if he complains about his arm," Olivia told the woman, "and he's still pretty good about taking a nap in the afternoons for an hour or so. He's just getting over a concussion so he shouldn't be watching a lot of television – and if you do take him out to the playground, just … watch him … and his head, please."

Cesaria allowed another thin smile. "We'll take good care of him," she repeated again.

Olivia kind of suspected from the responses that maybe Nick hadn't let his mother know about this plan until she'd arrived that morning. Or, she supposed too, after dealing with an abusive relationship and raising a child on her own – there was a likelihood that she had as hard-as-nails personality and this was about as friendly as she got. She wasn't about to judge her on that. Olivia tended to be a little testy with new people too. So she just nodded.

Cesaria pushed Zara back towards Nick. "Say goodbye to Daddy."

Nick already had pulled his jacket on during Liv's exchange with his mother, and just bent down to give Zara a small kiss on the cheek. "Have fun today, sweetie. Be nice to Benji."

Zara gave about the tiniest nod possible. "Bye Daddy."

Olivia looked up the hall where Benji was sulking against the wall, still acting very unsure. But she was pretty confident he'd be OK. He'd dealt with coming to the city, going to daycare, meeting and living with her. He could deal with playing with a five-year-old girl for a day, she thought. Or at least she hoped.

"Bye Benj," she called out softly at him. "Be good."

"Bye 'Livia," he said so quietly she hardly heard it, though she knew that was what he said.

She nodded to Nick and he opened the door for her and then followed after her down the stairs to the sidewalk.

"So do I get to ask who the kid is now?" he asked, as they walked over to the sedan.

She glanced at him and pulled the keys out of her pocket. She tossed them at him. "You want to drive?" she said, as he caught them. "I hate driving at this time of day."

"Is that a yes?"

She opened the passenger door as he clicked the locks. "It's a 'the less you know, the better'," she told him, as she got in.


	23. Chapter 23

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"So you really aren't going to tell me what's going on with that kid?" Amaro asked her as he drove them over to Warner's.

She shrugged. "There's not much to tell."

"You fostering or something?" he asked.

"Or something," she agreed.

"This going to come back and bite you in the ass? Or me for that matter, now that he's at my house? I'm not harbouring some fugitive or kidnap victim or something?"

She snorted. "I can assure you helping me out today will not have any repercussions for you."

He gave a small nod and let silence fall between them for a bit.

"Your week off was OK?"

"Oh, fantastic," she allowed. "Did I miss anything?"

He shrugged. "Not much. The usual."

She nodded. "It's always the usual."

"You sure everything is OK, Olivia? Because, if you need some help or something, I can try to help out."

"Nick, what you're doing today for Benji – that's all the help I need right now. I appreciate you doing it."

He glanced at her again. "OK," he shrugged.

"Cute kid, though," he offered after another short silence. "Dragons eating princesses was pretty funny."

Olivia snorted again and looked at him with a smile.

"See, I wasn't allowed to laugh. But that was pretty funny," Amaro grinned at her.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "I just hope he doesn't give Zara or your mom too hard of time today."

"Ah, they'll be fine. Mom knows how to keep kids in line – and Zara knows how to lay down the smackdown. His dragon tries to eat her princess and you might have another concussion to deal with."

She snorted louder and shook her head. "See, that's kind of what I'm worried about."

He gave her a smile. "They'll be fine," he assured again, sounding almost exactly like his mother.

He was quiet again for a few more blocks. But then said, "Munch sort of mentioned you had custody of some of kid a couple years back."

She sighed and looked out the window. "Guardianship – not custody. It was temporary. It was just a couple months."

"Same story with Ben?"

She shook her head. "No. I'm just helping someone out."

"Looks like some big help," he said.

She shrugged. "It is what it is."

"Cragen going to be up your ass about it?"

She gave a small laugh at that and shot him a look. "Likely."

"You going to tell him more than me?"

She allowed him a small smile and shrugged. "Don't know. Maybe. If he asks he right questions."

"Ah, so my technique is off?"

"Keep practicing Rookie," she nodded at him. "Just not with me."

Amaro gave a small snort at that and shook his head. "'lright."


	24. Chapter 24

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She let Benji's hand go as soon as they got into the shop – and he was off like a shot, clearly knowing where he was headed.

She wasn't entirely sure what she expected in a store called Funky's – but it really didn't look that different than any other boutique shop in the Village to her. Well, beyond it having skateboards hanging off the walls – and definitely some pretty funky-looking wallpaper plastered across just about everything in sight. The rest of the store had a small selection of clothes and caps hanging off a few racks and a wall dedicated to shoes.

Music with a fast and loud beat – and yelling that didn't sound much like lyrics or singing – was blaring through the place. She'd been in there about 30 seconds and had already decided it was beyond headache inducing. She knew what punk music was – but this sounded like crap music to her. She was hoping it would be a short visit.

There was man, who looked like he was likely in his early-30s, behind the cash counter near the store, vibing along with the music and scribbling in a notebook in a way that looked like it might be collecting some info from the computer screen to do inventory. He glanced up as Benji bolted by him and looked a little confused and then looked her way – giving her an even more questioning look.

She supposed she wasn't exactly what his clientele looked like. She suspected they likely looked more like him with piercings coming out of his face, a scraggly beard that looked like he was purposely trying to look like a homeless person, and a bright orange toque sitting a top his head like he thought that the cone-head look was coming back in-style – indoors. He had the same oversized tshirt look going as Jack, paired with ragged-looking and baggy blue Dickies work pants that looked like they hadn't been washed in some time.

She doubted he got many 40-something women transversing through the store. Or women dressed in work attire and carrying a little boy's backpack with a stuffed dragon peaking out the top of it. Or maybe just women, in general. She knew women skated too – but the attire options in the place were definitely directed at men.

"Help ya?" he offered, still clearly measuring her up.

She just jutted her chin in the direction Benji had headed and to where Jack was leaning against a counter in the back corner talking to the boy now. It looked like a workstation. Different types of wheels and bearings and trucks were on display in front of the counter and just plain looking decks were piled on wooden shelves behind it. Jack had some tools scattered across the top of the counter and was clearly working on doing something to a skateboard that he had flipped upside down up there too.

Jack looked up at her as she got back there. "Hey," he said.

She gave him a little nod.

"'Livia, look you can buy wheels," Benji told her and held up one for her to examine.

"Mmm," she nodded. "I think that would be a valuable purchase for me."

Benji looked at her excitedly at that comment. "These ones really good, 'Livia. They Spitfire."

"Ah," she allowed. It meant nothing to her.

Benji put them up on the counter with Jack. "We buy 'em," he told him.

Jack snorted. "Yea?"

Benji nodded.

He looked at Olivia. "He's been Jonesing for these forever."

"We get trucks too," Benji said. "Independent."

Jack nodded. "You just going to order up a whole deck for her?"

Benji nodded harder.

"Think she can ride?"

Benji glanced at her and considered it. "I teach her."

Jack laughed and glanced at her. "So far he's ordered up a $75 rig for you. What's your budget?"

"I think he went about $75 over it already," she said.

"She need fast bearings," Benji interjected.

"She needs to go fast while she's learning to pedal? I don't think so."

"Fast. Red," Benji said.

"Ah. Red," Jack nodded and looked at her again. "He's trying to kill you."

She snorted. "He wouldn't be the first."

She glanced at Benji. He'd gotten down on the floor and was examining the samples of wheels and trucks tacked to the counter's side.

"He can do that for hours," Jack nodded, looking over the counter at him. "We'll make a rigger out of him yet."

"I make good decks Jee-Peedg. Very fast," Benji said up at him.

Jack nodded. "I know, 'Jamin."

Olivia watched Benji spinning at the wheels and apparently steering or testing the axels in some way, while Jack leaned over the counter looking down at him.

"This doesn't look like the best use of your time kid-free," she commented at the top of his head.

He glanced up at her and straightened up. "I was scheduled. I brought my books. I can do some reading after I finish up these few orders. It's a quiet night so far."

"How late are you working?"

He shrugged. "'Til close."

"Which is when?"

"Just seven," he said somewhat defensively.

She nodded and glanced at her watch. That was only about an hour away. He should technically still have a good portion of the night to work on his studies. But with the location of the store and the deck she saw strapped to his backpack sitting behind the counter, she was wondering if he really planned on going home after he finished up shift – or if he was off somewhere to ride.

"Hey Whacker, you not going to introduce me to Moms," the guy from the front said walking back to them and leaning against the counter.

Jack gave him a dirty look. "She ain't my Moms."

The guy eyed her. "In that case, she going to buy anything after loitering in my store?"

Benji looked up at him. "We gonna build 'Livia a deck, Gecko," he said excitedly.

"Ah, Jammer," the guy declared, "you're always my best salesman."

"He's picking out all the most expensive parts for her," Jack offered.

"'Cuz they the best," Benji said.

"That's my grom," Gecko said and gave him a little kick, which Olivia didn't really like. "Nice hair, Little Dude. Hardly recognized you when you came in."

Benji put his hands up to spike it more. "It a mo-hawk."

"Totally faux, Little Dude," he agreed. He glanced at her again. "So you buying anything so I can pay this fucker?"

She glared at him, completely unimpressed with his language in front of Benji – but made no comment. She was sure Benji had clearly heard it all before – in the store and likely at the skate parks too.

"Is buying something a requirement for entering your store?" she commented with some distaste.

He shrugged. "It's encouraged."

"She the fuzz, Gecko," Benji told him, looking up from the floor and grabbing onto her leg a bit. "She gotta badge."

Geck snorted and looked at Jack. "You bringing cops into my store now Whack? Because that's pretty whack."

Jack just shrugged – and suddenly became very interested in working on the skateboard he had in front of him.

Gecko looked at her. "Whatever. We ain't got nothing to hide here. We're a family store, you know?"

"That so?" she said.

He nodded. "Damn straight. Jammer here is always welcome, right Little Bro?"

Benji nodded vigourously at that.

"We do skate lessons, summer camp, after-school – got fully qualified and background-checked instructors. Take kids as young as five. Even got set-up with some of the schools to offer a program for the kids. Check it all out. It's all legit. We're the oldest independent in the city. Second-gen, Baby."

She snorted at him and looked at Jack, who was still trying to stay out of the conversation.

"Well I'm not here as a cop either," she said. "But thanks for the history."

"Not as a cop, not as a mom and not as a costumer. What good to me are ya, Lady?"

"I'm just here to get him to sign something and then we'll be out of your way," she told him. She didn't really see what the big disruption of them being there. They were the only people in the store.

Gecko just nodded and kept leaning on the counter.

She glared at him. "So can we have some privacy for a few minutes?"

He looked at her and shrugged. "OK," he agreed and started to straighten up.

"Hey, you know this guy is a college student, on scholarship, right?" she asked in a second-thought, since the guy was pushing being family-conscious. She decided to see just how family-conscious he actually was.

Gecko gave a small nod – but she could already see Jack glaring at her. "Yea, sure, that's why we like him. Hard-worker. Good role model for our groms."

"If he's going to keep his scholarship – he needs time for his studies," she told the guy.

Gecko examined her face for a moment and then looked at Jack.

"Something up there, Whacker?"

Jack shrugged.

"You needing some time off?"

"He needs some time off," Olivia filled in for him and Jack glared at her harder. "He has a big assignment due. He needs to pull up some of his grades to stay on scholarship."

"That true Jack?" Gecko asked again, finally sounding a bit more like an adult and maybe proving that they really were a family business that had some vested interest in their employees.

"I'm cool," Jack said.

Gecko leaned his elbows back on the counter. "Dude, if you need some time off for school shit, that's cool. This place is going to be Deadsville until after Black Friday anyways. It's all good."

"Jee-Peedg cried," Benji informed Gecko.

Jack rolled his eyes and looked at the ceiling, crossing his arms defiantly. "I did not cry," he said.

"Yes you did," Benji said.

But rather than look at his nephew, he glared at Olivia.

Gecko tapped at the counter a few times. "OK, Dude, we can sort ya out after Moms leaves."

"She's not my mom," Jack spat. "She's a fucking pain in the ass."

Gecko shrugged. "Whatever, Whack." He nodded at her as he straightened up. "No worries, Lady. We'll get him sorted. Can't have him losing his scholarship. We make good money on his halfpipe blueprints and shit. He'll be designing us a complete skate centre some day – indoor course, shop, skate school, party room and all. Be fuckin' sweet. Right, Dude?"

"Fuck off, Gecko."

He just shrugged again. "Nice to meet ya. Y'all come back now. Maybe next time with some cash, eh?" he suggested and then wandered back up to the front of the shop.

Jack glared at her some more.

"You want to keep your scholarship?" she directed at him.

"I need cash," he spat.

"I don't think you should be working weeknights right now."

"I don't care what you think," Jack said.

She shook her head at him and pulled a folded sheet of paper out of her pocket and put it on the counter in front of him.

"Sign it," she directed. She'd already called him and told him they were coming over with the form for him to sign. She thought it should be quick and easy. But now he just looked at it and crossed his arms.

"Don't be a child," she told him. "Sign it."

He glared at her a moment but then diverted his eyes to examined it. "This is for until the end of December. He's only going to be with you two more days," he spat at her.

She pushed it towards him. "Paying for two days is not an option, Jack. I had to call in more favours than you even care to know about to get this. He needs to be enrolled for what's left of a tuition period. So that means, he's enrolled until the end of the year. Policy."

"Well I'm not paying for fucking daycare in two places," he spat at her and pushed the sheet back at her.

She shoved it back at him. "You aren't. I'm paying for this."

"He's only with you two more days," Jack spat again.

"We'll talk about the status of that in two days, Jack. Right now – he needs to be somewhere while I'm at work for the next two days. I don't know a lot of people with kids. This was a whole lot of phone calls and favours from people that I'm not that close with, who I now owe big time. Sign it."

He crossed his arms.

"Deal was I get to deal with Jack the grown-up – not Jack the bratty, spoiled little boy," she told him again.

He made no comment.

She sighed. "Jack – you already said a few days wasn't enough to salvage your semester. This will take him until the end of your semester. I'm not saying he needs to – or even should – stay with me until the end of the semester. All, I'm saying is he needs to be somewhere the next two days. Do you know how hard it is to get a daycare spot in this city on no notice? This is what I could get sorted out."

"Get him a babysitter or a nanny or something."

"OK. You want me leaving your nephew with some stranger?"

Jack shrugged. "This ain't much different."

"It's a nursery school that has a daycare and it has pre-kindergarten program he can participate in in the mornings. He's four. He should be in pre-kindergarten any ways."

"Yeah. You try to get a kid just enrolled in that pre-kindergarten crap in this fucking city. It's all enrollment dates and lottery and not enough spaces. I fucking tried when we got down here. It wasn't an option. He's in daycare. He'll go to kindergarten next year. He doesn't need this."

"Then I get to go to school, Jee-Peedg," Benji said, "like Zara. But this school better because there lots of blocks and we dance and I ate Ritz too."

Jack glared at Olivia harder. "What is he talking about?"

"I had to take him over to go on a tour of the school – for them to meet him and me, as part of the admission process. It was part of the deal, Jack. It's four blocks from my work. It's open and has caretakers there until 7 p.m. He gets fed breakfast and snacks. Only have to send in a lunch for him. He gets naptime. He gets structured playtime. He gets activities. He gets the pre-k programme. He gets daycare the rest of the day. This took pulling a lot of strings. I spent a lot of time on the phone today – when I should've been doing work. This is a good thing. Sign the paper."

"Yeah? What's the point of you paying for six weeks? It's retarded."

"OK. Then it will be a giant waste of my money. But it's my money – and it means he has someplace safe and educational to be at the next two days – at least. Stop fighting with me."

He let out such a deep breath that his hair blew up off his forehead. "What's the point of getting him in if it's only for six weeks? That's not all of the pre-kindergarten thing even then. And, I can't afford this even if I wanted to."

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "That's getting a little ahead of ourselves, Jack. But, if you sign the piece of paper – and after his application is processed and he's accepted – then he'll have a place secured in the centre. If you want him to stay there after the six weeks – he'll be able to. You'll just have to sign an extended contract – sort out the fee schedule. OK?"

He looked at the paper. "I can't afford this. I can't even afford the registration fee or this … whatever … material expenses?"

She sighed. "Jack. I already said I'm paying for it right now. I just need you to sign the piece of paper. I can't sign it. OK? You need to sign it."

He examined her. "How come your information is under mother?"

She rolled her eyes. "The same reason yours is under father. It's how the form is structured. My contact information needed to go somewhere. Yours needed to go somewhere. They understand Benji's situation."

"What situation?" Jack said with some disgust.

"That you're his guardian, Jack. That I'm an emergency contact for the moment."

Jack looked at the form again.

"Just sign it, Jack," she sighed.

He glanced at her and let out another breathe but picked up a pen off the counter and scrawled his name on the piece of paper and then shoved it across to her.

She took it and put it back into the pocket. "Thank you," she said. "I need you to make a copy of your licence too. Do you guys have a scanner here?"

"Why?"

"Because I'm assuming that you aren't planning on coming down here in the morning to take him to the centre – so they want a copy of your ID to have on hand. Proof of identity, Jack."

"Fine. I'll bring it to you."

She rubbed at her eyebrow. Her frustration level with him was about reaching its boiling point again.

"OK. Well, I want you to get home to do your school work. So how about Benji and I go over to the Bleecker Street playground and wait for you there? It's at 11th. You know it?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

She nodded. "I'm going to pick him up a slice. What do you want?"

"Pee-za?" Benji squealed.

She looked down at him. "Yea, Benj. We're going to have pizza tonight for dinner."

"Pep-er-row-nee!"

"Whatever you want, Benj," she assured him and looked back at Jack. "What do you want, Jack?"

He shrugged.

"What do you want Jack?" she said again with a bit more force to her voice this time.

He glanced at her from examining the counter top and spinning the wheels on the skateboard. "An all-dressed or everything or whatever, I guess," he said quietly.

She nodded. "You go through more than one slice?"

He shrugged.

"Have you eaten today?"

He shrugged again.

She sighed. "I'll take that as a no."

He glanced at her.

"Eat the food I put in your fridge, Jack. Don't let it spoil."

He just eyed her and she shook her head at him – and glanced at her watch. "OK. We'll see you up there in about forty-five minutes, OK?"

He nodded. "Yeah," he said quietly.

So she gave him a small nod back. "OK," she agreed and then stuck out her hand. "Com'on Benj. We're going to go to the playground until Jack is done work."

Benji crawled across the floor and took her hand, getting to his feet.

"But we didn't get your deck 'Livia," he gave in small protest.

She gave him a smile. "You'll have to tell me more about my options so we can figure out what's best for next time. Com'on," she gave him a small tug on the arm and glanced back at Jack. "Forty-five minutes," she said again. "And, don't forget a copy of your licence."


	25. Chapter 25

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She startled awake and it took her a moment to realize she was in her bed – it was starting to feel like so long since she'd actually got to sleep in it.

She reached up to rub at her eyes and the copy of Wind in the Willows she'd been reading to Benji fell into her chest. Apparently it had worked as as much of a sedative for her, as it had for him. She felt so tired. She thought if she'd known she was going to be dealing with all of this – she likely would've taken a vacation before the shit-storm had hit.

Thinking about it, it was almost ridiculous how much her routine had shifted within a matter of barely two weeks. She remembered being shocked at how easy it'd been to shift her routine when she had Calvin with her too. It wasn't that dealing with Calvin – and now Benji and Jack – wasn't challenging in their own ways and that having to adjust some of her habits and routines were frustrating, giving up her space and privacy was a little jarring, balancing work priorities and commitments into it all was hard. But it was just something she did. They needed her. The switch was necessary. And, really, she was getting something out of it.

A change in routine meant she wasn't coming home to an empty apartment. And, she was actually coming home. That was a bit of change too. Hell, she was even eating better so far too. There'd still be take-out – but a hell of a lot less. And, she'd been sleeping better too. Case-and-point that night. She was exhausted.

God, her energy was getting worse with age. Maybe it was best she'd forced herself to put aside the idea – or even the hope – of ever having a baby of her own. She was really starting to wonder how these women in their mid-to-late-40s who popped one out or adopted or whatever – did it.

Keeping up with a four-year-old after putting in a full-day at work was tiring. Having a family was definitely should've been something she should've gotten on in her 30s. She could only imagine dealing with a baby now would be chaotic for her body in so many ways. Dealing with a little boy with the energy of Benji as he got older too … she knew was he got bigger and stronger, he certainly wasn't going to slow down any. Not to mention, the concept of naps or bedtime would likely become more foreign to him. Calvin certainly didn't like to sit still much either and getting him to sleep had been a futile battle. Maybe a girl would be easier. They might be slightly calmer but dealing with them through puberty and their teens? If she was in her 50s or 60s when that hit? That sounded like unusual torture for everyone involved too.

She glanced over at Benji. The thing with him was that after he was asleep, he was asleep. She was pretty sure a marching band could go through the room and he wouldn't notice at this point. He was still on his side, facing her, like he had been while she'd been reading to him. Flame tucked under his one arm and his face flat against the mattress rather than the pillow. He had his mouth hanging open and was making soft breathing sounds – completely dead to the world.

She wondered how inappropriate it would be to close her eyes and just go back to sleep. Her back could really use a night in the bed rather than on the couch. But she knew she'd likely raise her eyebrows about that if she got wind of it in a case at work. So with a sigh, she forced herself to sit up and stand from the bed, adjusting the duvet up around Benji some more, before she left the room.

Her and Jack hadn't had their talk yet. It actually sounded like he was just going to let her keep Benji for the week and they would talk on the weekend now. She thought that was a better idea than what would likely be a long, frustrated and heated conversation in mid-week. But she'd already learned not to assume too much with Jack. He could easily decide on Wednesday, that he was going to show her or put her in her place or God knows what in his mind, and appear at the apartment to collect Benji. It certainly wouldn't surprise her.

He could be a little volatile in his thought processes and emotions. Not all of his synapses were firing yet, she supposed. He still had a couple years of brain development left before it might even be possible for him to think like a more rational human-being. She wouldn't let a perp use that excuse. But, this was kind of different. The kid had been through the wringer.

Still, she thought that based on what he had said that night, there was a reasonable possibility that he might let her help them until the end of the semester – until they were through the holidays. That would likely get Benji through the period he had the cast on too. She thought it made sense. It'd give Jack the time he needed to get his grades up and it would give Benji the time he needed to heal. And, it would hopefully give her enough time to get to know both of them to the point that Jack would trust her enough to talk to her more and get some of this mess sorted for him the best she could.

She had some ideas on how getting it sorted might be best. She knew some of them were more realistic than others. Some of it was just her own needs and wants and her 'desperate to have a family' tendencies, as Cragen not so delicately had put it while she had Calvin.

She had to admit to herself too that Jack's glimmer of recognition that the nursery school contract spanned until Dec. 31st and his questions about what that meant and how that worked – him not outright opposing it and him signing the paper … she'd already let her mind slip a bit to the concept of getting to have a Christmas.

She didn't think she'd ever had a normal Christmas in her life – or at least not one like you see in the media or anything that resembled what she'd hear colleagues talk about. And, really, after her mother died, she hadn't really had anything over the holidays. She wasn't even sure the last time she'd bothered to put up any sort of decoration in her apartment – not even a wreath on the door.

Getting to do a holiday season with a little boy in prime Christmas Magic age seemed kind of appealing to her. Not that she had any idea how she would approach that. And, she was getting way, way, way too far ahead of herself anyways. Even if she was able to keep Jack's emotions in check long enough to get them to the end of December – she figured there was still a reasonable chance they'd go back up to the farm over the holidays, no matter how screwed up his relationship was with his uncle. People went home at Christmas – even in messed up families. She knew that from experience.

And, really, as a responsible adult, she should likely be encouraging Jack to make amends with his uncle and to try to sort out the whole care for Benji details in that realm. Unless Jack said something that made her think Greg had been doing something hurtful or abusive with the boys, it just made the most sense for the family to sort this out on its own, she supposed. But she actually wasn't entirely sure how much she agreed with that. Some times families just really couldn't sort things out on their own. Some times the family you pick for yourself is better than the one you end up with through genetics and happenstance.

She stooped and picked up some of Benji's toys from off the floor. She didn't really like the addition of the milk-crate toy box to her living room. It really didn't fit the décor. But it'd just have to continue to work for now. It wasn't a big deal. Though, she was fighting the urge to boy Benji some more 'stuff'. Clothes, toys, books – things to have around the apartment just to make the situation easier for both of him – even if this all was just temporary.

She wasn't really sure what she was supposed to be doing with herself now. With Benji asleep and her awake – there was a quietness. She hadn't really had that the previous week with Jack there to snark at her every night. She wasn't sure she'd fall back asleep now, even if she did manage to get herself comfortable on the couch. She supposed she could look over her case file once more and refresh herself on all the facts again before she had to go and hang around the courthouse all day tomorrow waiting to testify. Really good before bed reading. It was sure no Wind in the Willows.

She slouched onto the couch and fingered at where she'd left the file on the coffee table – finally opening it and looking at the top page for a moment. But decided not to and instead reached for her phone. She flicked around to bring up the photo albums. She didn't think she'd really used the phone to take pictures that weren't work-related until that evening.

Benji had been completely enthralled with the fact the playground had sand pit. She thought she'd realized a bit too belatedly that sand and a cast likely wasn't the best combination. She managed to deter him and had crouched down, wiping away at the sand he had all over his encased wrist. She even had him stand up and gently shake the thing around trying to get any that might've gone down inside to fall back out.

She was just hoping now that not too much had slipped into it and would result in him complaining of itches. He hadn't yet but if he did, she wasn't sure how she'd deal with that. He did have another follow-up with the surgeon, though, in a couple weeks. She supposed if it turned into too big of problem, she could ask about the possibility of having a new one put one.

After she'd suggested that playing on the play equipment might be a better idea than digging in the sand, he'd reluctantly agreed and then had gone running around like a crazy man. The cast didn't seem to slow him down too much – he was still climbing up things and hanging over railing and pushing himself down the slide. The couple times he did stand still long enough, she'd taken a couple pictures of him. It was just before dusk – before they'd get kicked out of the park – but the light was great for photos. He looked just so happy and natural and relaxed. A wild and crazy four-year-old. His hair a tousled mess. His tongue hanging out in some of the photos while a wide smile played across his face in others. He'd been almost as excited to get to look at the photos – and to finally get to touch her phone with his smudgy little fingers.

Benji was just Mr. Personality and definitely a Photo-Cheese. He loved the attention. She knew he was trouble. But he was taking more and more pieces of her heart each day. She knew it was a dangerous line for her to be walking – likely for both of them.

She had all these thoughts running through her head about how she wanted this to work out. She was trying to convince herself it was doable. That it would be best for Benji – like she had any clue about what was best for him.

Fingered at Elliot's medal around her neck, as she flipped through the photos of Benji. She'd been feeling this ache to talk to Elliot the last several days. She thought of him in some capacity near daily – but it'd been more consistent the lately. His not being there to talk to about all of this just seemed to make his absence feel that much more real; more real than it had for a while.

She just wanted to talk all of what was happening through with someone. It always just seemed to come back to him. She'd had awful, awkward, angering conversations with him when things about her wanting children had come up before. She'd been upset with him. She'd been hurt by some of his comments. Touched by others. But he was about the only person she'd really talked about it with.

She knew he'd probably be telling her to stay out of this mess – that it was just a temporary situation, to not get so involved. He'd likely piss her off again – as usual. Yet she still wanted to hear it out of his mouth.

She'd stopped phone-stalking Elliot nearly a year ago. She'd left a few more messages, sent a couple texts, sent an email – after he'd sent her the Semper Fi. She tried to pose it as just wanting to say thank you. But she knew the message of the gift. They'd gone separate ways. He was on his own path now. He appreciated the person she was and what she brought to the job and his life. That was over now, though. Still, just because he had left Special Victims, it didn't mean she didn't still have a role there. He just didn't anymore. He was done. They were done.

She'd struggled with it. So much. She didn't understand why they couldn't at least still be friends – why she couldn't see him sometimes, or his family. But she did understand too. It just really hurt.

It had left such a gaping hole that she wasn't sure would ever heal. She'd had some hope that maybe it could heal at least bit with David – but that had been a false start as well. Now this … it was likely going to be a false start too. It seemed like so much in her life was false-starts. Maybe was just one of the many reasons she missed her partner so much – their partnership was one of the few things in her life that hadn't been a false start. No matter how much they butted heads and how angry he could make he - at least he'd been consistent.

She gazed some more at the one photo. Benji was sitting at the top of the spiral slide but had hung over it to look at her, his arms draped over the side, his cast in full view and his chin resting against the side too. His tongue was hanging out of the one-side of his mouth as he looked to her a little questioningly after she'd called at him. But he had this sparkle in his eyes and almost half-smile on the side of his mouth where the tongue wasn't jutting out as he realized she was pointing the camera at him. He looked heart-breakingly cute – at least to her.

With a couple more screen-touches, she found herself looking at Elliot's name, still in her contacts – and likely always going to be there. She wondered if he'd changed his cell at that point. Likely. She thought she would if she'd been in his shoes. Still, her thumb hovered above it for some time and then hit it, she selected the picture of Benji she'd just been looking at and then started to tap in a message: "This is Benji. I'd really like to talk to you."

She looked at it again for a moment. She felt so many emotions building up into her and cursed at herself some more. She thought about hitting the home button and closing out of the message. But then let her thumb come back down and tapped send.


	26. Chapter 26

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Benji was talking about a million-miles per hour in his efforts to get Jack up-to-date on his nursery school adventures.

Olivia had had some second thoughts about the whole nursery school thing when she'd taken him over that first morning. His initial enthusiasm when they'd gone on the tour had completely disappeared when he realized she was leaving him there. There'd be tears and screeching far too loud. She'd been a little embarrassed actually. It'd reached the point where the staff had told her it was normal and for her to just go, that'd he'd be fine. She'd been really reluctant to do that. He was throwing an all-out fit and it was pretty clear to her that he had attachment and abandonment issues. She wasn't sure leaving him in a place full of strangers was going to help that at all. But she was already running late and knew she'd be arriving at the courthouse to find an overly-bitchy Casey Novak on her about her tardiness and her level of preparation for the trial. So she had hesitantly left him blubbering and fighting against the arms of the staff member who was trying to calm him as she left, repeatedly promising him she'd be back at the end of the day. It'd been hard to do. But by the time she got back to pick him up, he'd apparently forgotten the trauma of the morning.

He'd seem content to be dropped off the next day and now just three days into his nursery school career, he was starting to seem like an old pro. His biggest complaint to her had been that nap was too long. She had to partially agree with him on that based on the energy he still had when she picked him up in the evenings. She was sort of hoping that nursery school would run him into the ground enough that he wouldn't be too much of a handful at night. It hadn't quite worked out that way.

Benji was all go-go-go. It was a bit of a different experience from Calvin, at least in that for the most-part, he would tend to entertain himself. He would still seek her out and still want her to play but it was different than with Benji. Benji was at her and on top of her and handing toys to her and asking her constant questions and babbling at her. He expected her to be his entertainment co-ordinator, in addition to providing just about everything else in his life at the moment.

She had certainly appreciated how difficult having a little boy to raise would be for Jack before – but now with Benji so in her face and with trying to balance her work and her exhaustion too with caring for him, she appreciated it that much more. Completing school, working part-time and balancing a four-year-old would be a difficult endeavour for anyone. It was no wonder Jack seemed so overwhelmed.

She was having moments where she was wanting to throw up her hands about it. But then Benji would say or do something that would melt her heart. Hell, every time he called her 'Livia in his awkward little voice and pronunciation just about did it. And, she'd received her first sloppy little kiss from him, as he wrapped his arms around her neck and pulled her face closer to his and planted his lips on her cheek the night before as she'd tucked him in for the night. She'd sat on the couch for a long time after that knowing she was likely done for now.

"I made a very good turk-ee," Benji informed Jack, holding up his hand and pointing to each finger. "So I make his tail red, yell-oo, or-in, green, brown. Becuz it almost Thanksgiving. You eat turk-ee at Thanksgiving. But some don't. Jamie say he eat ham. That is a pig. Some time you can eat chick-in if you don't like turk-ee. Becuz 'Livia don't know how to make turk-ee. So she make chick-in. But that O-K. Becuz chick-in like turk-ee. But it not turk-ee.

"They give us cant-e-loop for sn-zacks sometimes and it not very good. It like eating octi-puss."

Jack snorted at him. "How do you know what eating octopus is like?"

"Becuz it or-in and slime. But sometimes we get goal-fish crack-ers. Today we get goal-fish crackers. That much better from cant-ee-loop."

"But still from the ocean," Jack commented and Benji looked at him questioningly. But then carried on …

"Some time kidz get to go sw-himm-ing. But 'Livia tell them I can't go sw-himm-ing. So some kidz went sw-himm-ing. But I go danc-ze. I teach 'Livia. But I can teach you cho Jee-Peedg. But I get to go sw-himm-ing cho when my arm better."

The waitress came over and looked at them over. It was the same girl who'd served them when Olivia and Jack had met there what seemed like eons ago at this point.

"You ready to order?" she asked, again eyeing Jack more than the rest of the table.

Benji didn't seem to care that someone else was there and continued to blabber.

"Shh," Olivia said to him quietly and he glanced at her with big eyes but silenced momentarily. So she looked back at the waitress. "The kiddie mac, does it have the vegetables in it like the one on the dinner menu?"

The waitress finally looked at her from where she was examining the top of Jack's head as he took a look at the menu in the break from Benji's chatter.

"No, but we can do that for you two bucks extra."

She nodded. "OK. He'll have that. Put the veggies in for him. Not the bacon."

"'Livia no veg-tab-bulls," Benji protested.

She looked at him. "Yes, vegetables, Benji. It will be good. It's macaroni and cheese."

"Nuggets!" he demanded.

"Nuggets aren't an option here, Benj," she told him again for about the fourth time. "Mac and cheese."

He made a growling noise at her that had appeared in his repertoire over the past couple days. It had started with him holding Flame out at her and growling when he was unimpressed with something she'd said to him. But it had apparently evolved. She was trying to take it as a sign of his comfort level with her. Still, she didn't much like it.

"That's very rude, Benji," she told him, making sure to catch his eyes. She saw Jack glance up at her as she chastised his nephew but he made no comment and she ignored it. He was in her care for the moment – she'd deal with the moments of minor discipline the way she thought was appropriate.

Benji's face softened when she said it and he looked a little scared. "Don't be mad, 'Livia," he protested again.

"What do you say?"

He looked at her and gave a small pout but then softly said, "Swore-eey."

She nodded and looked at the menu again. "I'm going to have the baked penne," she said and then passed her and Benji's menus to the girl, who was now eyeing Jack again, tapping her pen on her little notepad.

"So what about you, Plate-of-Fries?" she nodded at him.

Jack glanced up at her questioningly.

She flipped her pen around and tapped its opposite end on the pad a couple times. "I served you last time," she clarified for him. "You ordered just fries until your mom told you off."

"She not Mama, she 'Livia," Benji interjected on Jack's behalf who just kind of looked at the girl.

"Ah, yeah, OK," he said, with a lack of recognition in his voice.

"So you eating this time?" she asked, glancing back at Olivia and Benji - looking like she might be measuring what their situation was.

"Umm, yeah, I'm going to have the beef burger …"

"Swiss, fries. Mayo on the side and bottle of ketchup at the table," the girl said.

Jack examined her again for a moment. "Umm, yeah, thanks," he said and handed her the menu.

"Same as last time," she commented and gave him a thin smile and tapped her pen some more. She looked like she was about to go, starting to turn, but then turned back to the table. "You go to City, don't you?"

Jack looked back up at her again. He shrugged. "Yeah."

She nodded. "I've seen you around. You're always pissing off security outside Spitzer, aren't you?"

Jack snorted and looked at the table. "Ah, yeah," he offered. "I guess."

She nodded. "Thought so. You know the ramps and stairs outside the Academic Centre are a better ride, right? Diamondz?"

He grinned up at her at that. "Yeah. But the donut shop team there is pretty on the hook."

"Make your run quick, Nus," she said kind of teasingly. "You live down around here?"

He shifted his eyes to Olivia, who was trying not to watch the interaction too closely, but also was definitely eavesdropping. The girl followed his eyes and then looked back at him.

"Living at home?" she asked after gazing at them for a second.

Jack shook his head hard at that. "Ah, no. I've got my own place."

The waitress nodded again. "That's cool. So where do you get in your sessions then? Never see you around."

Jack looked at the table and played with the rim on his cap a bit. "The pier mostly."

"Not L.E.S.?"

He shrugged.

"You're pretty smooth. You should skate L.E.S.," she told him.

"Jee-Peedg's sick," Benji interjected again. "He does the trick-shin-ary the best."

The girl laughed at the boy and smiled at Jack. "The Hamster fetus is cute," she commented. "So hitting BUB tomorrow?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know."

"Scared?" the girl teased.

"Jee-Peedg not scared," Benji almost yelled at her. "He die-man-z."

"Oh yeah?" the girl asked. "He's that sick then he should come and battle. Or you just a pusher?"

Jack just looked at her. "I just have a big assignment due soon," there was a touch of anger in his voice at whatever that insult was, Olivia thought. In her world pusher was drug-related. She got the impression that in his, the girl had just hit him below the belt, though.

She nodded. "Ahhhh. OK. I feel ya there. I've got this 'dag assignment due in mutli-design course. I'm so stoked for when this semester is going to be over, right?"

"You're an ED-Ma?"

She nodded enthusiastically at that. "Yeah. What about you?"

"Ah, urban design," he said a little quietly.

"Well, aren't you fancy-pants Plate-of-Fries?"

"Jack," he offered even more quietly.

She gave him a smile and brought the menus up against her chest. "Gwen," she said.

Jack eyed her again for a second and then went back to looking at his glass of soda, clearly a little uncomfortable with the exchange and acting about the shyest Olivia had seen him, excluding his moments of silence at the hospital.

"OK, well, I'll get your guys orders put in," she turned to leave again but then turned back suddenly again. "Hey, you know about Slappy, though, right?"

Jack nodded.

"I've never seen ya at those sessions either."

He shrugged. She examined him for a moment. "You know, if you aren't coming out to Battle tomorrow, if you're down, you should come out to Slappy's tonight – before you like bury yourself in your assignment."

Jack shrugged again. "Maybe," he offered.

She looked at him but then shrugged too. "OK. Should have your meals for you guys in like 20," she said and disappeared back over towards the bar area.

Jack was examining his glass of Coke even more, running his fingers down the condensation and slowly twisting the cup around with each movement. Olivia had noticed it seemed to be a nervous restless habit in him. He'd done it with glasses while staying at her apartment too.

He stayed quiet as she watched him. Jack seemed so sad and maybe a little embarrassed by the interaction. She actually thought it had been kind of cute. The girl was obviously interested in him. She'd noticed the waitress eyeing him at the previous visit too. Maybe she'd just been trying to place where she recognized him that time – but this time it was clear that she wanted to get to know him. Olivia may not have known all the skateboarding slang that was getting dropped – but she knew the girl had definitely be outwardly flirting, if not completely inviting Jack out. And, Jack had seemed near oblivious or at least uninterested. She wasn't sure if it was just because her and Benji were sitting there during the interaction or if it was because he wasn't interested or if it was because of his panic about his scholarship.

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow. "You know what that was?" she finally said to him.

He shrugged.

"What's Bub?"

He glanced at her. "Battle Under the Bridge. It's basically the last big skate event of the season. It's just a … stupid contest to show off your skills. It's a crew skate, though. I don't have a crew."

"You Funky's crew," Benji told him and Jack gave him almost a sad smile at that suggestion.

"It's tomorrow?" Olivia asked.

Jack shrugged again.

"What's Slappy?"

He glanced at her. "Why?"

"Because I'm still learning all your skater lingo."

He snorted at her and looked back at his glass again. "It's just this night ride that happens every Friday. Just a bunch of people hanging around Astor Place. Ripping it up."

She watched him for a moment and then looked at Benji, where he was scribbling madly on the placemat with the few crayons that had been given to him.

"You should go," she said. "To one of them. Or both."

Jack glanced at her. He clearly looked surprised she'd said it.

"Don't make life all about work, Jack," she told him. "Take breaks, have some fun. Act your age. Just manage your time properly."

He looked at her, like he didn't believe her statements or suggestion. But the reality was, she thought that Jack spending sometime with kids his age, doing something he loved might be good for him. She really doubted he'd had much of a chance to do that since arriving back in the city with Benji. She knew he needed to pull his grades up – but he didn't need to break himself mentally in the process. Then, on a more selfish level, if he was going to go out to the skateboard event – it would likely mean she'd get Benji for a little bit long, which she wasn't opposed to.

"But we're supposed to like talk," Jack said, "and, Benj, and stuff."

She shrugged at him. "So we talk on Saturday night – or Sunday. Benji and I have big plans tomorrow anyways. Don't we, Benj?"

Benji looked up from his colouring. "We go-in to the playground, Jee-Peedg – and a movie!"

"If Jack says you're allowed to go to a movie with me," she clarified and looked across the table at him.

"You're going to a movie?"

"I'd like to take him to a movie."

"What movie?" Jack asked with some skepticism.

"I don't know. Whatever kids' flick is playing at Kips Bay. Frankenweenie. Hotel Transylvania."

"Fran-ken-we-nee!" Benji declared.

"How does he even know what that is?" Jack said a bit accusingly.

Olivia looked at him. "Because he's been watching some TV this week – and because we looked at the trailers online."

"Don't you think they're a little … scary for a little kid?" Jack spat.

She rubbed her eyebrow. "I didn't think so. They're both PG."

"I not scared Jee-Peedg," Benji said. "Fran-ken-we-nee a dog like me."

"You are not a dog," Jack rolled his eyes.

"I Benji like a dog," Benji clarified for him. "And Tran-sil-van-nah has MONSTERS! We see both."

"You will not see both," Jack said with more than a touch of frustration in his voice. "You probably won't see either."

Benji's lip quivered and he looked at Olivia. "We go-in to a movie, right, 'Livia?"

She ran her hand through his hair. "We'll see, sweetheart," she told him, not wanting to fight about it more at the table.

"We go-in to a movie?"

She looked at Jack with a silent request in her face. "We could come watch you battle, or whatever, after. Which bridge is it under?"

Jack looked at her. "Manhattan. But it's not really like … a kid-friendly kind of park."

She watched him a moment. "People there get into trouble?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know. Some of the locals maybe. I don't. It's legit. It's just not somewhere I'd take him," he added and nodded towards Benji.

"I do battle, Jee-Peedg," Benji near whined. "I on Funky's crew. Gecko say so."

"You're too little to battle, 'Jamin, and your arm is still broken."

Benji pouted some more. "When it be not broken?"

"A while yet, sweetheart," Olivia told him and stroked his head, not even thinking about it but she saw the look Jack gave her and she dropped her hand.

"Let me watch him on Saturday," she said after watching Jack glare at her for several seconds. "You can do your thing. We'll do ours – and we can talk about what happens next after that – when hopefully we'll be more relaxed and in a bit better moods."

"We go-in to a movie?" Benji asked again.

This time she ignored Jack's glare and didn't wait for an answer either way. She didn't want to hear what he had to say on the matter and didn't want to fight with him. So she ran her hand through Benji's messy little faux-hawk again.

"We're going to a movie, sweetheart."


	27. Chapter 27

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Too far," Benji declared, coming to such a sudden stop, that she ended up pulling on his arm as she kept waling.

She could tell he was fading but they were almost back to the apartment.

"Com'on Benji," she encouraged. "Just a few more blocks."

He shook his head. "Too far."

She sighed. She was tired too. It'd been a long week with him and she found any interactions with Jack extra exhausting. Any conversation with him was just an argument thinly veiled as a conversation. At least he'd thanked her for dinner that time. That might be progress.

Really, she just wanted to get back home, so she could get Benji down for the night and she could start decompressing from the week at work and her week of 'playing Mom', as Elliot would likely put it. She hadn't heard anything back from him. But she supposed she hadn't really expected to either. It still hurt in a way, but she was trying not to dwell on it. Talking to him about any of the current situation would probably just end up making her upset anyways. It was better for her to make her own decisions on how to deal with it. She was a big girl – she could decide on her own what was right – for her and for Benji. And, that was another thing she wanted to just get home for – to start mapping out in her head how she was going to have this pending talk with Jack; what she wanted to say, what she wanted to push for for the time-being, what she wanted out of the situation, what would be best for Benji, what would be best for Jack. It was all so fucking complicated. She didn't need complicated.

Still, she just wanted to get to the apartment. She didn't want to have to argue with Benji or drag him by the hand down the street. She just wanted to get home. So she bent down, stuck her hands under his armpits and hoisted him up to her. It was clearly what he was shooting for and he once again, wrapped himself around her neck and waist and put his head on her shoulder.

"You're a little big for this Benji," she told him, as she started walking again, "and my back is a little old for this."

"Why your back old 'Livia?"

She glanced at him. "Because I'm old, Benji."

"How old?"

"Old, old."

"Two hundred?"

She snorted. "Not quite."

"One hundred?"

"Almost."

"That old," he agreed.

"Very."

"What we do when we get home 'Livia?" Benji asked. She glanced at him. She wasn't sure she'd heard him refer to her apartment as home before. She knew that he likely didn't mean anything by it. He was a four-year-old. Home was likely just a word to him – he hadn't put deeper thought into the context or its true meaning. But there was something about hearing it out of his mouth that made her heart skip a bit for just a second, so she rubbed his back a bit, trying not to let herself get worked up about something that wasn't there.

"We do bath and bed, Benj," she told him.

He shook his head.

"Yes, Benji. It's almost time to sleep and you're acting tired. You want to have lots of energy for the playground and the movie tomorrow, right?"

He rubbed his cheek against her shoulder. "Why does Jee-Peedg not sleep over too?"

"Mmm, because Jack is a big boy and likes sleeping at your guys' apartment so he can work on his school work and go to class in the morning."

"He coulda come to nur-suri school," Benji suggested.

She smiled. "Jack's a little too grown-up for nursery school, sweetheart."

"I a big boy too," Benji informed her.

She gave a silent laugh at that. Benji sure thought sometimes he was a big boy but he was definitely a preschooler in about every way possible. He wasn't that grown-up yet.

She had to admit that what had started as her just doing some online research about his development in terms of her wondering about his growth, had resulted in her spending several hours online reading about the overall development of four-year-olds. She was familiar with several of the milestones and how to interact with them from her dealings with children at work. But dealing with it all on a daily basis – and in her home, was different. It seemed like a child's fourth year was a pretty important in a child's development, in terms of their social progress and preparing them to enter school, as well as their cognitive stages and emotional well-being. She just didn't think Jack was nurturing that at all in Benji. Jack seemed to feel that feeding and clothing Benji was about enough. Jack was making sure Benji's basic needs were met. That was likely all he had the time or energy for really. But the little boy needed and deserved a lot more than that.

"Jee-Peedg say I go home on Sunday," Benji told her.

She knew it was likely a true statement – at least from Jack's point of view. But it still almost made her stop in her tracks. She didn't want to think about that really, even though she knew it was a very possible outcome. It just wasn't the outcome she intended to be shooting for. She'd paid up until the end of the year for his daycare – a small fucking fortune. She fully intended to have him in her care until then. Get Jack through his semester, get Benji through his healing period and get her fucking money's worth out of the daycare investment – and get them both to trust her so she actually got to have something in her life for once. At least that what she thought her plan was.

She glanced at Benji. "When did he say that?"

"Supper."

Apparently taking a bathroom break at the restaurant was a bad idea. It had clearly given Jack the opportunity to talk with Benji and tell him things that she sort of wished he and her had had the chance to speak about first.

"Maybe, sweetheart. Jack and I haven't talked about that yet, though. But Jack is your uncle and he gets to decide when you go home."

"Why?"

"Because he's your uncle, Benji. He's responsible for you."

"Why?"

"It's just the way it works."

"Why?"

She smiled at him, though a little sadly. She knew he had no real concept of what she was telling him. He just liked asking 'why'. But she still felt like she had to answer – and she didn't much like the answers she had to give.

"It just is, Benji."

"Why?"

"Because sometimes things just works certain ways, Benj. It doesn't mean we have to like it."

"You don't like it 'Livia?"

She snorted and looked at him. "No, Benji. I don't think I like it very much."


	28. Chapter 28

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She was wandering around the playground – trying to give Benji suitable space so he could be a kid but keeping her eyes on him like a hawk.

Apparently their near daily presence at St. Vartan's over the past two weeks had already established them a bit in the playground community, which was a bit of a foreign concept to her. But the parents in the area seemed to be chatty as their kids played – and Benji seemed happy to chatter at and boss around other children in the park around too. His efforts to communicate with other children seemed to mean that as his supervisor, the kids' parents got to talk to her.

It was a new experience for her. Calvin hadn't shown any interest in being taken out to the park – so really the only interaction she'd had with parents in her community had been when she was dropping him off and picking him up at school. And, she was usually in a hurry and wasn't much to talking. It was really a kind of get-in and get-out sort of situation. At the playground there wasn't really any escape. Benji would happily play there for hours if she let him, which meant other parents would happily chat at her for hours.

Since she clearly wasn't a nanny most people seemed to just assume he was her son, and why wouldn't they? So she'd been asked by near every one of the apparent regulars if they were new to the community. She could only say no so many times. She was starting to think that just saying yes would be an easier answer. But then she'd likely have to listen to them tell her all about the neighbourhood that she'd lived in for the better part of a decade at that point. Though, she supposed, they might have some tips on what was in the area that would appeal to a four-year-old, which wasn't exactly something she was entirely versed on. But getting versed on it was likely pointless if Jack was planning on taking Benji home the next day.

Benji was all out hyped-up that morning, though. She'd already made a note to herself that if she did get to spend more time with him – she wouldn't give him such a head's up about going to a movie – or anything else for that matter. It had left him a little too excitable. She was actually considering taking him over to the earliest possible showing to get him to calm down about the pending activity. For the moment, though, she was trying to get him to run his sillies out. It really was the only option. If they'd stayed at the apartment much longer, she was sure he was going to bounce right through the walls. Or she'd toss him out the window. She wasn't sure which.

He'd near dragged her to the playground when they'd walked over. He had her arm stretched out as far in front of her as he could pull it. She'd had to keep her hand gripped tightly to his. She didn't really trust him running down 2nd Avenue on his own. Even if he didn't bolt out into traffic, she was sure he'd run smack dab into some other pedestrian, not on the look out for a four-year-old on a playground-mission like a maniac.

He hadn't really calmed since getting to the playground either. He was all over the place. But his excitement to bolt from one obstacle to the next – meant that she was constantly pacing around the exterior to keep him in view, so she was managing to dodge awkward conversation with the other parents already there trying to exhaust their kids for the day too.

She watched him get up onto the little platform in front of the monkey-bars and eye them – before he tentatively put out his hand to reach the first one, holding onto it tightly and then bringing his casted arm up to awkwardly grab it too.

"Benji," she called at him and he glanced her way. "No," she said simply. But he gave her that look that she'd already learned meant he had heard her but he was really considering if he was going to listen to her. It was his little-boy defiant look – wanting to do what he wanted to do but weighing that against his want to please her. "You'll fall," she called out at him sternly. "Do you want to go back to the hospital?"

"Don't Mother Hen him so much," she heard a man's voice say behind her and started to turn, prepared to shoot a dirty look and a blasting comment at the man to go and mind his own kids.

"He's not going to even make it past the first bar," the voice said again, a familiarity setting in this time, as she finished glancing over her shoulder.

"Dropping a few inches to the ground isn't going to land him in the hospital," Elliot said.

She glazed at him. She wasn't even sure if he was really standing there – in his jeans and a sweatshirt, his jacket hanging open. He looked exactly as she remembered him, like the year hadn't even passed, like he hadn't dealt with all the stress she knew he had, like it hadn't aged him at all. She felt herself gaping. She felt uncomfortable. She felt like it wasn't real. She didn't know what to say or what to do. She hadn't expected to see him. She hadn't even expected to hear back from him but he was standing right here – no more than four feet away from her. She thought she might cry. That would be a bad idea, though. She couldn't do that.

But she let out a shake breath, closed the gap and threw her arms around him. He seemed shocked for a moment – maybe like she'd been feeling as she stood there looking at him trying to decide if he was a mirage or not. Then, though, his arms came up around her in a loose embrace.

"Hi," he said.


	29. Chapter 29

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

They'd moved to a bench next to the play structure and were sitting together but they weren't really talking. She so hadn't expected to hear back from him – she'd so felt like her text message had just been yell out into the ether, she hadn't even considered what she'd say to him. There was so much she wanted to ask at him. So much she wanted to yell at him, to tell him off for. So much she wanted to tell him about the past year of her life and what was going on right then. But what do you say to a person who knows everything about you but now knows nothing about you? When you know so much about them and their life but don't know anything anymore? She guessed he didn't know what to say either because he'd been letting the long and awkward silence hang over them too.

"How'd you know we were over here?" she finally managed to get out and glanced at him.

She'd been continuing to watch Benji gallop around the playground. Somehow watching him seemed to make sitting there next to Elliot a bit easier. It gave her something to focus on and to help keep her emotions in check. She was swinging so violently between relief, anger, sadness, happiness. It was a little overwhelming. She wanted to scream at him, to punch him, to hug him and to break down in tears all at the same time.

He glanced at her. He'd been looking at the playground too. She wasn't watching him closely enough to be able to discern if he was observing Benji or if it was just generally looking in that direction because it was the way they were facing.

"My car's parked just down from your building," he said after several long beats. "I was sitting out there for a while. I saw you two leave. You were pretty easy to follow."

She eyed him for a moment, wondering how long he'd actually been outside her building, what was going through his head, if he would've come to the buzzer if her and Benji hadn't left for the park. She chastised herself a bit too for not being aware of her surroundings enough to notice his car – or him – or to feel someone following her. She wondered how far back he kept from them. Obviously enough that she didn't sense a presence. She had noticed she was shifting more of her attention to Benji these days – but if Elliot could stake-out her home and follow after her undetected, she thought she likely needed to put some more effort into improving her situational awareness.

Speaking of which, Benji smacked into her side, draping his elbows over her knees almost undetected as she eyed up Elliot. She looked down at him.

"Thirsty," he told her.

She gave him a little smile and reached for her purse beside her, which Benji took as his cue to dive in too.

"Just a second, Benj," she told him, now trying to find the juice box around his rummaging hands, where he pulled out the water bottle and held it up to her. She looked at him again. "You don't want your juice?"

He shook his head vigourously. "Vater," he said.

She shrugged and twisted the cap off and handed it back to him. "Don't dump it down your front this time," she instructed him, hoping to avoid that mess again.

He gazed at her and shoved the whole top into his mouth tipping his head back and holding the thing there with both hands and making a sucking chug. She pulled down on his elbows to bring his head back forward.

"That is how you spilled it last time," she nodded at him.

He eyed her some more and handed the bottle back to her. "Juice," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "Now you want juice?"

He nodded again. So she shook her head and returned the cap to the bottle, put it back in her purse and managed to get the juice box out before he started helping her look. She pulled the wrapper off the straw as he grabbed at the box and then jammed the thing into it for.

Benji took it and chased the straw around with his tongue hanging out of his head until he managed to snag it with his mouth and started slurping happily. He leaned against her side and eyed Elliot up and down while he took a long drink. Elliot was definitely looking at him at that point and gave the little boy a small smile. She looked at Benji too and pulled his beanie further down his head and over his ears from where it had pushed up to the point that it was barely sitting on his head. He batted her hands away with his one free hand and looked at her with his expressive eyes – clearly telling her to leave him be. But then he pushed more of his weight against her and rubbed his cheek against her arm.

"Who he?" he finally asked as he pulled the straw out of his mouth and eyed Elliot a bit more suspiciously.

She rubbed her hand down his side and pulled him to her a bit more, trying to comfort the tenseness she could feel in his little body as he looked at the man. Benji seemed to approach new men with much more suspicion that he did women. She hadn't pinpointed exactly what that was related to yet. Based on Jack's telling of it, Greg was a gruff man who did a lot of yelling, or at least raised voice and swore, at Benji's mother and later Benji, himself. She supposed that might have something to do with it. Benji saw a man and expected to get yelled at – at least until he got to know him and figured out on his own that that wasn't the case.

"My friend Elliot," she told him.

"Who are you?" Elliot directed at him with a small smile.

Benji eyed him some more. Olivia wasn't sure he was going to answer and was about to tell him to say hello. But then the little boy said quietly, "Benji."

Elliot gave him another small smile and a little nod. "Hi Benji," he said.

Benji squinted his eyes at him – clearly measuring him and stuck his straw back in his mouth, sucking harder, almost like he was trying to convey some sort of message with the loudness of his slurping. Olivia rubbed his side a bit more.

"You going to play some more Benj?"

He looked at her and made his face of careful consideration that he applied for nearly every question she put to him. He pulled the juice box from his mouth.

"When the movie 'Livia?"

She looked at her watch. "Two hours, Benj. Lots of time."

He seemed to consider that some more. "OK. I play more," he agreed.

She nodded. "Good plan."

He gazed at her and batted the straw with his tongue some more, it dodging him to the point, she stilled it for him to get it into his mouth and he made a giantly loud sucking noise until the box crumpled up onto itself and then he smacked his lips. "AHHHHH!" he declared to her and held out the empty box to her.

She snorted. "Thank you, Benji."

He nodded. "Welcome. I pretend skateboard now."

"OK," she said, gently pushing him away from her. "Don't pretend to skateboard into any of the little kids."

He gave her a look like she was clearly about the stupidest pretend skateboarding Mom ever. "I ollie over them, 'Livia."

She gave a small laugh. "OK. You do that."

And then he flew back off towards the playground again, his unzipped jacket flapping out behind him, as he jumped and twisted and landed, only to run even faster. She shook her head and glanced at Elliot. He was eyeing her now in a similar way to what Benji had been doing to him minutes before.

"What?" she asked.

He shrugged and gave her a thin smile – clasping his hands tightly and leaning forward onto his knees. His eyes were back on Benji as he ran and jumped off some of the lower obstacles on the playground. Sometimes he'd jump up with one foot and push himself off and go running in an opposite direction – barely missing other kids in his dizzied skateboarding imitation.

"Is he work-related?"

Then it was her turn to eye him – measuring his tone and his body language, measuring if this was really a conversation she wanted to have with him now that it was actually starting to happen.

She shook her head, though. "No. He's not work-related."

"Who is he then, Olivia?" he asked and glanced at her.

She shrugged and let out a big sigh, reaching to nervously rub at her eyebrow. But dropped her hand as she realized it had landed there. Elliot would notice that. He'd know it was her nervous behaviour, her thinking, her avoidance, her stress and rising blood pressure. She didn't want that tell – even though she knew it was likely already too late. He'd seen.

"Benji," she offered.

He snorted and looked at her. "I got that much."

She sighed at him. "It's complicated."

He nodded. "Got that much too. It's you we're talking about here."

She shook her head and gave him a dirty look. "Thanks, El."

He sat back up and crossed his arms, slouching more into the hard bench. "So who is he?"

She sat quietly – thinking about how to phrase it. What could she say to make it make sense to him? To put it in a way that he wouldn't frown on? So that he'd understand how much she wanted this? Not that she'd let his approval dictate her actions before. She knew he didn't approve of Calvin but she'd still pushed forward – though they'd butted heads. Though he'd interfered – and had said hurtful things. But this was different.

This was a little boy that she could have in her life – help raise, have as her own in a way … if she played it right. He wasn't that damaged yet. He still had a chance for a normal childhood. She could give him that – and she wanted to so badly. With each passing day she wanted it more and more. Two weeks in and the concept of Jack just getting him to take him away from her ached so violently.

This could be something. It could be something good – really good. It could be happening for a reason. This could be it this time. This time it was something good that could work out for her.

She thought Jay might like that. He'd wanted to have a family with her. She'd pushed that away all those years ago – but now - happenstance, fate, life, the universe – it was giving her another chance to be a part of Jay's family. It was giving her the opportunity to have a child in her life. She had to try to make it work out. For her own sake – but also for Benji's and for Jack's … and even for Jay's. At least, that's what she kept telling herself more and more with each passing day.

"He's the grandson of a guy I dated in college," she said finally and flatly. Elliot just kept looking at her at that – giving her those intense steely eyes while he processed the information but he made no comment.

"I know," she said, trying to make it sound half-ways a joke. "It's terrifying. I now have exes who have children old enough to have children."

Elliot allowed her a snort at that and shook his head before looking at her again.

"That will make you feel old," he commented.

She smiled at him. It was slowly starting to feel more natural – more like she was just talking to her friend, her partner. He still got her sarcasm. He still understood her looks, her body language, where she was coming from with things – even if he didn't like it, didn't agree, didn't approve. Even if none of it fit into his world view or what was normal and right.

She nodded at Benji on the playground. "He asked if I was two hundred years old last night," she told him.

Elliot smiled. "Did you tell him only one hundred?"

She snorted. "Basically. Yes."

Elliot shook his head at her and fell quiet again for several moments and they both just looked out across the playground again.

"Maureen's pregnant," he finally said as a flat matter-of-fact statement.

She gaped at him. "Wow," she managed to get out. "Well that's really exciting."

Elliot shrugged. "It makes me feel old."

It made Olivia feel a little old too. She'd watched Maureen do a lot of growing up – had heard a lot of stories. And, now Elliot's oldest was expecting. Maureen managed to get herself established in her life and form relationships to the point that she'd achieved something that had managed to elude Olivia now for 44 years. It made her feel like she'd missed so much too over the past year to not know that – to not know that Maureen was pregnant, to not know who partner was about to be a grandfather.

"When's she due?"

He tightened his arms a bit more. "March. She's about five months along right now. Told us just over a month ago."

"The father?"

He nodded. "Same guy she's been with for a while. They're engaged now."

"Wow," she said again and looked at him.

He didn't seem that excited about it. But Elliot always seemed so nervous and reserved when his oldest went through each of her milestones in life. She knew Elliot couldn't say much or judge considering he'd gotten Kathy pregnant out of wedlock when they were barely 19. But she doubted he was that happy that Maureen that the boyfriend weren't yet married and a baby was on the way. But his daughter must be what … 29 years old now?! … definitely old enough to be making her own decisions about how she wanted to live her life and have a family.

Still, she knew too that some of Elliot and Maureen's relationship had been damaged while he and Kathy had been separated. Maureen had been more than old enough that she hadn't had any qualms about telling Elliot exactly what she thought of the situation. Though, Elliot and Kathy had eventually gotten back together, she wasn't sure if he and Maureen had ever truly repaired some of the wounds from the strain they'd gone through. But, she knew that Elliot would do anything for his daughter – for any of his children.

"Congratulations, El."

He gave a little snort at that, like it wasn't appreciated and she couldn't possibly understand, and glanced at her. He nodded at Benji again, though. "Why's he with you?"

She sighed hard. "I don't even know where to begin with that one," she allowed.

He looked at her hard – and she met his eyes and shrugged.

"His grandfather is dead. His mother is dead. His father is unknown."

"Is he in your custody?"

She shook her head.

"Guardianship?"

"No," she said quietly.

"Then why is he with you?"

She felt her hand go up to the Elliot's medallion around her neck. It had become another one of her worry-spots over the past year – as she moved it along the chain and felt the ridges of the medal under her fingertips.

"I'm helping his guardian out," she said quietly. She could already feel his judgment and disapproval radiating off of him. In reality, she had from near the moment he appeared.

"So you're watching him? Babysitting?"

She shook her head. "No. He's been in my care for about two weeks now."

He sighed. "It sounds like a mess, Olivia. And, legally … a bigger mess, if something where to happen to him. Where's his guardian?"

She met his eyes. "His guardian is his 18-year-old uncle. He's a student a City – almost failing out of school because his familial situation has left this little boy in his care. It's not good for either of them. It's a mess for both of them."

"But it doesn't have to be a mess for you," he told her in dead seriousness. "You should call ACS. You know that."

She shook her head. "No. They don't need to go into the system. Benji doesn't deserve that. Jack doesn't deserve to be made to feel like he's failed this little boy. He's been really trying. Benji hasn't been neglected. He's been cared for – and Jack sought out help when he needed it."

"From you?"

She met his eyes again. "Yes."

"Who's the exe? I don't remember you ever mentioning anything about keeping in touch with anyone like this, having a relationship like this."

She rubbed her eyebrow. "I wouldn't have ever mentioned him. It was a long time ago."

"Then how did you end up wrapped up in this?"

She shrugged. "Jack got in touch with me."

"How did he even know who you were?"

"His father."

"What? On his deathbed his father suggested to his son that he go and find a long-lost girlfriend to help raise of his grandson?"

She glared at him. "No."

Elliot sighed. "Olivia, you know you have a … tendency … to get involved in other people's business. It doesn't usually seem to work out for you very well."

She glared at him some more but then she pulled her eyes away from him and looked back at Benji again. He was clambering up a sloped ladder, completely undeterred by his broken arm and chattering at another little boy standing on the platform he was headed for.

"This is different," she finally managed to say quietly.

She glanced at him and met his eyes. He was looking at her with more than a little concern. "I really want this, El," she told him seriously.

Elliot gave her a thin smile at that. "How old is he?" he finally asked, looking back out at the kid. "Three?"

"Four. He turned four in September."

"What happened to his arm?"

"He fell. Skateboarding with his uncle. Broken wrist. Stitches in his face. Concussion. We were in the hospital a couple days. He needed surgery on his wrist."

He glanced at her again and let out a sigh. "This is a mess, Olivia," he said quietly. "This is not going to turn out well."

"He's an awfully cute mess," she almost whispered out.

Elliot rubbed his face with both over his hands and made a bigger noise. "Liv, I just don't want to see you get hurt … again."

She glanced at him and shrugged. "Then don't look. You did a pretty good job of that for the past year."

He looked at her sideways from where he'd returned to his slouched forward position – his legs spread wide while he rested his elbows on them in apparent deep thought. "That's not fair," he said.

"Ending an almost fourteen year friendship without even talking to me wasn't fair," she said flatly. "You just cut me off. Like you do everyone in your life. All the women in your life. Always."

"Fourteen year partnership," he corrected her – ignoring the rest of her statement.

She nodded without looking at him. "Yeah. I get now that we were just partners. That cut and dry."

"Olivia …"

She shrugged and shook her head hard. "I don't want to talk about any of that. I'm not ready to. I don't think you are either. Or that you ever will be."

"You clearly wanted to talk," Elliot said.

"I have always wanted to talk," she stressed back at him. "It's you that didn't. I respected that."

"Eventually," he said flatly. "Until now."

She glared at him. "You didn't have to come. You didn't have to respond. You could've ignored it like every other message I've left you."

"And let you just wade into this minefield?" he spat at her. "I care too much about you to let you do this to yourself – again."

"Oh? Now you care?"

"You know I have always cared," he said flatly.

She looked at him briefly. She could see some sadness in his body language. Despite their spat, she didn't see the telltale vein of anger pulsing in his temple. He just looked unsure – nearly stressed. She wasn't sure if he was stressed by her situation or just being there, talking to her, generally. She wondered where Kathy thought he was that morning. She doubt his wife knew he was in the city talking to her about her latest misadventures in ever getting to have a family.

"I want this El," she stressed firmly. "I really, really, really want this."

"What happened to adoption … or …", he gestured with his hand like he didn't like the word or even thinking about it, "in-vitro."

"They obviously didn't work out," she near spat at him. "I want this, El. I'm 44-years-old. I'm single – and let's just say things aren't looking good about that changing anytime soon. I don't have four great grown kids. I don't have a beautiful little boy at home to worry about paying for college for. I'm not feeling old about my first grandchild or my oldest daughter getting married. I wish I had some of those things – those 'problems'. I don't. I've got nobody in my life. Nothing in my life. I didn't even have my best friend for the past year. Until two weeks ago, I wasn't even going home anymore, El. I was sleeping in the cribs more than my own bed – because I couldn't stand going back to any empty apartment anymore. I want this. I'm running out of options. Opportunities. This might be it. I deserve this. And, don't tell me that that little boy doesn't deserve to end up in a home with someone who could love him and support him and care for him."

She felt her eyes glassing as she tried to hold the emotion that had rattled through her voice in check – so she turned away from him again and searched for Benji on the playground. She could feel Elliot watching her but didn't look back. She couldn't yet. She felt herself teetering – anger and sadness were mingling and boiling in her.

"Kids like this …" Ellliot said, "you know they … come with a lot of baggage. Just look at what you got involved in with Calvin."

She shook her head. "He's not Calvin. This isn't like with Calvin. Benji's not damaged. He's just a little boy. … He's perfect. He's really fucking perfect," she said and felt her voice crack a bit and shook her head harder, and examined the ground for a moment, forcing herself to compose herself again.

"They're a lot of work at this age," Elliot finally said quietly.

She rolled her eyes. "I know that, Elliot. I'm not some kid that needs to get told that parenting isn't all fun-and-games even if the baby is so cute. Benji is a lot of work. I'm exhausted. I don't care. I am more than willing to be broke and exhausted for the next sixteen years, if that means I get to keep him in my life."

"How will you do your job as a single mother?"

She glanced at him. "Believe it or not, El, I've had other job offers. Apparently I'm employable."

He looked surprised. "You'd leave Special Victims?"

She shrugged. "It's not the same anymore."

He examined her more but made no comment. But it really wasn't the same anymore. She thought all the time about if she wanted to leave. She thought about some of her chats with Bayard Ellis and his suggestions about what she could be doing with her career. She thought about some of the talks she'd had with people at various rape crisis centres and wondered if she skills might be better applied there – if she'd be able to offer more help there, in a more meaningful way. She thought about some of the cards that had been slipped to her while she'd attended the women's and gender equality conference last winter. She had options and more and more she thought her skills might be better applied elsewhere anymore – that she could do more good elsewhere, that she could affect more change.

She didn't know how much longer she could watch the same sad stories – the same pain and torture and victimization – pass in front of her and for it to feel like nothing ever really changed. She may be able to help individual victims – to a point – but overall nothing changed. How much longer could she live under that cloud of darkness? How much longer could she fight against it? And for what?

It seemed to count for even less now that she went to work and didn't have her community there. Elliot was gone. John's heart wasn't in it anymore either. Cragen was always chewing her out to be more of a role model and mentor in the squad room. If he wasn't doing that he was pushing her to start finally moving up the ranks and take on a more supervisory role - take her courses and her exams. It made her wonder how many more years he intended to be around before he finally retired and if he was trying to get her position herself so she could take over the squad, if she wanted. But she wasn't sure that would ever be a job she wanted.

Then, there was Fin. His personality had changed so much now that he didn't feel like he was living in Elliot's shadow and now that he had the younger detectives to groom. He'd really come into his own. She respected that – but she wasn't sure she liked it, or the new side she was seeing to him. She thought she liked angry Fin a bit more than mellow. But maybe she was just so used to dealing with Elliot's rage for so many years, the concept of someone being able to play mentor and to be a good cop without being so in everyone's face just seemed like too much of a foreign concept to her.

But no matter how she cut it, it always came back to the job just not being what it used to be. It never would be again – and she wasn't sure she wanted to stay around waiting for it to get better or to be one of those former good cops who was now just waiting out her retirement. She'd have her 20 soon, though. Then she could really explore more of her options with an even greater comfort level.

"So what's your plan?" he finally asked.

She looked at him and shook her head. "I don't know."

"It sounds like you know – at least what you want," he told her. "Your current situation with him … it doesn't make much sense. You could get yourself into some hot water if you let it stay this way. His guardian too. He might end up in the system whether you like it or not."

She shot him another look. "I'm aware of that."

"So what's your plan?"

She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow some more – checking on Benji again. His hat had ridden up his ears again and was sitting at a ridiculous angle that he seemed totally unaware of. He was far too busy racing his little playmate up-and-down the slide. Not to mention the two of them were also trying to run actually up the slide and disrupting the play of some of the other children.

"Benji," she called out loudly and he glanced over his shoulder. She shook her head hard at him – and even from where she was she could see the pout but he dropped onto his butt, slid down the rest of the slide and then went running to the playground bridge instead, his little friend trailing after him.

"He listens to you," Elliot commented.

She snorted at him. "Surprised? He wants my approval. He wants a mother. You can tell. It doesn't take much interaction with him to see that."

"He wants you?"

"I didn't say that," she said and met his eyes. "I said he wants a mother."

"You want a child."

She met his eyes at that - hard. "Yes, El. I do. I have for a very long time now."

"So what's the plan?" he asked again.

She let out a breath. "To convince Jack to sign over his guardianship to me and to then work from there."

"And do you think that will happen? Or are you just going to get screwed over again? Is this going to be another Vivian? Another Calvin?"

She gripped the necklace again, palming it in her hand. "It will happen. After Jack trusts that he'll still play a role in Benji's life, that he needs to, that I want that and Benji wants that – it will happen. I think."


	30. Chapter 30

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She was almost glad when her phone started vibrating in her pocket and the ID said it was Jack calling. It gave her a break from the conversation – an excuse to pull her eyes away from Elliot's. She supposed the conversation was going about exactly the way she should've expected it to go with him. He wasn't being completely disapproving but his distaste at the situation was clear too. In her dreams, she would've hoped for better. But dreams and reality rarely jive. She was probably dreaming that all of this could work out – that she could be a part of Benji's life – and Elliot was just bringing her back to reality. She always hated that about him. His support of her always seemed so conditional. It had to fit within his worldview of normal. She'd never really felt like her life had ever operated within society's definition of normal.

"Sorry," she mumbled at Elliot and answered the phone, gazing at the ground.

"Hey," she said quietly into it, very aware that Elliot was listening to every word. She thought about getting up and taking a few steps away from the bench to have some more privacy. But part of her was also fearing that if she moved away from Elliot, he would be gone. She wasn't getting to hear what she wanted to hear from him. But she also wasn't willing to just have him disappear either. She wanted for them to be able to talk – to hear what he was doing and how he was doing, to hear about the other kids too. She didn't want to lose that opportunity, though, she definitely got the impression he was there to talk about her – and this specifically. She didn't think he was going to let her veer too far off topic – to get into his business. Even though he seemed content to discourage her from her own business – and Benji was her business now, as far as she was concerned.

She rubbed at her eyebrow as Jack accusingly demanded, apparently from inside her apartment, to know where she'd put his clutch pencil and eraser shield – neither of which she was entirely sure what they were.

"Did you check around the desk?" she asked. "… Then, I don't know where they are, Jack. I haven't noticed any of your things left around the apartment this week. Maybe you left them at school. … OK. … Then maybe you should go out and get replacements."

He blabbered into her ear more about how much it would cost to replace the fucking pencil and how he never misplaces them because they cost so much.

She sighed. "Well, I don't know what to tell you, Jack."

She could hear him moving around the apartment and the distinctive sound of the fridge opening. He spotted the leftovers.

"Yes, you can have the pancakes," she agreed and shook her head a little annoyed. She brought her eyes back up to track Benji again. He loved the one platform that was done up almost like the gazebo. He seemed to think he was the real king of the castle up there. But he didn't seem to much want to share it – expect for with his little friend, who was guarding the step up to it and looking like he was telling a little girl who appeared to be maybe two, she couldn't join them. She saw a parent starting to move towards them and wondered if she should go over and intervene too – or just let that mother handle telling off the boys.

"We're at St. Vartan's," she told Jack, as he finally expressed some interest in why the apartment was vacant. "No, we haven't gone to the movie yet. … Do you want to come or are you going to your skateboarding thing?"

He demanded again to know what movie she was taking Benji too.

"Frankenweenie," she said flatly, and he again expressed how apparently it was an inappropriate movie for a four-year-old, in his opinion. She didn't really understand his logic – considering the skateboarding culture that Benji seemed to be overly comfortable with and the language that went with it. The music she'd heard Jack playing. The kind of toys and games Benji seemed interested in. She was pretty sure Benji wasn't going to see or hear anything in the movie that was too disturbing to him.

"Yes, I'm aware it's a Tim Burton movie, Jack," she sighed.

"I know who Tim Burton is," she nearly spat at him but tried to keep her voice level, aware that Elliot was still listening. "Jack, it's a Disney movie. I'm pretty sure he'll be fine."

"… OK. Then I'll deal with the nightmares," she shook her head and rolled her eyes. At least if she was apparently dealing with the nightmares, that again increased her hopes that Benji would still be with her come tomorrow night.

"So are you coming with us or going to your skateboarding thing?" she asked again.

He blabber again about how it was a 'crew' contest … while the microwave dinged and she could hear him banging around again ….

"The syrup is in the top cupboard closest to the fridge," she finally interrupted him, suspecting that's what he was looking for.

… and it was all just a bunch of 'wanks' anyways.

She shook her head again. "So what are you doing this afternoon? Going to it? Coming with us? Doing your project?"

He blabbered at her some more. She was starting to think that Jack was much more talkative on the phone – way more talkative than he ever was to her when she was sitting in front of him. Though, he still had an edge and an attitude to him.

"So you're going to work on your project there?"

She squeezed the bridge of her nose as he started going off again – now clearly talking with his mouthful. He was starting to sound like Benji the night before in his endless recital of his adventures at daycare. Only this was apparently the adventures of an 18-year-old skateboarder who had his first Friday night without a four-year-old since the start of the academic term.

"So you're just getting in?" She sighed, slightly unimpressed. "I don't need or want to hear any other details, Jack. … Because I'm not your babysitter. You're an adult. … Jack, you don't need to explain to me if you were with her or now. … OK. You were just skateboarding. That's fine. … Jack, that's your business. … "

She rubbed her forehead and glanced at Elliot, who gave her a thin smile.

"OK. Well, I'm glad you had a good time."

She nodded into the phone as he babbled some more.

"Yeah, have a shower, sleep. … Fine. … But if you're going to be there when Benji and I get back you better be prepared to stay the night … Because when he sees you there, Jack, that's going to be what he wants. … Because you're his uncle and he's been asking why you aren't sleeping over. …If you want to sleep over, sleep over, Jack."

She shook her head. "You're supposed to be working on your assignment this weekend … I told you to have some fun but to manage your time properly. Managing your time properly probably should've meant not staying out all night and now sleeping away the rest of the weekend. …"

"… I'm not trying to be your mother, Jack. … I'm not yelling at you. You'd know if I was yelling at you."

She sighed. "OK. Jack, I've got to go. I need to keep an eye on Benji. Yes, that's fine. … No, Jack. I don't care if you stay the night. I just don't want you to get your nephew all riled up, if you don't intend to stay the night. So – if you aren't planning on staying – be gone by … let's say three … and come back tomorrow and we'll talk then."

She looked at the sky as he went on again. "OK, Jack. … OK. You're a big boy. You decide. OK. … OK. … Bye."

She glanced at Elliot as she put her phone back in her pocket. Every interaction with Jack send her blood pressure up – she could feel it. Dealing with perps got her less worked up than having to deal with the tizzy of attitude that radiated off the teen.

"Sorry," she muttered.

"He living with you too?"

She shook her head. "No. They're apartment is up in Harlem. He's been staying up there. Closer to school."

"Key?"

She nodded.

"That a good idea?"

She shrugged at him. "He's just a kid. He's Ben's guardian. He should be able to come-and-go as he pleases."

"Alone in your apartment, Olivia? You wouldn't give other strange men a key to your place," Elliot told her.

She shot him a look. "He's just a kid. He's fine."

"So, you're signing up to be his mother too?" he shook his head at her. "This is … ridiculous, Olivia."

She looked hard at Elliot. "I am not interested in being his mother. But that kid – young man – whatever you want to call him, he grew up without a mother and it definitely shows. He went through his teens without his father. He got to have his senile grandmother, his verbally abusive uncle and his troubled, drug-addicted sister and infant nephew as his family during the years he was supposed to be learning how to be an adult. Jack is stuck at about a 15-year-old mentality in an 18-year-old's body while trying really hard to pretend to be a grown man. So, he fucking needs someone to care about him, to tell him off and to fucking mother him too, El. He's part of this package – and he needs just as much help as that little boy. He deserves it too. No matter how much of an ass he is."

She let out a breath and rubbed at her forehead and examined the ground. She actually thought Elliot might be pissing her off more than Jack. Maybe getting in touch with him was a bad idea.

"Ah," Elliot said. "Now, I see. They're victims, right, Olivia?"

She glared at him. "What the fuck is that supposed to mean?"

"You always relate to the victims," he said flatly.

"What I relate to in these boys is coming from a significantly less than ideal family situation, Elliot."

"You deal with kids from less than ideal family situations all the time. Why are you so invested in this?"

"Because I know what having a screwed-up childhood is like – what having an unknown and missing parent is like. I know what fucked up teen years can mean for a young person. These kids have been through enough. Jay wouldn't want this for his son – for his grandson."

"Jay? The exe? You're letting yourself get so wrapped up in this because of some college boyfriend connection? When's the last time you even saw or spoke to the guy, Olivia?"

She shook her head at the sky. "No parent would wish this mess on their children. It doesn't matter who's kids they are. They don't deserve this."

"So if any kid walked up to you in the street and gave you a sob story, you'd get this involved?"

"You know I would try to help."

"Not like this. You're letting yourself get dragged into this mess because of … some shadow from your past. Some vague connection. This is going to end badly, Olivia. You are going to get hurt again."

"Then I get hurt again," she spat back at him. "These kids deserve help. They deserve more than what their lives look like right now. So hopefully before this all goes to hell I will have been able to do something to make this situation better for them."

Elliot shook his head at her. "You are always setting yourself up for this sort of bullshit. It's like you're punishing yourself. It's got to stop. If you really want to help them – call ACS. Do your job – cut the bullshit."

"This," she gestured across the playground to Benji, "is not my job. Fuck the job, Elliot. This is my life. The job has come before my life for long enough. What do I have to show for it?"

He gave her a sad look for several long, silent seconds – while her felt her anger shake through her again and her eyes threatening to glass over again. Finally, he pulled his gaze away and examined the ground. "You should call ACS, Liv," he said quietly.

She shook her head. "I'm not calling ACS. Someone else can do that to them. It's not going to be me."

"Having a kid for a couple weeks. Taking them to the park, to a movie. It doesn't make you a parent to them," Elliot said, still not looking at her. "You're just …"

"Playing Mom?" she spat back loudly at him, snapping her head in his direction.

"You're so fucking predictable," she said more quietly. "You'd think after more than a year, you could've come up with some new lines. You have ALWAYS made me feel like crap for not having a family of my own, El. Not everyone is as blessed as you. Do you seriously think when I sat and thought about my future that this is what it looked like?"

She glared at him. He didn't give a response. He didn't even meet her eyes. She shook her head.

"Fuck you, Elliot," she said at a near whisper.

She started to gather her purse and Benji's fleece pullover. The movement finally made him look her way. So she caught his eyes as she started to move to stand.

"You told me once that you'd support whatever decision I made on how to have a family. Maybe you just meant if I had a baby. But I'm not going to have a baby, Elliot. The chances of that happening are slim-to-none. I've come to terms with that. For me to have a family – whether it's this little boy or some other child – it's not going to be a baby. It's likely going to be a child. They are going to have baggage. They are going to be damaged. They are going to need help. And, maybe that's just what I'm meant for. Maybe that's what I'd be good at. Don't make me feel like crap about it.

"I missed you, El. I have really missed you. But, this is my decision. I really wanted to talk to you about it. I really wanted some support – a friend, right now. If that's more than you can handle, if that's not what you really meant, than that's fine. But, it really would be easier for me then, if you'd just disappear again."

She pulled her eyes away and stood up, taking several steps towards the playground. "Benj, com'on, time to go." She didn't look back.


	31. Chapter 31

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She felt herself being watched and slowly opened her eyes to find Benji standing and staring down at her laying on the couch. Even in just the glow of the television screen she could see that he had the 3D glasses from the movie on again. He'd refused to relinquish them to the recycling bin when they were leaving the theatre and he'd had them on for pretty much the rest of the day. She'd managed to pry them off him when she put him to bed. But now that he was apparently awake again, they'd found their way back to his face.

She rubbed at her eyes and squinted at her watch in the dim light. It was just after midnight. She wondered when she'd fallen asleep and how long she'd actually been down. She was exhausted from the week and from having Benji out for much of the day. But she was just emotionally spent too.

She kept running her conversation with Elliot over-and-over in her mind. How their talk had gone really shouldn't have surprised her. But it was still weighing heavy on her. It just hadn't gone the way she wanted – at all. She was feeling a little angry at herself about how she'd left it too. She told him to disappear again – and he probably would. If she got in touch with him again, she didn't think he'd respond that time.

Why'd he have to be such an ass though? He always knew how to make her feel awful – and for some reason he was one of the few people that she actually let get away with it. She supposed she didn't feel like putting up with it this time – not when he'd ignored her for more than a year, not when he'd hurt her so badly. This was her decision. She should've known better than to seek out his opinion when she already knew what his opinion would be. Still, she'd hoped that maybe when he saw Benji, when he heard how much she wanted to be a part of his life, that he'd come around and he'd support her in that. She should've known better after how he'd been while she had Calvin – his disapproval, his comments, his attitude. Why would've this been any different? She'd thought because Benji was a little boy – a helpless little boy; she thought because he'd stolen her heart so quickly that he'd do the same to others, the same to Elliot. She'd thought he'd see it differently this time. He hadn't. She should've known better.

So she'd had a couple glasses of wine after she got Benji to bed and turned on some mindless television and really forced herself to try not to dwell on it, to try to convince herself that Elliot's opinion didn't matter to her and how the conversation had gone didn't matter to her. She knew she was lying to herself – so instead she'd managed to force herself to fall asleep just to quiet her mind for a while.

"What's wrong Benj?" she asked, half-ways hoping it was something really simple so she could just deal with it and close her eyes again. She kind of felt like if she was able to close her eyes again within the next five to ten minutes, she might actually be able to drift back to sleep.

"It cold," he informed her.

She sleepily gazed at him for a moment but then pushed her back against the back of the couch and lifted up her blankets for him.

"Get in, warm up," she said.

She didn't have to ask him twice. He was laying on the couch near instantly and she dropped her arm back over him and tucked the blankets around him. He squirmed and pressed his little feet against her, and sure enough, they did feel like ice blocks. His whole body actually felt a little cold.

"You are cold," she mumbled. "Did you kick all your blankets off you again?"

"I dunno," he said.

"Mmm," she said and rested her head back on the pillow. "I think you're in need of warmer jammies – and sheets tucked in even tighter."

He made no comment, he was too busy gazing at the television in his head gear.

"What you watchin' 'Livia?"

She glanced at the TV. "I don't, Benj. I fell asleep with it on."

"The show not working right. It not 3-D," he informed her.

She gave a small smile. "I don't think this show is 3-D, Benji, and even if it was. I don't have a 3-D television. Com'on, let's take those off," she said and lifted them off his head. She reached over him and set them on the coffee table, while also picking up the remote and flicking the television off.

He squirmed against her some more. "Why you turn it off 'Livia?"

Her eyes were starting to drift shut again but she opened them and gazed into his questioning pools of blue.

"Because it's late, Benj, and sleeping with the television on is a bad habit. Besides, we're taking you back to bed in a minute after you're all warmed up."

He squirmed against her some more and cuddled up closer to her, so she rubbed his back. In his quiet, she against felt her eyes starting to drift back shut.

"My feet cold, 'Livia," he told her.

"Mmm, I can feel that," she said. "We should go and put some socks on them and rub them to warm the up."

"Why?"

"To warm them up," was all she just offered again, really not wanting to get into the never-ending question name at that time of night.

"You feet cold, 'Livia?"

"No, Benji. My feet are warm."

"Why?"

"Because I'm under blankets."

"You sleeping, 'Livia?"

She sighed and opened her eyes all the way again. "No, but I'd like to."

He looked at her questioningly but then asked.

"Tomorrow Sunday?"

She nodded. "Yeah, Benj. When the sun comes up – it will be Sunday."

"Jee-Peedg says I'm going home on Sunday," he told her.

"Maybe. That's Jack's choice. But he and I haven't talked about it yet."

"But … but we haven't had turk-ee chick-in yet," Benji told her.

She snorted at that and examined him. He was always saying the most ridiculous things. She thought some of his innocent little comments over the past two weeks had ended up making her smile more than she probably had in the last two years.

"Well it's not Thanksgiving yet. Next week," she told him. "Thursday."

"Maybe I shouldn't go 'til Thank-giving," Benji suggested.

She gave a thin smile. "Maybe, sweetheart. I need to talk to Jack about that. Maybe you'll go home and you and Jack will come here for Thanksgiving dinner."

He looked at her and then cuddled into her more. She grabbed at his one kicking little foot and worked at starting to warm it in her hand. She couldn't believe how cold his feet felt.

"What else you eat at Thank-giving?" he asked.

"Mmm, you tell me, Benj. You've been learning about it at school."

He rubbed his forehead against her shoulder, apparently thinking about it.

"Potatoes?" he suggested.

She nodded and grabbed at his other little foot to rub it warm a bit too. "Yep. What else?"

"Corn?"

She smiled. "That too. What else?"

"Bread?"

"Yeah. Likely. As rolls or some people stuff bread into their turkey. Anything else?"

"Pie?"

She snorted. "Yeah. Pie. What kind of pie?"

"Pum-kim."

She rubbed at his little arm. "Yeah. Some people like to have apple pie too. Anything else?"

"Gravy."

She smiled some more. "That's an important one. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving dinner without gravy."

"What gravy?"

"It's a sauce. You put it on your turkey and some people like it on their potatoes or stuffing."

"It good?"

She examined him. He was so little and there were so many things he didn't know or hadn't tried. She kind of liked it – getting to watch him discover something new.

He'd never been to a movie theatre before that afternoon. He'd been in so much awe at just the massiveness of the theatre and the smells of the concession stand. Getting to grab handfuls of popcorn out of the bag. Wearing the 3D glasses. The big screen. Getting his own seat. The whole thing had been just an event for him.

He was so bursting with excitement about it, she wondered if he'd be able to sit quietly through the whole movie. But she'd surprised her. He'd asked her some of his string of questions during it. When she hushed at him and told him he had to whisper, he quieted, though the endless "whys" didn't stop. Thankfully there were enough other people with children much smaller than him who seemed even louder and squirmier, that she didn't feel too bad about ruining the show for anyone around them.

Really, for her, Benji had become a bit of the show. "It loud" he'd yelled at her at a level that she was sure half the theatre had heard when the previews started. And, when the 3D started, he'd about lost his mind. "It floating, 'Livia", he'd told her and spent about the first 20 minutes of the show trying to touch everything that moved in front of him. She'd found herself looking at him more than the screen at some points in the show. He was staring at the screen, slack-jawed in pure amazement for most of it. She'd loved watching that. She loved his chatter after about what he'd taken away from the story and more questions about what had happened in it. She'd even sort of loved that she had to battle with him about the glasses – and though she'd let him win, she'd been more than a little amused walking back to the apartment with him wearing the things and him testing out just about everything he could find I the place when they got home to see if it was 3D or floating too.

She wanted to get to do more of those things to him – to watch his amazement and his interactions with the unknowns. She liked watching him taste test unfamiliar foods she put in front of him. She liked hearing him babble about what they'd done in nursery school that day. She even almost liked him trying to teach her some dance he'd learned there – no matter how ridiculous she felt taking the lesson from him and making the little movements and shakes. She liked reading to him. She didn't think anyone had really read much to him before – he'd seemed so enthralled with getting to look at the pictures and turning the pages. He had to turn the pages on his own – apparently a new rule he'd invented for the two of them.

He was still little enough that she could share so much with him and get to watch it all – to get to teach him and support him as he discovered the world and life. She really wanted that.

"I think it's pretty good, Benji. It's probably one of my Thanksgiving favourites."

"Maybe I stay until gravy then," he suggested. He was starting to sound like he was fading back to sleep.

"Maybe," she agreed again. "Jack and I have to talk."

"Jee-Peedg should live here," he said even more sleepily.

"I don't think Jack wants to live here much, sweetheart."

"Why?"

She rubbed at his back. "Because he's a big boy and he likes that your apartment is close to his school," she told him in what had become her standardized answer. "He likes having space for his things and his own bed."

"Your bed good," he said.

She smiled and put her lips on the top of his head in a small, peck of a kiss. "You want to go get back into it, sweetheart?"

Benji shook his head against her.

"You're acting pretty tired," she said.

"I stay here."

She knew he only meant on the couch at that moment – but she couldn't help but feel that twinge again, of her just wanting him to stay. Part of her really just wanted to ask him what he wanted – she wanted to hear him say it. But she knew it was a useless and unfair exercise.

A four-year-old doesn't know what they want. Not in that regard. Benji wanted to pretend skateboard all day, while growling like a dragon and eating peanut butter toast for every meal. He'd either tell her what he thought she wanted to hear or whatever whim moved him at that particular moment. She had to be the grown-up and look out for him – to decide what was best for him and then get the person who was supposed to be deciding what was best for him to agree that she was right.

She really wasn't looking forward to talking to Jack tomorrow. She knew there were going to be fireworks.

"OK, Benj, you can stay here as long as you want," she just told him softly instead.

She watched him. He'd already almost let his eyes drift shut and she stroked at his head and let hers slowly start to shut again too. She told herself that she'd get up in a few minutes – after he was really asleep – and carry him back to bed. She didn't.


	32. Chapter 32

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She could hear the music blaring at a level that was really inappropriate before she even got to her apartment door. It was even less appropriate for a Sunday when it was barely 1 p.m.. She knew she'd likely be hearing about it from her neighbours – at least the little old lady two doors down. Though, she wouldn't blame anyone for commenting to her – or management – about it. She'd likely consider doing the same if that level of noise interrupted her Sunday morning.

There was no way Jack could've heard them come in he had the stereo so loud. So Benji was almost at him before he even looked up from what she supposed was his project spread all across her little dining table. She went directly for the stereo and turned it right down to the point that it was barely audible. She seriously thought about switching it right off.

"Jack, I'd really appreciate if you didn't play your music that loud. We could hear it down the hall. You're disturbing my neighbours."

He just gazed at her and made no comment, shifting his eyes back to Benji.

"What the hell are you wearing?" he said to the little boy who was right in his face babbling about their morning adventures already.

"Jack," she called at him again, "don't swear at him."

"Huh?" he mumbled glancing at her, pulling his eyes away from where Benji was basically bouncing in front of him with his excitement.

"Hell," she mouthed at him.

He gave her a 'whatever' kind of look with a scrunched face. "He's heard way worse," Jack commented.

"Do you want him talking like that?"

Jack shrugged. "Everyone talks like that."

"Do you want him talking like that at four years old?"

He just shook his head at her, like he thought she was completely retarded. She got the sense that he felt that way a lot, further adding to her view that a lot of his development had kind of stunted after his father died. He just seemed like such a teenager most of the time – not like he was a college kid working towards his 20th birthday.

Jack looked at Benji again. But he corrected himself. "What are you wearing?"

Benji worked at adjusting his little construction paper crown. "It a turk-ee hat," he declared at Jack.

Jack looked at him in disbelief and glanced up at the brown thing sitting on his nephew's head – three coloured pieces of paper sticking out the back and googly eyes and an orange triangle glued to the front about his forehead.

Benji nodded with a vengeance at his statement.

"Why the hell are you wearing a turkey hat?" And the cussing was back, she sighed.

Benji now looked at him like he was the one who was retarded. "To be a turk-ee."

Jack rolled his eyes. "You definitely don't need a hat to be a turkey."

Olivia snorted from the little front foyer alcove and closet where she was still working at getting her coat and boots off. She'd thought about the same thing about all the kids working on the craft. But she saw Jack glance up towards her like it was again surprising she could possibly get his sarcastic little comment.

Benji held out his other craft project. "And we got to do both crafts becuz 'Livia knows how to do fingerprints becuz she does fingerprints. So we finished duper fast. Faster than everyone."

Jack looked at the paper plate that Benji had stuck in his face – a brown blob in the middle and little finger prints in such messy multiple-colours they looked closer to vomit-green than anything remotely autumn inspired. "Ah, yeah," he said. "You can definitely tell you finished super fast. What the fuck is it?"

"Jack," she snapped as she came into the main area of the apartment. He barely looked at her that time.

Benji grabbed the plate back. "It a turk-ee too, Jee-Peedg. It Thank-giving Stupidhead."

"What is with you and Thanksgiving?"

"Becuz you get to eat turk-ee, Peedg," he near yelled at him.

"We are not eating turkey," Jack clarified.

"Turk-ee chick-in," Benji shot back. "And pie. We try pum-kim pie. But 'Livia say I might not like pum-kim pie. But I will try pum-kim pie. If I don't like pum-kim pie then I can have apple pie. 'Livia likes apple pie not pum-kim pie. But pum-kim pie is for Thank-giving."

Jack rolled his eyes. "We are not having chicken - or pie either."

Benji looked at him. "You stoned Peedg? That what you eat at Thank-giving!"

Olivia looked at him from the kitchen. "Whatever the outcome is today, I was hoping you guys would be here for dinner on Thursday," she offered. But Jack just let out a deep breath and offered no response.

"Where the hell did you have him on a Sunday doing this shit?"

"Jack – even if you don't care about him picking up on the language, then I'm asking that you don't use it while you're in my home. I'm not a big fan of that language cropping up in every sentence."

He rolled his eyes more.

"We go to the lie-berry," Benji informed him and went running back towards the front foyer.

"Benj, please take your shoes off while you're over there," she called at him. "You know I don't like you wearing them in the apartment." She looked back at Jack. "He's off the walls. I took him over to story-time and crafts. It didn't really calm him down any. But hopefully he'll go down for a nap easier in an hour or two."

Benji came running back – now sock-footed and attempting to haul the canvas grocery bag full of books that they'd ended up with at the library. It was so overloaded that he was hardly getting it up off the ground to bring it over to his uncle for show-and-tell.

"Look Jee-Peedg," Benji near yelled at him, still bursting with excitement. "You get books at the lie-berry – and movies." He dug inside and held up a DVD copy of Toy Story triumphantly. "AND IT FREE!" He pulled a book out and showed it to Jack. "See books are about Thank-giving too. This one Frank-in. He a turtle. We hear it at story but we read it 'gin now."

Jack raised an eyebrow at him. "You want me to read to you? I'm doing …"

He didn't have a chance to finish. Benji snagged the book back to his chest. "NOT YOU! 'Livia. You don't know how."

Jack shook his head. "I know how to read."

Benji shook his head hard at that. "You don't know the rules."

"There are rules?"

Benji nodded. "You don't know."

Jack glanced up at Olivia, who'd shifted to peeling a couple hardboiled eggs that she had intended to go try to get into the little boy as something that resembled a lunch.

"Why are you even taking books out of the library for him? Now I'll need to come all the way down here to return them," he spat.

She eyed him. She didn't like the direction of some of his little comments. She thought he was really being ridiculous if he thought he was taking Benji home that afternoon – especially since Jack, himself, apparently was using her table (much more stable and larger than his milk crates) as a draftsman-table and had again helped himself to her food. He had a plate sitting on the corner of her little island, on it was a bagel so stuffed with tomatoes and cream cheese she didn't know how he even thought he was going to get his mouth around it. Though it did look like he'd managed to take several bites already.

"The books are out for three weeks. I'd hope you'd be in the general vicinity some time in the next three weeks. And I'll put the movie on for him this afternoon and return it myself."

Jack glared at her a bit but she didn't have to look at him long. Benji plopped the book on the counter next to her. "Story 'Livia."

She looked down at him. "I'm making you some lunch, Benj."

He shook his head. "Story."

She gave him a thin smile. "Will you have something to eat after?"

He puckered up his lips while he thought about that. "Whazz it?"

"Eggs. I'll put it in a pita for you."

"Pee-tah?"

She nodded. Apparently pitas were much better than bread. She'd been informed of that earlier in the week. And, just generally, they appeared to make everything better – hummus, cheese, tomatoes, peanut butter. It seemed to be a good vehicle to get anything into him, she'd discovered.

Benji tilted his head while he thought about it some more but then allowed, "OK."

"OK," she agreed back and ran her hands under the water and dried them off before picking up the book. "You sure this is the one you want, Benj? You just heard this one."

He followed after her to the couch. "It good."

She shrugged. "OK." But she wasn't entirely sure she agreed.

They two stories they'd read out-loud to the kids had been less than enthralling to her. But Benji had again just been in pure amazement at the library – apparently another place and experience he'd never gotten to have. Getting to pick some books after the activity had resulted in a giant haul because there was just too much choice and the concept he could look at all of them, borrow all of them, have any of them read to him – it'd really boggled his mind. So had the concept that they could come back and get more – he didn't need to check out the whole library.

But really the whole experience had seemed mind-boggling to him. Having the option of two crafts had been too overwhelming for him. He just had to get both done. Picking just one wasn't an option. He had to touch everything. He had to glue and cut and staple and get his fingers in the paint. He'd been overjoyed.

She actually thought he'd been smiling more getting to play with the art supplies in the library's children's nook than he had the day before at the movies. And, she thought that she might've been too - as she got to sit with him in the stupidly comfortably low little chairs and to try to get him to slow down and guide him through the two projects. She'd glanced around and saw all the other moms and dads with their two through eight year olds. She felt a bit more hodge-podge than them with her little kid who wasn't as outfitted and was fumbling around with his cast and was clearly overly ecstatic to be there – likely way too excited for what you'd expect to see in a four-year-old in New York City. It was a free library craft program. Surely most kids experienced that – and a whole lot more sophisticated activities in the city, well before their fourth birthday.

But she was loving it. No one was looking at her like she didn't belong there, like he couldn't be hers, like they thought he was out of control in some way or that they were annoying everyone else. The few people who'd looked up and caught her eyes had just given her a little smile, likely more at Benji's vocal enthusiasm than anything else.

Benji near jumped onto the couch after she got seated and he didn't waste anytime seating himself right on top of her, crawling into her lap. As the past two weeks had progressed he'd moved from sitting near her to sitting against her to cuddling with her to now apparently not thinking twice about sitting right on top of her. She'd told herself it wasn't a good idea at first but she kind of liked it and it was clear it was something he needed too. She really didn't mind – except when he decided to lean one of his boney little elbows into her or his restless little feet started kicking at her with likely more force than he realized. It was just good that she didn't bruise easily.

He squirmed on her a bit, trying to get comfortable and into the position he apparently wanted – which seemed to include him grabbing her face in both of his hands an examining her for several seconds before she was allowed to start. He never looked into her eyes while he did it. He just pawed at her chin and cheeks for about 10 seconds, almost in a way she'd expect an infant to reach out for its mother while being held. She'd pulled herself away – surprised by the touch – the first time he did it. But his hands had followed and she'd let him do his little exploration while she watched his little face and eyes as he examined her features. She could feel Jack watching it too this time, though. She shifted her eyes his way and saw the questioning there.

"'Jammer, don't do that," Jack had called out rather sternly.

Benji had glanced over his shoulder, a bit of sadness painting across his little face at his uncle's words.

"It's OK," Olivia called at Jack. "I don't mind."

Jack shook his head. "Ben, don't touch her like that. It's weird."

"Jack," she near hissed, "it's not weird. We'll talk about it after. Leave him alone."

Benji gazed up at her but had settled his head against her shoulder and grabbed at her hand to help hold the book – him again ensuring he got the skin-to-skin contact as his palm rested on top of the back of her hand. She rested her cheek on the top of hi head.

"It's OK, Benj," she whispered at him. "I don't mind and you aren't weird. You're pretty special."

He rubbed his cheek against her. She glanced at Jack again. He was glaring in their direction – looking angry and perplexed at the same time. She didn't much care. She didn't think Benji got many hugs from Jack and the way he was seeking physical affection from her, the skin-to-skin touch, she wondered how much he'd got from his mother either. He was clearly craving it – and that wasn't anywhere near abnormal. Children needed touch to thrive. And, really, she could use some more hugs and cuddles in her life too.

"Franklin's Thanksgiving," she read, breaking her eyes away from Jack's steady gaze. She'd deal with him later – the later the better. With each hour he put off talking to her and each day she managed to get him to push it back, the more time she got with Benji. That was the best for all of them, as far as she was concerned. "Franklin liked everything about Thanksgiving …"

"Me too," Benji told her and she smiled against his head. He didn't even know if he liked Thanksgiving or not, she thought.

"He liked pumpkin-fly pie …"

"That better than pum-kim?"

"Only if you're a turtle who likes to eat flies," she told him and then 'shhed' him, placing a small kiss in his hair. She saw Jack lean back into his chair at that movement. She ignored it – not fully bringing her eyes his way. Let him see, she thought. "…and liked making cornucopias and corn-husk dolls."

"Can we do 'at?"

"Maybe," she said. "Shh, Benj. Listen to the story."

He settled against her some more, more purposely curling his head under her chin. She softly read him each page and then stopped and let him examine the pictures until he decided to turn the page. She'd glance at Jack with his little nephew's each motion. He was still watching them. She hoped he was getting what he was seeing – that it had some sort of meaning to him. That he'd be man enough to admit that he was still a boy and that this little boy needed more than that. Benji needed what he had right in that moment on that couch, she thought.


	33. Chapter 33

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She sat down across the table from Jack and he glanced up at her briefly but settled his eyes back on his project.

"How's it going?" she asked.

He shrugged. "OK."

"It looks like you're making a lot of progress," she offered. She didn't entirely know what she was looking at. But he definitely had a lot of work done on whatever she was looking at – that much was apparent.

Still, he just shrugged again. "Yeah. I guess."

She watched the top of his head for a moment and rubbed at her eyebrow in the last build up to it all.

"So, he's sleeping," she told Jack. "He seems to only go down for about 40 minutes. It's likely a good time for us to have our talk."

"He's a little old for naps," Jack mumbled at her – seemingly avoiding what they really should be talking about.

She just shrugged at him. "He's likely at the tail-end of when he'll lay down for a sleep. But he's really not too old, I don't think. It's pretty normal for kids to take naps until they're into school."

"Well, I don't make him nap. He doesn't need them. He's four," Jack commented again without looking at her.

She examined him some more. "I think he does need them. I didn't force him to fall asleep. He did that on his own."

"Now he won't go to sleep tonight," Jack spat at her and shot her daggers.

"I haven't had any problems with him going down again at night – and he's been taking an afternoon rest every day he's been with me."

"Oh, so two weeks and you know best," Jack grumbled at a near whisper. "Letting him watch Toy Story is retarded too," he spat louder. "He doesn't even like movies like that."

She shrugged. "Sure looked like he liked it to me. He sat through it quietly. He calmed down. He's sleeping now. I think it did it's job."

"Exactly – it put him to sleep. He was bored."

"He wasn't bored. He was clearly engaged in it, Jack. He was watching. He was making observations and asking questions. It gave him some quiet time, which readied his body for a nap," she said back at him.

"If you hadn't taken him out to the fucking library and got him all hyped out of his head – he wouldn't have needed quiet time," Jack told her a little harshly.

She sighed. "OK, Jack, to start – me taking him to the library had very little to do with getting him hyped up. He woke up this morning hyped up. Beyond that, these years before Benji goes into school – his preschool years – they are pretty important. He's like a sponge right now. He needs new experiences and opportunities to interact with new things and the world around him. It's crucial to his development."

"He gets to do stuff," Jack spat back. "Skating. He plays with kids at daycare. He has toys. He's fine."

She sighed and looked at the table. "Jack, I know you're really busy with your own stuff – and I know that's tiring for you. But a minimalist approach does not work with kids this age. If you do the bare minimum, it's going to have implications for him growing up. He's already behind kids his age in a lot of experiences. That much is apparent."

"What are you even talking about?"

She met his eyes. "Jack – the other day he was so excited about getting to play with the Play-Doh at nursery school. He is four. He had never had the opportunity to play with Play-Doh. Today at crafts – getting to finger paint. He'd never done that. He'd never been in a library. He'd never been in to a movie. The playground – that seemed like a pretty astounding concept to him to. Half the food I put in front of him. He sure acts like getting read to is something new too. He's hyped up because he's on sensory overload most of the time. He's getting to see, taste, do … things he's never gotten to before. It's a lot for a little mind."

"Oh. So you're confusing and overwhelming him and somehow it's me who's doing something wrong?"

She looked at the ceiling. "No Jack. But Benji deserves to get to see and do these things – and because so much seems so very new to him, he needs patience and guidance to get him through it too."

"Whatever," Jack mumbled and looked back at his work.

She let out a deep breath and brought her eyes back down to examine the top of his head for a moment.

"Did his mother use drugs or alcohol while she was pregnant?" she finally asked him while watching him ignore her for a couple minutes.

Jack shrugged.

"Do you know if the doctors had any concerns about him when he was born?"

"He was a healthy baby," Jack spat at her with a firmness in his voice – almost like he was offended.

She nodded. "OK," she said quietly.

She wanted to know more but knew she wasn't going to get more out of him on the topic at that particular moment. In reality, he may not even know for sure. If she ever managed to get Jack to let her be more involved with the boy – to have some say – she fully intended that he'd have a doctor's appointment in his future. She wanted more insight about where he was at. He was clearly healthy but from her observation there were definitely question marks there too. With some of Benji's characteristics and mannerisms, some of his little quirks, she wouldn't be surprised if Izzy had done some drinking and some drugs while she was pregnant. She just had a lot of questions about him. She wanted some answers so she could make it better for Benji – easier for him.

"Did Izzy breastfeed? Bond with him when he was a baby?"

Jack's head snapped up. "How is that any of your business?"

"I'm just trying to understand his background more, Jack. Both of yours backgrounds. You've only given me so much I can work with here."

"No. She didn't breastfeed," Jack glared at her.

She gave him a thin smile and a little nod. "Was she very affectionate with him?"

He slammed his pencil down. "Is this about him being all weird and touching you? You shouldn't even let him do that. It's creepy. You shouldn't be touching him at all. Hugging him. Kissing him. It's wrong."

She shook her head at him. "Jack, you left your nephew in my care alone for over a week now. I've been bathing him. I've been helping him with his clothes. Putting him to bed. Picking him up. I'm touching him. It goes with the territory. He is touching me back. It's pretty normal behaviour."

"That wasn't normal. It was fucking weird."

She sighed. "Jack, small children crave skin-to-skin contact, touch. All humans do. Our bodies are designed for it. But small children especially need it. If they don't get it – particularly when they're babies - it affects them, their development. It can cause a failure to thrive. Benji is just … looking for something he's been missing, I think."

"You're some sort of shrink or doctor now?"

She shook her head. "No. But I work with a lot of children who've come from abusive or negligent backgrounds. I interact with a lot of psychologists. I have a pretty firm understanding of the needs of children, signs and symptoms of those needs having not been met, and just general interactions with these kids – and what can be behind them."

"There is nothing wrong with, Benji," Jack hissed at her.

She allowed a small nod. "I don't think there is anything wrong with him. I just think he's been missing some things. I know he's going to be missing more now that his mother is gone, your dad is gone, he doesn't have a father. That's a lot of gaps, Jack."

"He's fine," Jack said again.

"I don't think you really believe that. You wouldn't be here if you did."

"Fuck you," he said and nearly shook as it came out from between his clenched teeth.

"You know what it was like to grow up without a mother, Jack," she tried to push it a bit more – even though the conversation had started to take on a life of its own. It wasn't about the 'where should you live' talk she had intended to have with him. Still, she was going to take the opportunities she had. Jack only gave her so much. She had to work with what she had.

"You at least at your Dad," she told him, feeling herself switch a bit into interrogation room chatter mode and trying to measure how far to push him and what buttons to press. "But you still must've felt that gaping hole. If you felt that with just your mom gone – think about what that's going to be like for Benji."

"I'm fine," Jack said. "You think you know so much about everything but you don't know anything."

She shrugged. "I know enough. I know what's it like to have a missing parent – to wonder where you come from, to wonder why they aren't there, to feel like you did something wrong to make them leave. I know what sort of implications that can have on your life – your self-worth, your relationships."

"Your Mom died when you were an adult, you already said that," Jack retorted.

She nodded. "She did. But I never had a father. I never knew my father. He was just the man that raped my mother – and that's what I grew up with, Jack."

"Don't try to make it sound like we're alike," Jack hissed at her. "We aren't. I don't care about your sob stories."

She gave him another small bob of her head – not playing into his comment about her sad story. "No. Our experiences are different. But I can appreciate some of where you're coming from, Jack. It must've been hard growing up without a mother. Wondering where she was. Why she left. Never getting hugs from her. Never getting to do anything with her. Not having her to praise you or dote on you. Little boys need their mothers, right? Even not so little boys?"

Jack pushed his seat from the table and slammed his fists on the top, causing the material he had there to jump from it and then rattle as they settled back into place.

"YOU – DON'T – KNOW – ANYTHING – ABOUT – IT," he hissed at her, his face flushed with anger.

"Do you want Benji to grow up with all those same questions, pain, anger?" she asked. "Without parents? Are you really ready to be a parent, Jack?"

"I'M – HIS – GUARDIAN. HE'S – MINE."

She shook her head. "People don't belong to other people, Jack. Benji is not yours. He is a little boy. He needs, and deserves, the best possible care. Right now your responsibility is to figure out how to ensure he gets it. Part of that might be to admit you aren't the best possible person to be providing that for him, Jack."

He shook more and pushed his stuff on the table towards her – crumbling up the sheet that he he'd been working on.

"We're leaving," he told her, his body near shaking with the force behind the assertion.

"Jack," she said and stood. But he was already headed for her room. By the time she got there just behind him, he had Benji pulled up into his arms. Benji was struggling against it, looking startled from the sudden and violent rousing. "Jack," she said again, "put him down. You're scaring him. Come back and sit down. We need to finish talking about this."

He pushed by her, jamming his shoulder roughly into her chest. She followed him again as he stormed to the door.

"Jack, stop," she plead as Benji started to wail. "Com'on. We need to talk. I know you're hurting. I know you're trying to do what's best for Benji. Admitting you are hurting, that this isn't what you want to be doing – that doesn't make you a failure. That's not letting him down. It's not letting yourself down, or your Dad down, or Izzy down. It's a big step."

Benji screamed harder and struggled against him – as he jammed his feet into his shoes haphazardly and grabbed both of their coats off the hooks by her door.

"Com'on, Jack, put Ben dow, or hand him to me," she asked, moving closer and trying to wedge her hands under the little boy's arm pits but Jack jerked away, jarring Benji a bit more and causing him to cry out louder.

"Don't touch him," he yelled. "Don't touch either of us. This was a mistake. You're a mistake. You're the fuck up. Not us. Keep the fuck away from us."

"Jack, just sit down and calm down first. Pack properly. Don't just … storm out of here. You're scaring him. You can't leave like this. We really should talk about what you were supposed to be thinking about – options. I want to hear your thoughts. I want to talk to you about some of my ideas. Just come and sit down. I'm not upset with you."

He glared at her and pulled open the door.

"I'll call ACS," she told him. "You can't be just storming out of here like this. You can't be raising him like this."

"Fuck you," he said and went out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

She could hear Benji screaming "'Livia" and from the direction knew he was headed for the stairs – not waiting for the elevator.

She pulled the door open and followed after them. "Jack," she called as she got the door to the stairwell open. "Slow down. You don't want to fall."

She could see him a couple flights a head of her.

"Keep away from us. You call ACS. I'll call the fucking cops and tell them you're harassing us. Leave us the fuck alone.

"'Livia," Benji wailed. She could see him kicking a Jack. She trotted down the stairs, her heels kicking out.

"Jack, stop," she called again.

"I'm serious. Leave us alone," he spat at her as she caught up but he just kept running down the stairs. She followed him until he got into the lobby and pushed through the glass doors onto the street.

"Jack, com'on," she pleaded again, trying to get Benji reassuring looks. "I'm sorry you're upset. Let's just go back upstairs. Talk this out."

Jack looked frantically up and down the street. Her fucking street never got cabs frequenting down it that she had any luck catching but Jack somehow managed to spot one and wave it down. He yanked open the door and shoved Benji inside.

Benji was red from his screaming and his cries. "'LIVIA!"

She grabbed a hold of the door. "Jack…"

He pulled at it. "Go," he said at the driver.

"I'm a police officer," she called at the cabbie. "Don't move this vehicle."

"She's a fucking crazy bitch and I'm calling the cops," Jack said louder, pulling on the door harder.

"You damage my cab and you'll be paying for it," the guy in the front seat snapped.

"Jack, get out of the car," she hissed at him. "Come back upstairs."

"LEAVE US ALONE," he yelled and shoved her hard – which she wasn't expecting and briefly shuffled back. But it was enough for him to get a better grip on the door and pull it shut. The car started to move.

She jogged beside it for a moment and banged on the roof. "Hey," she called at the driver. But he just kept going.

She followed for about 20 metres but then stopped and just watched – trying to take note of the cab number. She shook her head as she stepped back up onto the sidewalk and beat her hand a couple times against her forehead before pushing her hair back away from her face.

"FUCK."


	34. Chapter 34

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She had her phone sitting on her desk – and she just kept looking at it, like if she looked at it enough, eventually it would ring or vibrate with a text message. She'd done it before when Elliot was first gone, before he handed in his papers. It hadn't worked that time. But she thought maybe this time it would.

She'd gone over to their apartment but there hadn't been any motion inside that she could hear. She waited around for a while – outside their door and outside their building and down the street from the building and at the top of the stairs at the closest transit stop. She'd loitered around the area for almost three hours but hadn't seen any sign of them.

So she'd tried the park where Benji had gotten hurt. She tried going and wandering around the Spitzer building at City. She'd tried walking around most of the campus. She'd tried the skate park at the piers. She tried Funky's and submitted herself to talking to Gecko again. He was no help. She'd even gone to the Lower East Side skate park that the girl at the bistro had mentioned. In a last ditch-effort, she'd stopped at St. Vartan's before returning to her eerily quiet and empty apartment. (Somehow it now seemed even more depressingly beat and vacant than ever before.) But despite everywhere she looked, Jack and Benji weren't anywhere to be seen.

It was a big city and Jack likely knew she wouldn't have settled on how things ended. He was hiding out. She just didn't know where.

She hoped that Benji was OK – that he wasn't too scared and too upset. That Jack had calmed him down. That his uncle was being kind to him and not taking out his anger at her on the little boy. That Jack had gotten him some dinner – some real dinner, not Cheez Whiz or No Name pasta with a little can of tomato paste, if he was lucky. It would more likely be a packet of ketchup pocketed from a concession stand or restaurant.

She'd started leaving phone messages instead – still trying to reach out to him.

"I put some books on your project. It's not that crumpled looking. Hopefully it should be fine – if you want to come and get it. You can come over while I'm at work tomorrow, if you want. Just let yourself in," she'd said in the first one.

"You left your backpack over by the desk. You had it open. It looks like you have several of your textbooks in it – and your laptop. Don't punish yourself while you're punishing me, Jack. Come and get it. Or let me know if there's somewhere I can drop it off for you. I can bring it up to the campus for you, if you want," she'd said in the next.

"All Benji's clothes and toys are still here, Jack," she'd said in the last one of the night, as she finished working around the apartment picking up the little boy's things and putting them in the blue milk crate before heading to her bedroom and moving his folded jammies from under the pillow on her bed. She'd get to sleep in her bed that night. She wasn't sure she wanted to. "This must be pretty scary and confusing for him. Don't make it harder for him. If you aren't going to come and get them – please let me drop them off somewhere for you. Can I leave them with your super or a neighbour? Just text me where to take them. You don't have to call."

Then that morning, as she walked to work, she left the final message – what she told herself would really be her final message.

"Look, Jack, I don't want to stalk you. I just wanted to remind you that Benji has the follow-up with the orthopedic surgeon on Wednesday. I hope you take him. It's important. You don't have to worry – I won't show up looking for you guys, not unless you ask me to be there. Just please, take him. Make sure he's healing. And, I just wanted you to know too, that I'm not upset with you. I know you're dealing with a lot and it isn't easy for you. So I want you to know that if you still want to come over on Thursday for dinner, that's fine. You're both still welcome. We both know how excited Benji has been about the concept of Thanksgiving. And, I'd already picked up a couple things to actually attempt to cook. I'll make it either way. You don't have to let me know. You can just show up. OK. You know how to reach me when you're ready."

"Liv," Amaro called at her and she snapped her eyes away from gazing at the phone, first looking at her computer screen, where her attention really should've been focused – it'd gone to its screensaver and actually flicked black into its energy-saving mode just as she'd tried to pretend like she really had been working … on something.

So she brought her eyes up to her partner instead. "Yeah?"

"You coming?" he asked, giving her a funny look.

She raised her eyebrow – but started to get up. "Ah, yeah. Where?"

He eyed her some more, as she put her coat on and shoved her phone into the pocket. "The job we just caught. Down to Battery Park."

She nodded. "Ah. OK." She had missed that chatter. She'd clearly been more spaced out and distracted than she even thought.

Nick followed after her and examined her some more as they stood waiting for the elevator. "You sure you're OK?" he asked.

She gave him a thin smile. "Yeah. I'm good. Maybe a little tired. Sorry."

He allowed a nod at that as they got into the car and he thumbed at the button to take them down to the lobby. "I hear ya," he allowed. "Kids."

She shot him another thin smile, hoping that would be end of it. It wasn't.

"How is it going with Ben? Everything work out with the nursery school?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow and glanced at him again. "Ah, yeah. Thanks for helping me get in touch with the people to get that lined up so quickly."

"He liking it?" he inquired as they doors opened and they started making their way out of the building to claim a squad car.

"Yeah. He seems to really like it."

"Yeah?" Nick glanced at her. "You going to have him for a while longer then?"

She gave him a small, sad smile and a headshake as she got into the driver's side. "Nah. His guardian apparently thinks he has it under control now."


	35. Chapter 35

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Jack looked back over the couch to where Benji was flailing around on the air mattress in the corner.

"Stop flopping, 'Jamin," he told him again. "Go to sleep."

"It not comfy," the little boy told him.

"It's fine."

"It not comfy," Benji said again. "'Livia's bed better."

Jack was sick of hearing about all things Olivia from his nephew. He was sick of dealing with the whining and the complaining and the asking when they were going back. He was even sicker of the tears. It had taken forever to get him to calm the fuck down.

He really didn't understand what Benji saw in her. She wasn't even that nice. She was actually kind of high-strung and bitchy. A tight-ass. A know-it-all. She was cold and stand-off-ish. She had a chip on her shoulder. So the closest he could figure was she had breasts. What else was Ben seeing? Why the fuck was he so attached to her? Who the fuck cared about her apartment or the playground or peanut butter on apple slices? There was no way he could be attached to her that much already. That he could really miss her. He didn't know what the hell he was talking about – he was fucking four.

Ever seeking her out had been a huge mistake, Jack had decided. He didn't know what he was thinking. He should've never done it. It was just supposed to give him someone to talk to about his dad - maybe. He wasn't even really sure he'd ever intended to actually talk to her. Maybe just see what she looked like. He'd definitely never intended to have gotten this involved with her. To have her trying to steal Ben. It was just so fucked up. He'd made such a mistake.

"Ben – enough about her stupid bed. This is your bed. Go to sleep. I'm trying to do my homework."

Jack didn't know how he was ever going to survive the semester now. He was far enough behind as it was and now he couldn't even concentrate. Having to slink back to her fucking apartment to get his books was even worse. It was like he just couldn't break the connection. Still, he'd made sure to shove the keys to the front of the building and her apartment under her door after he got it locked. He wanted to make sure it was clear to her that their ties were severed. They weren't coming back. She better fucking really leave them alone.

The whole mess was his own fault. She didn't know they existed. She wouldn't have ever known. But he'd had to go and stalk her, to see her, to go to her work, to talk to her, to call her when Benji was hurt. What was he thinking? Even worse, he'd been stupid enough to use her fucking place as a homework space. Her kitchen as a buffet line. He was fucking retarded. Maybe he was the one with fucking brain damage from some sort of concussion. He had hit his head that summer on a skate. He must've hit it harder than he thought – to have let himself get involved in this mess.

His fucking dad. Dad had to go and talk about her. Why couldn't he talk about Mom? Why didn't he have pictures of Mom or stories about Mom? Why some fucking girlfriend from college? This was all just as much Dad's fault, as far as Jack was concerned. Why'd he have to go and fucking die? None of this would even be happening if he was still alive.

Benji flopped around some more. The sheets rubbing across the mattress and the air in it making a slight bouncing sound against the floor with each movement.

"Ben – stop it," Jack yelled that time.

He was so sick of dealing with his bullshit. Izzy goes and gets pregnant and, of course, it's him who ends up having to deal with it. Because it wouldn't have been simple enough for Izzy to just get pregnant. She had to up the ante and go and fucking OD too. She was such a fuck-up – and now he was paying for it AGAIN. Jack was always paying for it. Izzy's whole life. It was always something.

Jack knew it wasn't Ben's fault. He liked Ben. He even loved Ben. But he didn't want to be raising Ben. He didn't know how. He had his own dreams and things he wanted to be doing. This was not part of the plan. The plan was to finish school and then go out West. Rip it up. Get in with one of the design companies. Make his whole life a skate party. The music. The competitions. The parks. Designing it all. Rigging it up for a sweet ride and an even better line. Just hanging. Chillin' – and hopefully making some bucks along the way. Making some sweet spaces for the culture. That was the plan. But he couldn't do any of that with a little kid, he didn't think. He didn't even think he could make it through school anymore.

He couldn't even take Ben skating right now – and that was the only way he knew how to distract and calm his nephew. Put 'Jamin on a deck and it was like a sedative. Get the kid in the zone. Get him to pedal. Get him to drift and glide and grind and slide. Manual. Nollie. Ollie. 50-50. Kickflip. Frontside. Backside. Tell the kid to try that and he could have peace. Let Ben try again and again.

Jack could get in the zone too. He could feel the music and the beats and the rhythms of the parks or the street – the concrete, the cement, the wheels, the board - while he skated his line too. Or he could just watch the little grom try to figure the fuck out how to land it. It was a beautiful thing. He could even do his readings while 'Jamin rode. Sketch it out. Design it. Turn the trick lines into lines on the page. Not anymore. Now he couldn't take him skating and all he got to hear about was Olivia, Olivia, Olivia.

Fucking mess is what it was.

"IT NOT COMFY," Benji yelled right back at him.

Jack sighed, trying to calm himself. "You want to lay on mine?"

"It not comfy either."

"You want to lay on the couch?"

"It smell," Benji informed him.

"It doesn't smell." The kid was really fucking annoying him.

"It smell."

"Jesus Christ," Jack barked at him. "Two fucking weeks and you're Mr. Hoity-Toity or some shit."

"You aren't suppose ta swear. 'Livia says," Benji said with clear accusation and judgment in his voice.

"I don't care what Olivia says, 'Jamin. What she says doesn't matter. She's fucking crazy."

"She not crazy Peedg."

"She is crazy. So stop talking about her."

"Why she crazy?"

Why? Because she wouldn't leave well-enough alone. That's why, Jack thought. Because she wanted way too much to be involved. Because she thought she knew so fucking much.

She was pathetic. In her 40s and single and never married and no kids – so now she was trying to steal someone else's.

She was a nothing, as far as Jack could tell. She had nothing. She tried to make herself feel important with her job and being able to say she helped people and helped kids. Telling herself that she was doing all this good and it mattered. Letting herself think that she could help anything. What the fuck did she know?

If more of these people she supposedly helped could see her place, they'd know what a fraud she was, Jack thought. Her life was empty and they all where just her drug. They were what she was stuffing up her nose to try to forget it all, to try to disguise the pain. She was just as much of a junkie as his sister. Just a much of a lonely fuck-up as his dad. Now she wanted to drag him and Benji into it - to use them as her latest fix to feel better about herself.

But she had to make them feel like shit in the process, right? Make it sound like he was the one that was fucked up? That he had Mommy issues? Or Daddy issues? Or … issues? She didn't know shit.

"Because. Go to sleep."

"I can not sleep."

"Go to sleep 'Jamin."

"I can not."

"Then at least shut up and stop moving," Jack yelled at him again.

"Why?"

"Because I'm trying to do my homework," he hissed between his clenched teeth.

"Why?"

"Because I have to."

"Why?"

"'Jamin stop it."

"Why can't we live with 'Livia?" Benji asked.

"Because she's crazy. Stop asking."

"She not crazy," Benji insisted with vehemence again.

"She is. End of story."

"That not a story," his nephew told him like Jack was the one who had lost his mind.

"It is. There was once a crazy lady. She acted crazy. So we never talked to her again. The end."

"That not a story. There no pictures," Benji informed him.

"Go to sleep."

"Her bed better."

"No - it's not."

"Yes."

"No - it's not."

"Yes."

"GO TO SLEEP."

"Why can't I go to school?" Benji pivoted.

"Stop asking that too. It's too far and too expensive. You go to daycare. You like daycare."

"School better. We get to play blocks and dancz and …"

"You go to daycare."

"School better."

"Ben – SHUT – THE – FUCK – UP!"

Jack heard the telltale catches in Benji's breathing and knew the tears had started again. The sniffing and blubbering soon followed.

"YOU MEAN PEEDG!" his little nephew screamed back at him at the top of his lungs.

Jack didn't think he was mean. What was mean was everything his family had thrown at him. It never just seemed to get easier. It all just seemed to get more fucked up each day. He thought finding her – getting to talk to her, hearing some things about his dad, might've made things easier. It would've given him something to hold on to. But it had just made things worse. It had made things so much more confusing.

Now she wanted to take away one of the only things he had left in his life –the only connection to his family and his Dad: Benji. Dad had cared for Benji until he died. Dad said he deserved it. Just because Izzy was fucked up, didn't mean that baby would have a bad life, Dad had said. Dad would make sure he was OK. Dad tried to teach Izzy how to be a mom too. Like Izzy knew how to be a mom. Their mom had been so awesome with the whole not being there thing. Nanny had tried but she was already slipping so badly by the time Benji was born. It'd all just gotten so much worse after Dad was gone. So much worse. But Benji didn't serve to be fucked up, Dad had said.

_Fuck Dad, _Jack thought_. So Benji can't be fucked up? What about me, huh? What about me? Izzy and Benji. They were had to be OK. But what about me? Now I have to pick up their pieces too? How come it has to be me?_

Jack knew he had the choice to ignore Ben's tears and hope that in the next 20 minutes or so that he would just cry himself to sleep. Or he could go and try to calm him – to sooth him, to make it less fucked up for him.

Jack sighed and stood from the couch and walked over to the air mattress and plopped himself onto it and reached for Benji's back but he flailed.

"I'm sorry, Benj," he said quietly. "I'm sorry that I yelled. I'm sorry I swore. I'm sorry that life isn't better."


	36. Chapter 36

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She almost jumped at the knock on her door. But it almost resulted in a near instant smile. She really hadn't expected them to come back – even if it was just for dinner. As the clock neared the supper-hour span and her attempts to make something that resembled a Thanksgiving dinner neared their completion, she'd lowered any hopes that Jack would be a man and not take something like this away from Benji – something he'd wanted and was looking forward to.

She'd actually already started to think about what the hell she was going to do with all the food. She supposed soup – or many, many weeks of leftovers for her. Maybe it would get eaten if she put it in the fridge in the kitchenette at work. Free food. Most cops would eat just about anything if they were hungry enough – including a 44-year-old woman's first-ever attempt at cooking Thanksgiving dinner … making stuffing, cranberry sauce, gravy, pumpkin pie and apple pie. It had taken a lot of internet recipe reading and had forced her to rediscover pots and pans she didn't even know she had. Not to mention, she thought she'd dirtied just about everything she had in her kitchen in the process.

She hurried over to the door now, fearing that if she left it too long, Jack might change his mind and leave. He had managed to get into the building on his own without buzzing up. That likely meant they'd been loitering around long enough to grab the door when someone went in or out, which likely meant he was still on the fence on if they should even be there.

She looked out the peephole as she reached for the deadbolt but in doing so her face fell.

Still, she opened it. She gave Elliot a questioning look. Normally she'd be happy to see him. It wasn't that she was particularly unhappy to see him – especially since things had gone so badly with him and she'd partially expected to never see him again, for real that time. It was just that she thought it was Benji and Jack. She would've preferred it was Benji and Jack. She really would've preferred it was Benji. She wanted to scoop him into a hug so badly and to make sure he was OK.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him.

He didn't answer. "It smells good," he told her.

She just kept her hand on the door, blocking his entrance into her apartment – a very different stance from when he used to come over, when she'd barely even open the door for him and left him to enter and shut the door on his own. But that was then and this was now.

"Can I come in?" he asked, clearly noticing the blocked door and the tension in her posture.

She gave a small sigh and moved away from the door. She went into the kitchen while he stepped inside.

"It's quiet," he commented, glancing around her place.

She could tell he was taking in the space – looking for things that had changed, what was the same. Not much had changed. She really wasn't spending enough time there to invest in any new furniture or decor. She didn't have anyone in her life to have added pictures to the couple frames she did have visible in her living room. She wondered if he noticed that the one she once had of the two of them was gone, though. She'd reached a point where she couldn't stand looking at it anymore and had moved it to a drawer in her bedroom; out of sight but not completely out of mind.

"Where's Benji … and Jack?"

She shrugged at him and crossed her arms. "It's like you said El, I have a tendency to get involved in other people's business and it never seems to work out very well for me."

She saw his eyes soften a bit at that, and he let out a breath and looked down a bit, catching her eyes from his own downcast cast.

"When'd it happen?" he asked.

She bounced her arms against her chest, tightening them more. "Sunday," she said flatly.

He gave a little sigh again. "Liv …"

"Save it, El. What do you want? Why aren't you with Kathy and the kids?"

He just gave his head a little shake and pulled a business card out of his jacket's pocket – and flexed it a couple times in his arm and hand, like he couldn't decide whether to give it to her.

"Are you still going to pursue this … thing … with Benji?" he finally asked after a tension filled silence seemed to hang between them for far too long.

She shrugged.

He locked his eyes with hers. "So you're just cooking for one?"

"Guess so. Want some to take home? What you guys need over there? Cranberry sauce? Mashed potatoes? Gravy? Pie?"

He gave her a sad smile and held out the card towards her. She didn't take it. So he placed it on the kitchen counter that she'd placed herself almost protectively behind, and pushed it towards her.

"It's a guy I know," Elliot offered, jutting his chin at the card a bit. "An attorney who works in family court stuff. I thought that maybe having a lawyer this time might … keep you from getting burned as badly."

"I know lots of lawyers, Elliot," she told him, still not looking at the card.

He gave a small shrug. "I know. But he's good. I talked to him a bit about your … situation …"

"I didn't ask you to do that – and sharing my personal business with a lawyer is really inappropriate, El," she spat at him, anger starting to brim in her. He never seemed to fail to make her angry. She wasn't sure she'd ever encountered anyone in her life who could make her as angry as Elliot Stabler – who could hurt her so much.

He just gazed at her, his eyes drilling into her in a way that showed his annoyance with her too.

"He's expecting your call," Elliot said. "He can help guide you through some of the paperwork around reassigning guardianship, even if you decide not to use his services."

"I don't need a lawyer, El," she said slowly and sternly back to him. "There's no kid now."

"You're going to just let some college kid walk all over you? Just like you did Vivian?"

"They're the rightful guardians. The custodial parent. What I have to say about the matter doesn't much matter in the eyes of the court. Biology, Elliot. It's all about biology."

He flared his nostrils at that. "Just call him Olivia," he told her with an edge to his voice.

"El, why don't you go home and worry about your own family – and not my non-existent one?" she spat harshly.

He shook his head and examined the floor for a moment. "OK," he shrugged and started to move back towards the door.

"Have a good Thanksgiving, Liv. Don't be too hard on yourself," he said, as she heard the door open.

"Where the hell did you even tell Kathy you were going to come over here and try to play the fucking saint again?" she snarked at him still from where she was standing in the kitchen.

She was so angry with him. He still thought he had a right to tell her how to live her life, to tell her what to do. With each opportunity she was having to see him now, it was reminding her of all the things that annoyed her about him – not the good memories she had about her partner, her friend, her supporter. That annoyed her too. She wanted to spent time with him, to talk to him. She didn't want to be angry with him, to be fighting with him. This wasn't how she hoped them getting to talk to each other again would be like. She wanted them to be friends again – not this.

"I didn't have to tell her anything, Olivia," he responded with his own edge of anger. "We're … taking some time apart."

Olivia watched him. His jaw was clenching and she could see the vein in his temple starting to pulse. She rubbed her eyebrow. "What's that mean?"

"We're taking some time apart," he spat at her again.

She examined him some more. "What about the kids?"

He shook his head. His hand was still on her doorknob, it was like he wanted to go but couldn't step through the door yet. From previous experience, she was sure he wanted to yell at her and probably hit something or someone.

"They're adults now," he said quietly. She could see the muscles clenching in him even with the thought of it.

"But Eli?" she asked.

He caught her eyes. "It's different with him this time – different than with the rest of the kids."

"Are you OK?" she asked a bit more softly.

Twenty years. That was what it had been last time when they separated and it had hurt him so deeply. That hadn't been a short separation either – and Kathy had been serious about it. They'd be divorced if she hadn't gotten pregnant. She was fairly sure of that.

Now if they were separated again and Eli was … six now? In school? Growing up? Would they actually be able to pull it back together? Did Elliot even want to get back together with her at this point? Even if he did, would Kathy?

The shooting. His retirement. His inability to deal with his emotions. The way he buried things. The way he told himself he didn't feel anything and instead let the rage eat away at him. It had to have played a role in this, she knew that too. Not that Elliot would ever open up enough to tell her that. Even if he did, it would be a couple barked sentences and he'd storm away to weight some weights or beat some punching bags … or sleep.

She hoped he was getting help – real, mental, emotional, professional help. But she doubted that was happening too.

She couldn't even completely imagine how much he was hurting. He was losing his family – again. His children were grown and off living their own lives. His wife needed time away from him. His youngest was growing up and with whatever was going on between him and Kathy, he definitely wasn't getting to see him as much as before, that much was certain. He'd left his job. She didn't know what exactly he was doing, if anything, to occupy his time now. His life was falling apart. Family was supposed to be a rock – the most important thing, Elliot had said – and he didn't have that right now. That couldn't be good for him. It worried her – even more than how she'd spent the past year worrying about him.

He didn't give her an answer though. He sighed and pulled the door open. "Just call Mark," he said again. "He's expecting your call."

"El…" she called at him but he was already in the hallway.

He glanced at her and shook his head. "Call him, Olivia," he said. "We'll talk after you do that." He pulled the door shut.

She stood, her arms crossed tightly, and stared at the door for a long time. She wondered if it was OK to cry. For him. For her. For Benji.


	37. Chapter 37

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Her eyes opened but it still took several more seconds for her to realize the sound she was hearing was her apartment buzzer. She heard it so rarely. But as that realization set in, she sat bolt up.

_Jack,_ she thought.

She darted for the door, glancing at the clock 4:12 a.m. beside her bed. It could be Jack. Who else would it be? she thought as she made her way for the buzzer. But then as the buzzing seemed to stop, it set it that it could just be high school or university kids wandering around the streets on the way to Black Friday sales and just being jackasses. Or it could be Elliot? Had he come back?

The buzzer went again.

She near dived for it and pushed in the button. "Hello?" she said. There was no response. "Jack?" she asked. "Jack? Is that you?"

She sighed and let go of the button waiting and it buzzed again. "Jack?" she said again. "I'm not buzzing you up unless you identify yourself. It's a safety issue."

Still nothing but then she heard her phone started ringing and buzzing around on her bedside table. She glanced behind her shoulder back in that direction – and reluctantly left the intercom, quickly walking back to her bedroom.

She grabbed the phone and looked at it. It was Jack's caller ID. She answered.

"Jack?" she near demanded now. "Are you at my …"

She could hear the dead air already and looked at the phone – the timer stopped dead as the call ended. But then the buzzer started going again – this time not stopping.

She gazed at it for a moment. He mind was churning, processing. She looked at the phone again and then bolted for the front foyer. She shoved her feet into her badly neglected runners and opened her door, bypassing the elevator and trotting down the stairs as fast as she could make her legs go.

She quickly glanced around the lobby as she got into it and then her eyes fell onto the glass doors leading out front. Benji was standing on the front stoop near shaking and glancing back and forth at the street. A gym bag and a milk carton containing some of his toys were sitting at his feet. He was alone.

She gaped at him for a split second – horror, sadness and utter relief mixing in her. She took the last couple steps to the door and tapped on it, to get his attention and to get him to move so she wouldn't hit him with the door. He turned to her – clutching onto what looked like Jack's phone and trembling. His face was completely flushed red with tears streaming down it. Snot was dribbling out of his nose and his mouth was stringing with salvia, he was blubbering and sobbing so badly. His whole little body was shaking with his cries and fears.

She pushed the door open, him hardly moving for her and her having to knock him with the door a bit to get to him. He was crying so hard his breathing wasn't able to keep up and his wails were near silent pants and hisses. She immediately stooped and scooped him up, clutching him tightly to her. She rubbed the back of his head, bringing it closer to her and put a kiss on his temple and his forehead.

"It's OK, Benj," she told him. "It's OK."

He griped at her, his little body shuttering against her. His snot and slobber smearing onto the shoulder left bare from her sleep tank. She rubbed his back. His bodily reaction was so clearly violent but he was so quiet that she feared he was near hyperventilating.

"Shhh," she whispered at him. "You're OK, sweetheart."

She glanced up and down the street like the little boy had been doing – trying to spot Jack but there was no sign of him. He'd moved fast – and with the left cell phone, she really didn't have a way to reach him until he wanted to talk to her. She wondered when that would be if he was leaving his little nephew on her doorstep in the middle of the night. She looked at the intercom and pulled out a folded up piece of paper that he'd at the edge of under her number to hold it down. She sighed.

She put another kiss on Benji's temple. "You're OK," she told him again, patting at his back. He'd wrapped his legs around her so tightly and had his wet face pressed against her as he still shook.

"Pee.. Pee… Peedg," Benji sputtered against her.

"Shh," she calmed him, as she reached down with her one arm to grab the bag and slung it over her shoulder, while grabbing the handle on the one side of the crate.

"Pee … Peedg says I cry too much. He say he can … can … can not stand me. He h … h … hate me," Benji managed to get out.

She looked at him and kissed him again, and carried him back inside the door, dragging the rest of his gear with her.

"You're OK now," she told him again. "Jack didn't mean that. You're here now. You're safe. Let's get you upstairs."


	38. Chapter 38

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She was smiling at him, her chin resting on her one hand while she couldn't help from rubbing at his little bicep with her thumb with her other. She just wanted him to know she was there – and for him to feel comforted and safe.

His trembling had mostly calmed at that point but his face was still tear streaked, even though she'd wiped at it and washed it for him. He still kept sniffing and shuttering occasionally, like he might want to start again. But he was digging into his second helping of 5 a.m. mashed potatoes and gravy.

She knew that letting him eat at that time of morning likely wasn't the best idea for his little metabolism and digestive system. She knew too that establishing habits of comfort eating weren't likely the best route for the troubled little boy. But in his sobbing babbles at her, it was more than apparent that he was devastated that he'd missed 'Thank-giving' and 'tur-kee chick-in" – and that Jack had ensured that Benji had had a really awful day. She wasn't sure if that was to punish her or if it was to hurt Benji or if Jack was just being ridiculous. In the end, she thought he'd likely hurt himself since things had clearly escalated to the point that he didn't feel he could be around the little boy anymore – at least that night.

She felt he likely goaded him until Benji's distress had been unbearable for both of them. But it was really all just speculation. A four-year-old could only tell her so much about what happened and Benji was really still too upset to really give her much of an impression at all of what happened. So she as she cleaned him up and worked at calming him, changing him out of his cold, damp clothes and into jammies and hugging him near every step of the way. She'd told him that it still wasn't too late for Thanksgiving dinner and that she'd make him up a plate.

"Slow down, Benj," she told him quietly again. He was gobbling like he was near starving. She wondered if in the drama and conflict of the day Jack had fed the boy.

Benji made a bit of a sucking noise like he was trying to hold in another sob but his fork up to his mouth slowed slightly and after his bite, it didn't return to the plate quite as quickly.

"Good?" she asked him.

He nodded. "Gravy good," he mumbled in a little, almost broken voice.

She allowed a small snort that the biggest review she was getting from him was on her gravy. But she supposed that was OK. Gravy was a pretty important part of Thanksgiving dinner.

She picked up her own fork from next to her near untouched plate. Benji had insisted her needed to eat Thanksgiving dinner with him. But eating a full meal as breakfast – especially on a night where she'd spent most of it tossing and turning and gazing at the ceiling – just wasn't something she could stomach. She reached over to his plate and smeared a little bit of cranberry sauce onto a forkful of the chicken. She held it up for him.

"Try to eat some of the chicken, Benj," she told him quietly, "not just the potatoes. I doubt you've gotten much protein into you this week."

He looked at the fork and then glanced at her. His little face was still so flushed and his eyes so bloodshot and watery looking.

"Turk-ee chick-in?"

She nodded and moved the fork a bit closer to his mouth. "Roasted chicken, Benj. Com'on. Eat a few mouthfuls for me, OK?"

He seemed to think about it a bit more but than opened his mouth and let her put the food she had on the fork there for him. He chewed away at it and gave her a bit of a surprised look.

"Wassit?" he mumbled with his full mouth.

She gave him a small smile. "Cranberry sauce, Benj." She turned his plate around for him so the chicken was sitting directly in front of him. "Eat a bit more of the meat, please."

She didn't have to argue with him about it. He seemed fine to dive into that newly discovered area on his plate now that he'd had a successful taste test.

"When pum-kim pie?" he asked, again with his mouth full.

She gave him a small smile. "Think you've got room for pie?" He nodded at that. She didn't doubt, though, that he'd make room to try it. "OK," she said. "I'll cut you a small slice and then after pie – we're going to go back to bed for a while."

"Peedg said it … it morning but it dark," Benji told her still in a bit of a stutter at the mention of his uncle's name. "But it not bed."

She allowed him a small nod and rubbed at her eyebrow as she examined him. "It is morning, Benj. You're right. But it is still dark out and I'm betting you didn't sleep much last night?"

He darted his eyes at her while he continued to shovel the food into his mouth. She didn't get a reply but she hadn't really been expecting one. She didn't need one anyways. She was sure he'd been up all night. She really doubted Jack would've roused a sleeping child and decided to truck him across the city. Crying, fighting – a little boy being a little boy – had been occurring and he'd ended up on her doorstep. It was the best she could figure. She knew after he calmed and after he felt comforted in his safety there, he'd sleep. His little body and mind were traumatized and exhausted. Even if he thought he was staying up, she knew it would just be a matter of time before he had his eyes shut.

"I'm pretty tired. I'll lay down with you," she offered. "We'll both try to sleep for a few hours."

He still didn't say anything so she just gave his elbow a little squeeze and moved to get up to get the pie.

"'LIVIA! NOOOO!" he screamed at her.

She looked at him and lowered back to her seat. She reached out and touched his face. His eyes had gone wide again and she could see the glassy-water of tears pooling and ready to spill over again.

"It's OK, Benj," she assured him. "I'm just going into the kitchen. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere."

"NO! 'Livia," he said again, his voice almost cracking with the force of the statement and the fear behind it.

She gave him a thin, sad smile. "I'm right here, Benji. I'm not going anywhere. You're here. You're safe." He just kept gazing at her – his meal apparently forgotten. "You want pumpkin pie?" she asked him softly, running her palm down his cheek some more, trying to sooth him.

He allowed the tiniest nod.

"OK," she gave him a smile. "To have pie – I just need to go into the kitchen and cut you a piece. OK? I'm not going anywhere. Just the kitchen to get your pie."

He gave her no response, so she tried to get up slowly again, making sure to keep eye contact with him. She brushed her hand across the top of his head as she managed to get all the way out of her seat.

"I'll be right back with your pie," she assured him and took the couple steps back over to the kitchen.

He watched her all the way and she ensured that she returned his gaze, quickly regaining the eye contact when she did have to break it a moment to turn her back to him to pull the pie and whipped cream out of the fridge and again to get a plate from the cupboard. She gave him a small smile as she set the items on the island counter and then glanced away to cut the pie and to lift it onto the plate. She placed a small dollop on the little slice she'd served up for him and took it back over to the table. She slide his dinner plate to the centre of the table and put the pie in front of him.

"There you go, Benj," she nodded at him and took her seat again.

He examined it. "It or-in," he informed her quietly.

She nodded. "It is. Pumpkins are orange."

"That ouce-crem?" he asked of the whipped cream dollop.

She shook her head a little. "It's whipped cream. It's kind of like ice cream but not as hard. Try it," she encouraged.

He seemed rather unsure about it now that the coveted pumpkin pie was sitting in front of him. He was staring at it with almost confusion and hadn't moved for his fork yet.

"You don't have to eat it, if you don't like it, Benj. Just give it a try."

He darted his eyes at her and scrunched up his mouth in thought about that.

"You like it 'Livia?" he asked. She knew he already knew what her answer would be to that. He'd repeated her previous answer to the same question back to her several times before.

"I don't really like pumpkin pie, Benji," she told him again.

"Becuz it or-in?"

She snorted and a smile tugged at her lips. "I just don't much like the taste or texture, Benji. But lots of people look forward to pumpkin pie all year – and you might be one of them. You won't know unless you taste it. Give it a try."

He seemed to have to consider it more but then cautiously picked up the fork off the plate and awkwardly got some of the pie onto it. He seemed to consider it more but then slowly put it into his mouth. He nearly closed his eyes as he did so – like he was expecting it to taste really awful now, maybe like medicine being forced down his throat. But his eyes quickly snapped open after he got the bite in there and he looked at her, them lighting up – and his fork dove back towards the plate.

She gave him a smile. "Good?" she asked.

He nodded. He had a much bigger bite on his fork now and looked like he about wanted to shove the whole thing into his mouth at once.

"Whip crem good," he managed to get out.

She laughed a little. "OK. And pumpkin pie?"

He just nodded.

She rolled her eyes a little and shook her head at him, returning her one hand to running her thumb along his bicep as he worked at rather quickly polishing off the pie.

"Benj," she called at him as he continued to eat and he glanced a bit her way. "You know, sweetheart, part of Thanksgiving and being thankful about things – and I'm really thankful you're back here. And, I want you to know that you're safe here, I'm not going anywhere, and we're going to get this big mess figured out for you. So you don't have to worry about that."

He gazed a her a little blankly but scrunched up his face a bit in his little boy deep thoughts pose.

"I thank-fil too," he finally said, not really clear on if it was to anything particular or even if it was on what she'd said. She didn't need to ask or really know, though. "I like Thank-giving," he mumbled again with the squished up pie oozing around his mouth. The mess of orange and white goo in his mouthful-assertion made her smile again, though she shook her head at him. He was sort of ridiculous. She kind of liked it. A lot.


	39. Chapter 39

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"You're sure that's the one you want Benj?" she asked as he continued to examine the boxed police cruiser in his hands.

He nodded. "It make sounds."

She was fully aware that one had light up sirens and the wailing sounds to go along with it. She thought she heard that enough in her workday. She wasn't entirely sure she wanted to be hearing it in her living room until the novelty of the new toy wore off. Or the batteries died.

She pointed at a little play set. "Did you see this one, Benj? It comes with more cars – and a helicopter, a boat and some little figures. A police dog. It looks pretty fun. Lots more to play with." And more importantly the little die cast vehicles in that box were silent.

He bit his lip while he considered that box but then shook his head at her. "This good," he informed her. "It big."

"Yeah?"

He nodded.

She allowed a little sigh but said, "OK."

She'd told him he could pick a toy in the gift shop – any toy he wanted. Tempering his excitement about it enough so he grasped he could only pick ONE was challenging. She wasn't going to dampen that even more by now but putting a veto on his selection.

"Let's go pay the lady at the cash," she said and started to move that way. She'd hardly taken a step before his hand found her hip.

He'd been like that most of the day – never letting her get out of his reach and near consistently keeping one hand on her. If his hand wasn't directly in hers, it was resting against her hip or the side of her thigh – or he was hooking one of his little fingers around on of her belt loops. It was pretty clear that he wasn't going to let her get away – or maybe more that he wasn't going to get left behind anywhere.

They'd had a minor kerfuffle after they'd managed to get going earlier in the day and she decided to get him out of the apartment and some fresh New York City air. He hadn't wanted to part with her long enough so she could get changed and take a pee.

"Benji," she'd sighed at him. "I need to pee. I'm just going into the bathroom."

He'd shaken his head at her.

She nodded. "Yes. I'm taking a pee and getting dressed and then we are going to take a walk, pick another movie, maybe go to the playground or find something else fun to do. But I need to just the bathroom and get dressed before we can do that. OK?"

It'd taken a lot of talking in circles, telling him that he wasn't coming into the bathroom with her or staying in the bedroom with her, and very nearly forcibly removing his hand from her. But eventually he'd relented. Though he'd stood directly outside both doors and talked to her – seeking reassurance she was still inside – while she did use the toilet and dress.

His clinginess continued after they'd finally managed to get out of the apartment. But she was really seeking ways to distract him and to work on wearing him out enough again that he'd pass out again.

They'd just wandered. She'd done her best to strategically avoid any areas that might be too congested with people gone crazy in Black Friday madness. She didn't think Benji was in any state to be able to handle crowds.

She did take him down onto the subway, though. The little boy seemed rather fascinated with subways. She supposed it was still a novelty for him in the city. Maybe it was for any little boy even if they'd grown up in the city. Big, moving, noisy, mechanical things seemed to be a winning combination – no matter how mundane. Benji seemed keen to stand and look at construction sites too, which wouldn't have been something she would've previously considered a time-passing activity. She'd gotten them off at Whitehall. She'd half-ways figured that area of town would be dead on the Friday after Thanksgiving. She thought maybe she'd take him for a walk in Battery Park or a thrilling back-and-forth trip on the Staten Island ferry.

It'd really been rather random as they came out of the station that she remembered Nick mentioning a while back about taking Zara to the Police Museum one weekend and them both having enjoyed the exhibits. That said something, considering Zara was a self-proclaimed princess, who Olivia really couldn't see embracing something so 'for boys' as a police museum.

She knew it was somewhere in the area and with a bit of searching on her phone, she'd managed to locate and they'd toddled off in that direction to see if it was open. It had been but as her and Benji entered the Junior Officers Discovery Zone at the little museum, she had initially thought it might be a waste of time.

If Benji was feeling more himself – if he wasn't so clingy and quiet and tired and sad and scared – she thought she probably would've lost him for hours in the room. He'd gone like a mad man to play in the police car and the emergency service van and the little precinct playhouse, complete with peek holes and slides. She wouldn't have been able to stop him from doing the agility test or from pushing all the buttons every where – setting off sirens, and making 'music' with the sounds of the city, taking 911 calls and dispatching officers on the radio. Keeping him out of the dress-up clothes, the jail cells, the suspect photo booth – or from wanting to touch the motorcycles and vintage cars and asking endless questions about all the historic uniforms and weapons on display would've likely been near impossible. But as it was, he just griped onto her hand tighter and glanced around the children's space almost suspiciously.

She'd managed to coax him over to the craft table to start, though, and sat with him as he scribbled away on an officer's hat that she helped him cut out before they glued it to a band of construction paper and set it a top of his head. The start of the outfit seemed to get him a bit more into the spirit of the place and they'd moved on to the next art activity – taking an eye witness account of a suspect and drawing it as a sketch artist. Benji put a valiant effort into his drawing but she was pretty convinced, even with him at four, sketch artist wasn't likely in his career future.

They'd taken rubbings of the soles of their shoes to compare against those found at a crime scene. Thankfully, they'd confirmed that neither of them were unsuspecting criminals. And, finally, they'd moved to the fingerprinting station, which Benji already felt he was a bit of an expert at after their finger painting the previous weekend. But he was more than happy to demonstrate his fingerprinting skills and have-at-'er again.

He'd seemed to have relaxed a bit by the time they were done with the educational arts and crafts section of the place. So he seemed a bit more ready to look at the play spaces in the area and keen to get into his little police uniform. She thought he looked somewhere between cute and ridiculous in the little smock designed to look sort-of like a uniform and his construction paper cap.

He finally stepped away from her long enough to get behind the wheel of the wooden cruiser; though he kept checking for her. So she made sure to always stay within his sight as he sent the sirens blaring and revved the engine while madly spinning the steering wheel around. She thought he definitely had the driving skills of some of the unis she'd encountered. He looked like he was about ready to ram into a perp's vehicle – or generally lose control and takedown a pedestrian. It was a good thing the car didn't actually move, she thought.

He then left her side long enough to try out the precinct playhouse, though he stuck his head out multiple windows on his way up to the slide. She waved at him at each one – reassuring him she was still standing right there. Apparently it was enough to keep him happy that she wasn't going anywhere, because as soon as he did get down the slide, he trotted back to one of the entrances and started making his way back to the top.

By the time he'd decided he was done with the Discovery Zone and they'd taken a gander at some of the other kid-friendly exhibit halls (which she really would've likely been interested in having a bit more time to actually read some of the plaques and information without him pulling at her hand wanting to get to the next button to push or headset to pick up and not actually listen to), they'd put in over two hours in the place. They hadn't gone up to the third floor. Based on Benji's interest-disinterest on the exhibits on the second floor, she really didn't think he'd make it through an exhibit hall and memorial about 9/11. So they'd headed back to the front and she'd popped into the gift shop.

She'd really only intended to see if they were selling some bottled drinks and maybe some sort of snack. They'd been out longer than she thought – and in the museum longer than she'd anticipated – and she really hadn't strategically packed for the outing. She thought if she did end up getting to keep Benji, trucking around a Mom Survival Purse might be something she needed to learn to do. She was thirsty. That likely meant Benji was beyond thirsty and probably starving – again, and as usual. Though, he hadn't been putting up too much of a fuss beyond ensuring they stopped at every water fountain they saw in the building for a rather extended, tongue hanging out of his head, water missing his mouth, front of his shirt soaked drink. The original gift shop mission, though, faded quickly after Benji spotted toys – and they'd ended up standing in front of that shelf for possibly more time than some of the exhibit displays as he decided what he was going to pick out.

She gave the woman behind the cash a thin smile as they got up to the front – and set their purchases on the counter.

"Here, Benj," she waved her hand at him to collect the cruiser so it could get scanned.

"These are so cute," the older cashier woman said as Olivia put the toy up on the counter as well. She'd already started folding the navy blue pajamas that had the NYPD logo all over them. "I bought these for my grandson last Christmas and he just loves them."

Olivia allowed her a small nod, but just reached out and felt the material again. "They are cute but I was really just hoping for warm," she commented.

Benji was freezing. He was constantly complaining he was cold – and at night it became especially apparent.

Jack really wasn't dressing him properly considering it was now the end of November. She didn't know if he was just clueless or if they hadn't ended up in the city with clothing appropriate for beyond the Indian summer and he couldn't afford more or if Benji had had a growth spurt any his clothes from the previous fall and winter didn't fit him. Whatever it was, the little boy was still being clothed almost exclusively in tshirts and any cover-up was taking the form of oversized hoodies, which didn't seem to be doing much to keep the chill out of his bones.

At that point she didn't much care what Jack's excuse was for keeping the little boy clothed, but clothed inappropriately. And, as far as she was concerned, he'd lost any privileges he had left to be informed about her intention to outfit the child or to have any say in the matter. That morning when Benji had again jammed his ice-block feet and hands against her under the covers and had whined 'I'm cold', she'd decided she would be taking him out on a shopping trip. But she had no intention of battling the Black Friday Crazies to do it. She'd wait to see how Benji was doing mentally, emotionally and energy-wise over the weekend and she might try at that point – assuming Jack hadn't reappeared and throw another wrench in her bonding with the little boy and her ability to help them both. When she'd seen the waffled-style PJs in the gift shop, though, she'd thought they might provide some reprieve for the little boy, at least for the moment.

"Oh, if it's warm you're looking for, did you see our slipper socks?" the woman had gushed and rushed out from behind the counter, off in the direction where Olivia had found the pajamas. She came back and held out a pair. "My daughter just can't get these off her little guy."

Olivia allowed a small snort at that as she looked at the socks. The foot was done up to look like a police cruiser while NYPD was plastered across the leg. Even the grippies on the bottom where made up to look like badges. She showed them to Benji.

"What do you think, Benj? Think these might help keep your feet arm?"

He examined them for a moment but then nodded in agreement. They were cute. But Olivia didn't really want to know how much they were. They definitely looked like the kind of novelty item that wouldn't be cheap. So she just put them on the counter without looking at the price and nodded her thanks at the woman.

She grabbed Benji's construction paper hat off his head and put the sheets of paper from the rest of their investigative work art projects on the counter too.

"We're going to need a bag," she said.

"Would you like a plastic one or a reusable one?" the woman asked and eagerly held up a canvas shopping bag with the museum's logo plastered across the front. "We have the backpacks too," she offered even more excitedly.

Olivia had definitely noticed – and appreciated – that the museum was rather vacant that day. There'd only be one other family in the children's area while they were in there and she'd only noticed about five other older couples moving through the rest of the exhibits. But she thought the woman had seen even fewer people pass through the gift shop based on her enthusiasm.

She held up one of the drawstring vinyl backpacks at her. "Both styles are $4.50."

"Four fifty?" Olivia said and shook her head, thinking that was a little much for a shopping bag.

She made a note to herself that her Mom Survival Purse also needed to include reusable bags for all the extra crap picked up along the way with a kid in tow. For example, Benji had found multiple bottle caps that apparently were very interesting, two pennies and a lost or discarded MTA card that 'might be worth some-ting'. They were all taking up space in her coat pocket. Now she had all his art projects to get back to the apartment too – she assumed to go on the fridge.

"We'll take a shopping bag," she said, and moved to start digging around in her purse to find her wallet and a credit card to pay for what had become a significantly more expensive purchase than the intended bottle of water or juice and a chocolate bar to share.

Benji tugged on her arm. "Backpack," he said quietly.

She looked at him questioningly. "Backpack?"

"It cooler," he informed her.

She gave him a small smile. "You want a backpack, Benji? For nursery school?"

He gave a little nod – and she gave a little shrug at the clerk. "I guess we're taking a backpack too."

The woman smiled, mostly directing it at Benji. "Someone is getting spoiled – and just before Christmas now too."

Benji gazed at her suspiciously and backed himself up to hide a bit behind Olivia. She reached around behind her and stroked his head a couple times to calm him down. Benji was usually so outrageously extroverted but he was acting more than a little shy and quiet today.

"You're just making a killing on the up-sell on us today," Olivia said. "We came in here for to buy a drink."

"Did you see the cooler?" the woman asked pointing behind her – likely hoping to add a couple more dollars to the till.

Olivia nodded but held up her hand slightly. "I did. Thanks. But I think we're just going to stop for a break at the Starbucks on the way back to the subway at this point."

"Maybe I can tempted you with a final little up-sell treat for him," the lady said, almost like she was trying to be mischievous. But Olivia wasn't sure she was impressed. Without knowing how much she was spending on the socks – she knew that the rest of the purchase must now be about $50; definitely more than she'd been intending to spend in there.

"I heard you talking to your son about which toy to pick – the play set or the car. We've got these cute little sets - $2.50," she offered, again holding it up the little packet of toys.

Olivia thought about correcting her on the son comment but let it pass and instead looked at the little set and sighed. It was cute – and it was only $2.50. She knew she shouldn't technically be spoiling Benji. But she also didn't really think he was clueing in that he was being spoiled. He was so used to just … not having much of anything or being given much of anything that anything was exciting and appreciated. He was still wearing the skateboarding fleece she'd bought him like it was a prized possession and she couldn't tear Flame away from him. The toy appeared to go every with him. It had been to nursery school and it was with them now – also taking up a rather considerable amount of her non-Mom-approved purse. And, besides, after what she suspected Benji had been through over the past few days and the night before, she thought he could use a little bit of doting on, if not outright spoiling.

She took the pack from the woman's hands and handed it down to the little boy.

"What you think, Benj?" she asked him. "Think you might want to play with that?"

He gazed unsurely at the little set. "Army Men?" he asked her quietly.

She gave him a little nod and pushed her thumb around the plastic bag packaging so he could see more of what was in there. "It's army men but they're police officers, sweetheart. It looks like you get a car and a helicopter too. Some other things."

"I like Army Men," he said even more softly, like he didn't want the cashier to hear.

"I know you do, sweetheart. So do you think you'd like to play with these?"

Benji scrunched his face at her while he considered it – clearly unsure if it was allowed and almost confused by the offer of a second toy being put in front of him. But after some careful consideration he nodded. So she gave him a little smile and nodded back at him.

"OK. We'll take these too – and that's it," she stressed to the cashier who gave her a bit of a smile and rung up the cash. Olivia gave a small sigh as $62.13 showed up as the total and handed over the credit card.

"Now are you one of the Service members in the museum today?" the woman asked. "I think I was on break when you two came in."

Olivia looked at her questioningly. "What do you mean?"

"Oh," the woman shook her head and glanced out the door to where her counterpart – a little, old graying man was manning the tiny admission booth in the foyer. "You are in the Service, aren't you? I could tell. George should've told you. You get free admission and a discount in here. I hope he didn't make you pay."

Olivia allowed a small smile and shook her head. "It's fine. Don't worry about it."

"Don't be silly," the woman said and shook her head at her then. "On that salary and raising a family. You take the discount."

Olivia thought it was a little funny that the woman was now very concerned that she take the discount when she'd done her best to up-sell her each step of the way so far. She thought about making a comment but the woman had already toddled over to the door and was yelling out at the old man, who looked like he was taking a nap at the front desk.

"George," she yelled. "George," she yelled louder. "You do up a cancelled adult admission transaction. You charged this lady in here admission – and she's in the Service. You can't just be sleeping on the job because it's a quiet day, George."

Olivia heard the man mumble something back about it being a volunteer position and he could do what he wanted. But it did definitely sounded like he was roused and doing something at the computer out there. She felt a little petty to be getting the admission fee back, though. She really hadn't minded paying the fee at all. Her and Benji had definitely gotten their money's worth.

The woman came back. "We are supposed to see your ID, though, if you have it with you and get your badge number. Just so we aren't giving out discounts willy-nilly, you understand."

Olivia gave a small nod and reached to her inside pocket to retrieve the ID that she always seemed to have with her. Habit anymore. She flashed it at the woman, who pulled it a bit closer, taking note of her badge number and scribbling it onto a chart she'd pulled out from under the counter.

"Thank you, Detective," she smiled kindly at her.

Olivia gave a thin smile in return and went to return it to her pocket but Benji tugged again at her arm. She looked down at him questioningly.

"I look," he told her, so she handed the ID wallet to him and he opened it up and stared at it. He seemed to be fascinated by it. He took the opportunity to look at it and her badge every chance he got. Not to mention, ask her endless question about her guns and the squad car and handcuffs and just about anything else that he related to be police work. Though he also made sure to tell her every chance he got that skateboarding was not a crime. She made sure to agree with him on that one.

The cashier smiled down at him then. "Are you going to be a police officer like your mommy when you grow up?" she asked.

But it just caused Benji to shuffle back in behind her again – peaking around her a little suspiciously. So she rubbed his back a bit.

"I think he's shooting for professional skateboarder," Olivia offered to the woman, as she finally started to process her credit card after getting the discount into the cash. It'd knocked off about $12, which wasn't too shabby and took the price back down to a range that was vaguely more acceptable - or at least less disgusting. She again let the comment on her and Benji's relationship slide – and Benji seemed to too, when he usually was quick to point out to people she was 'not Mama.'

"Skateboard dick-tech-hive," he told her quietly.

Olivia smiled widely down at him at that little comment and tired not to laugh. "That like the bicycle unit? Or are you going undercover, Benj?"

He gave her a little pout and scrunched eyes at that but offered no response.

"You toys wrong," he spat out suddenly, though, presumably at the cashier, who looked down at him. "Dick-tech-hives don't wear uni-for-hims. They wear normal clothes. And cops can be girls. Your toys are all boys and all in uni-for-hims. It is wrong."

The cashier smiled at him. "You are very right," she agreed. "I'll have to let our manager know that maybe we need to get in a bigger selection of toys."

She shook her head at Olivia. "And, here, I thought your little guy was just shy. But none too bashful, is he?"

Olivia allowed a small smile and rubbed his back a bit more. He was about hugging her leg at that point.

"He's just a little tired. Normally, he'd be talking your ear off."

"Busy Thanksgiving?" the clerk asked as she finished putting the last of the things into the shopping bag.

"Just a busy day," Olivia allowed.

She was still finding it a little strange that after a child was added to the mix people felt like they could just chat with you – about everything and anything in your daily life. People would hardly say 'boo' to her as she moved about her routines before. Now with Benji in tow, it seemed like the small talk was hitting epic levels and becoming almost expected of her.

"We try to get Toy Story 2 from the lie-berry. But it not there," said Benji, having apparently decided it was now time to talk. "You can not watch Toy Story 3 until you watch Toy Story 2. So we could not get Toy Story 3. So we get Carz and we get Mo-use Dick-tech-hive."

The clerk gave him another big smile. "Well, it does sound like you two have a very exciting evening planned then." She handed the straps of the bag over to Olivia. "I hope you enjoyed your visit to the museum," she said. "Thank you for coming in."

Olivia nodded as she took the bag. "We did. I might have to get back on my own some time to get a bit more time on the second floor and to take a look up at the third."

The woman nodded eagerly. "We always appreciate the repeat visitors. We have memberships for Service members. Make sure you ask George when you pick up your refund out front. We've got Junior Detective Days, which would be a great time for you to take a look around while we keep your little guy busy for a couple hours. Oh, and we've got our holidays event coming up. You should come back for that too."

Olivia allowed another small nod. She wasn't sure she intended to come back that quickly. Even more, she wasn't sure if Benji would still be with her come the holidays.

She really had no idea what was going on with Jack at the moment. She was pretty disgusted with him. She'd called Funky's in the morning and spoken to the infamous Gecko to advise him of the situation and to see what Jack's schedule was. She needed to talk to him, whether he liked it or not. But the little fucker wasn't scheduled to work that weekend – or at least that's what Gecko was telling her. Though, he did say he was scheduled for Wednesday night in the coming week and that he'd talk to Jack if he saw him before then. The guy -though she thought he had his own maturity and definitely fashion issues - did seem genuinely concerned when she'd said that Benji was with her and Jack had left her with no way to reach him. If something were to happen to Benji, if some sort of emergency arose – it really could be a potential mess. She had no rights, no say and no way to contact Jack. If something did happen – ACS would definitely be involved at that point.

"We'll keep it in mind," she allowed (that discussion of the mess they were dealing with really wasn't small talk) and took Benji's hand to exit the shop.


	40. Chapter 40

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She felt a little ridiculous. After collecting her refund from the exceedingly grumpy George, she'd noticed out the front doors that some flurries had started in the air while they were in the museum. It really wasn't what she needed with Benji out on the town in clothing that she didn't deem entirely winter appropriate. She actually couldn't even remember the last time they'd had snow on Thanksgiving weekend in the city. But, of course, it would happen this year when she had him out with her in the cold. At least it didn't look like it was cold enough that any of it was staying on the ground. The tourists in the city would just be eating it up, she thought.

So now she was sitting in the tiny cloak room with Benji – literally getting him changed into what she'd just bought him. Not only that, she was considering going back in there and buying him a hoodie that actual fit him. She'd pulled off the fleece and his tshirt before ripping the tags off the top of the pajamas and shucking the waffle shirt over his head and down his arms. The material felt pretty close to long underwear to her. It'd hopefully provide him with some extra insulation for the walk back to the subway and then from Grand Central to her building.

She pulled the tshirt back over his head, followed by the fleece, followed by his winter jacket. Then she'd pulled his hat down over his ears and tugged his mittens up his hands. He was starting to look a little puffy with the layered outfit. But he hadn't put up any complaints while she did it. He'd actually been exceedingly compliant.

Now he had his hand against her forehead, apparently bracing himself, while she worked at trying to tug his boots onto his feet. She was feeling like she was pretty savvy to have put him in the boots and have thought to drag along his shoes in her overburdened purse. But she was also cursing herself about the boots a bit too.

She'd thought it had been pretty smart to get him pull-on boots. But with his cast he really couldn't seem to handle getting enough of a grip on them to pull them up his feet. She was actually starting to wonder if he ever would – or if they were just too awkward. So she'd become his boot putter-onner. Even she found them a little awkward to get his feet into and had to really yank to get his heels in place.

"OK, stomp them in," she told him, as she thought she finally got them positioned.

As Benji stood up off the little bench and started stomping around the room, she worked at reorganizing the loot they'd accumulated on their trip. She pulled Flame out of her purse and stuffed him into the canvas shopping bag and started to jam his sneakers (or skate shoes, as he called them; they looked like sneakers to her) in there too.

But Benji spotted his toy. "Flame does not want to be in bag," he informed her.

She glanced at him while she finished moving things around. "He's fine, sweetheart."

Benji came over and grabbed the stuffed toy out of the bag. "I carry Flame."

"Benj, it's snowing. He'll get all wet if he's not in the bag," she told him and held out her hand to take the dragon back.

Ben glared at her for a moment but then gave her the stuffie. "I play with new car now?"

She shook her head. "When we get home."

He leaned against her while she worked at getting the toy back in the bag. Benji pulling him out had disturbed the whole Tetris she'd accomplished in there to get everything to fit. She didn't think it was going to fit again unless she emptied the bag and started over, which she didn't really want to do.

"Why?" he asked.

She glanced at him again. "Because we're walking to the subway now," she told him. "No time for toys – and you don't want to lose any parts."

She stood back up and stuck out her hand – giving up on the bag. It was good enough.

"Com'on," she told him and guided him out onto the street and back the way they'd come from the subway. She figured at that point they'd both more than had enough. It was time to get back to the apartment, to flop, to feed him his second Thanksgiving dinner of the day, to watch some movies and to hopefully sleep.

But "Where we going?" Benji inquired.

She glanced down at him. She was feeling a little overloaded with her multiple bags and kid in tow. She never carried this much stuff around the city. A coat was about as far as she usually got. Even a purse was an infrequent item – though it had become a necessity since Benji walked into her life: extra storage. It was starting to look like even a purse wasn't enough of an accessory when it came to preschooler wrangling, though.

"To the subway, sweetheart, and then home. We may stop for a hot cocoa and a bit of a snack on the way if we see something. Would you like that?"

She noticed on the way to the museum they'd passed two Starbucks. She was feeling a little parched and peckish at that point – but she'd already spent enough money that day and they were nearing dinnertime. So she was really on the fence about whether to stop.

"What hot cocoa?" Benji asked.

She looked at him again. She knew she shouldn't be surprised at this point. But she still was. He'd been exposed to so little. She really wondered what his life had been like on the farm after Jay had died when he was hardly a year old? If he'd just been left to be babbled at by his senile great-grandmother? To be grouched at by Jack? To be barked at by his uncle? To be neglected most of the time by his mother? It really seemed like they'd kept him under a bit of a rock. What did he do all day as a toddler?

"Hot chocolate," she offered but he still gazed at her blankly. So she gave a little nod. "We'll stop and get some so you can see. It will warm you up."

"I not cold 'Livia," he informed her.

She gave him a small smile. "There's a first. I'm glad, Benj."

He walked next to her quietly for a few minutes. He kept reaching out and catching some of the little snowflakes in his mittened-hand that wasn't gripping hers. He seemed pretty transfixed to be watching them melt and disappear.

"'Livia?" he asked a little suddenly and she glanced at him again, half-ways expecting him to ask something about the snow. "Why that lady call you my mama?"

So he had heard that and processed it, she thought. She gazed down at him again, trying to gauge what was going through his little head. Gauging children could be surprisingly difficult at times. Their reactions to things often weren't as cut-and-dry as adults. They were a lot more unpredictable in a lot of ways.

"Sometimes when people see a grown-up lady with a little boy, they'll just think they must be a mama and her little boy, Benj," she offered. "The lady just assumed that since we didn't tell her differently."

Benji wasn't looking at her. He seemed pretty fascinated with looking at the sidewalk and how the little scattered snowflakes were disappearing into wet marks there just as quickly as they were when they were landing on him.

"But you aren't a mama," he informed her.

She nodded – though a twinge of sadness went through her again, much as it always did when that persistent reality veered its head in her life. It seemed to be cropping up a lot lately and Benji seemed to like to talk about it more than she really cared for.

"No, I'm not a mama," she agreed.

"Why?"

She sighed. "We've talked about this, Benj. Remember? I'm not a mama because I don't have any kids of my own."

"Why?"

"Because I haven't had any babies."

"Why?"

"It's just not something I've done, Benji."

"Why not?" he near demanded.

She shrugged. She wasn't sure what was a suitable answer would be to end this round of the 'why' game. "I guess I was really busy with work," she tried.

"You bizzy?"

She snorted. It sounded like he thought her explanation was about as ridiculous as she kind of felt it had become at this point in her life. "Yeah. I thought I was pretty busy."

"How bizzy?"

"With work, Benji. Very busy."

"But you not bizzy," he told her.

She smiled and shook her head at him. "I'm not?"

He shook his head at her. "Becuz when you not bizzy you can be fuzz and a mama," he informed her.

She snorted. "Is that so?"

He nodded at that.

She allowed him a little smile. "OK then. I'll have to keep that in mind."

"So now you can be a mama," he told her.

"Ah. Can I?"

He nodded some more. "So you get a kid or baby 'Livia. Becuz then you'll be a mama. And the lady say you a mama. So then she say it right and not think wrong."

She smiled down at him again. He was still examining his boots and the cement as he gave her his very deep and twisted four-year-old logic.

"Mmm," she gave him. "I guess I'll have to think about that idea."

"Becuz you know mama tings, right 'Livia?" he asked and glanced up at her briefly.

"I don't know, Benj. Do I know mama things?" she asked. She knew it could be a little emotionally jarring territory for her. But she felt like she wanted to hear what he had to say on the matter – as convoluted as she expected it to be.

Benji nodded again.

"Like what?"

He made his deep-thought face again at that.

"You know how to fix Flame's wings" was the first criteria he came up with and she very near laughed out loud. Maybe the list wasn't going to be nearly as emotionally jarring as she thought. It sounded like it was going to be Benji-style ridiculous.

She gave him a smile and rubbed at her eyebrow. "I do know how to fix Flame's wings," she agreed. Benji was constantly ripping the Velcro attachments off the toy. But he never seemed to be able to get them back on in the way he felt was 'right'. That was apparently her job. She was actually surprised that the wings had been on the dragon, and not lost, when Jack had returned the little boy and the beloved stuffie to her.

Benji nodded. "You know 'bout ner-suri school. Mamas know that. And mamas come get their kids at ner-suri school and you do that. Peedg did not know 'bout ner-suri school. He know 'bout daycare. But daycare not good like ner-suri school."

She allowed him another little smile and gave his little hand a small squeeze. "I'm glad you like nursery school, Benji."

"You a cop. So you know mama stuff too right?" he asked and glanced up at her. "Becuz you take care of kids. And you get very cool things. Cars and guns and badges."

She snorted again at that. "I guess that's all true too."

"You know how to read good," he added.

She nodded. "I do know how to read," she couldn't bring herself to agree she could 'read good'. She thought that might defeat the statement.

"You know how to play too and finger paint. And glue."

She smiled. "I do."

"You know lots 'bout peanut butter."

She did laugh out loud at that and looked down at him. "I'm not sure there is much to know about peanut butter, Benji."

He nodded vehemently, though.

"Ah, OK," she let it slide.

"'Livia?" he asked again.

"Mmm?" she looked down at him again.

"Are mamas and mommys same or they different? Becuz the lady say you my mommy not mama."

She gazed down at him again while she weighed that statement. She was processing and trying to decide how to best answer that one. She didn't have too much time to think, though. He looked up at her and caught her eyes.

"Becuz Mama dead. But maybe I don't have a mommy if they different."

She let out a deep breath. She didn't know what to say. She sort of knew what she wanted to say. But she didn't want to offer him false promises or hopes. She hadn't even had time yet to fully process what had happened and what her next steps should now be. What she was going to do about Jack. What the hell was even going on with Jack.

It was all a big mess. Benji was caught in the middle enough. She didn't want to make it worse for him – more confusing for him – as much as she wanted to tell him that she could do that. She could stop playing Mom and she could just be Mom.

She could be his mom. She knew she could. But she didn't think she could tell him that. She didn't think even if she did – he would really understand it. She wasn't sure what he wanted out of the statement – likely just love, comfort, support. She could provide that. Still, she didn't want him to feel that ache if that did get yanked away. So she couldn't say anything yet – not until she had a plan that she knew how to set in motion.

"I think they are usually the same thing, sweetheart," she told him softly, squeezing his hand a little tighter.

He examined her but she could visibly see that his face fell a little bit. There'd been hope behind the innocence in his question. He knew what he was asking, what he was saying, what he was suggesting. It was in the words of the a little boy and there was innocence behind it – but he also knew exactly what he was asking for. She did too.

"You sure 'Livia?" he asked quietly a little defeated.

She gave him a small nod. "I'm pretty sure, Benj."

"But maybe they different," he suggested and looked at her again hopefully.

She shrugged. "Maybe. But I think it's just different words for a mother, sweetheart."

"But maybe you not a mama but you a mommy?" he tried again, like if he posed the question in a different way maybe he'd get an answer he liked better.

She gave him a thin smile. She wasn't sure what to say to that either. She shook her head and shrugged. "I don't know, Benj," she admitted. "I'm not sure."

He squinted at her. "Well how you find out 'Livia?"

She allowed a small snort at that and shrugged again. "I guess we'd have to do some research. I'd have to ask some people to find out."

"Maybe there a book at the lie-berry that tell you," he suggested.

She smiled. "Maybe sweetheart."

"We go to lie-berry and find out then," he informed her.

She gave his hand a little squeeze. "Maybe tomorrow, Benji. We're going home now."

He swung her arm, though, with a bit more of a jolt of happiness in him. "Then we go to lie-berry tomorrow and find out if you a mommy OK?"

He made the library sound like it was some sort of pregnancy test, she thought. If they weren't talking about her ability to keep him or to fulfill that role for him, she might've almost thought it was funny. But – now, it wasn't.

She looked down at him and allowed another small sad smile. "OK, Benj. We'll see …"

She sort of hoped by morning, he would've forgotten about this train of thought and been onto the next thing … dragons, robots, police cars, skateboards. Much more important topics for a four-year-old boy than who or what a mother was – or at least she hoped.


	41. Chapter 41

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She kept her eyes on Benji while she listened to the phone ring on the other end of the line.

Cars wasn't coming anywhere near winning over her heart or mind but it had the little boy completely transfixed. So much so she was actually able to get up off the couch and leave him gazing at it like it was in the top three movies he'd ever seen, because it likely was. Probably literally was one of about three movies he'd ever seen, as far as she could figure.

She thought the storyline might've put her to sleep if she'd sat there watching it with him much longer. She really didn't get the appeal. She actually thought she might be finding it even more fundamentally boring than having to watch Transformers with Calvin. At least in Transformers things blew up occasionally to rouse her – even if, she didn't exactly care what was exploding on the screen or see the 'that's sooooo sweet!' factor that Calvin saw in just about every aspect of CGI in that movie – and there as a lot. Still, at the same time she could understand what Benji was taking away from Cars as a four-year-old boy. Though it kind of made her wonder if the call she was making was really such a good idea?

She liked Benji. She really, really, really liked Benji. She knew she was more than a little starting to feel more than like about him. But she wasn't exactly ready to admit that or start exploring those feelings yet. That was just asking to get hurt more than she could still already potentially get hurt. No matter how much she liked Benji, though, no matter how much she wanted to have the chance to be a mother and she thought she wanted to try to get to be his mother – what did she really know about raising little boys?

She'd twice now had the opportunity to 'play Mom' with boys. Benji and Calvin. And she'd loved having both chances. But she also felt like she was stumbling around in the dark. Robots, cars, guns, farting, burping, bathroom jokes – now skateboarding. Transformers? Cars: The Movie? Tech Deck? Dragons? Halo and Master Chief? Army Men? Toy Story? Buzz and Woody? Nerf Dart Guns? She didn't much know about any of those things.

She thought she could likely fake-it-until-she-made it with a little girl better. Maybe. She supposed she didn't know that much about princesses or tea parties either. But that might be a bit more fun than rolling a Hot Wheels around the coffee table. Still, she thought she was faking-it-until-she-made it with Benji OK. He hadn't seemed to notice that she didn't know what she was talking about half the times (and on the few occasions he did, he rather quickly corrected her and pointed out her complete girl stupidity).

Could she really spend the next however many years watching movies like Cars and keeping transforming robots from taking over the world? Or worse – arguing about if the crane, bus, subway, garbage truck or taxi cab on the street might really be a robot in disguise? But it was actually thinking about conversations like that she'd had with Benji that convinced her she could do it. She wanted to have those sorts of completely ridiculous discussions that left her smiling like a fool that he was still young enough and naïve enough that he thought maybe, just maybe, Transformers really did exist and were living somewhere in the city. He just had to keep on looking for them.

And, even if she got beyond her self-imposed questions about how much she really knew about things that interested little boys – there was the undeniable reality that Benji deserved better than he had in his life at that moment. So much better. He'd lost so much already in his young life. He was going through such a period of complete instability. He was in his formative years and his little world was in complete chaos. He may not be being outwardly abused but what was going on for him right now had a very good chance of leaving him scarred for life. If he didn't get help soon – he was going to end up a very confused child, who would likely grow into a problem teen and … she really didn't want to think about what kind of adult.

Right now he still had a chance. That little boy was still in him – that kind heart and questioning mind and loving personality. He wanted to be a little boy. He had the capacity to still be a little boy – to survive and pull through what he'd been through. And, she needed to make that happen for him. He needed to have a chance – for a normal childhood and for a normal life.

The conversation with him on the way home had only tugged at her heartstrings even more. It didn't matter what she wanted anymore. What misgivings she was having, her hesitations – it was all a moot point now. Benji was invested now too.

Kids can tell you what they want, what they need, if you listen. She'd learnt that time-and-time over with her work. Kids are not dumb. They are more open, sincere and honest than most adults. They just express things in a different way and you often have to listen a bit harder and be willing to hear what they're saying. It's usually worth it.

She heard loud and clear what Benji was saying to her – what he was telling her. He was in this too now. They were in this together. If she took steps back now – she was abandoning him just like everyone else in his life. She wasn't going to do that to him either.

Besides, just looking at him right now, calmed any misgivings she had. And, even though she could already anticipate the challenges she'd be facing with him in so many ways – she could see so many more moments like this too.

She'd gotten him into the full jammies not long after they got home – including the slipper socks, and she was pretty sure that the cashier's statements that her grandson never wanted to take them off were going to play true with Benji too. He was fascinated with the socks.

"My feet cars, 'Livia," he'd told her – and apparently needed to further prove it by running around the apartment at about a million miles an hour. He'd later had his feet talking to his Hot Wheels. They were apparently being pursued by the police and were under arrest for speeding. She wasn't sure she would've ever imagined that socks could become a toy and part of the imaginary play. But for Benji, that seemed to be the case.

He'd plopped himself on the couch after she'd feed him some more tur-kee chick-in with all the fixings and demanded a movie be put on. In the midst of her getting it going in the DVD player, he'd claimed her sleeved blanket. He'd previously informed her that it was pink and only for girls. That had apparently passed at some point – likely around the time he decided it made a pretty great cape and also a giant puppet. Though, it worked much better when she was the puppet for him – a pink dinosaur, he'd told her. She wasn't sure how she felt about being that character but she'd played along.

Elliot had so teased her after she was feeling better (and no longer charged with murder) when he'd seen her sleeved blanket when he'd come over to see how she was doing with a cold several years ago. He clearly wasn't as much of a workoholic as her, if he didn't understand the amazingness of a sleeved blanket. Or she obviously spent way too much time on her couch in the evenings paging through files. Still, she thought he'd find it more than a little amusing to hear that the blanket now had her playing a pink dinosaur for Benji's amusement. He'd likely think that was a more appropriate use for the thing than a blanket.

Benji had Flame and his new police cruiser (apparently also an item that needed to be named and christened as Copper, which she'd told him was very original – almost as original as Flame) clutched to his chest while he gazed at the screen.

After they'd gotten back to the apartment and she'd got the car out of the box for him, he'd sent the sirens wailing immediately. It actually hadn't really stopped for the first about 25 minutes after he started playing with it. It had left her praying the batteries would conk out – or plotting how she'd be taking them out of the thing after he went to bed.

But with how he was clutching at it now – still occasionally hitting the button to set the sounds off – she was pretty sure that the car would be going to bed with him. She could only hope he wouldn't be setting the sirens off in the middle of the night. She knew that would have her snapping awake in an instant, if he did.

And it was things like all of that, that were the final factors in convincing her to get off the couch and pick up the phone. Things that were likely so mundane in anyone else's life who had children that they hardly noticed or were mostly annoyed by it.

She wanted that mundaneness. She wanted to get to share those things with Benji. She wanted to be a pink dinosaur and to learn that socked feet made great play toys. She wanted to hear names given to toy cars and to worry about if she'd develop a headache from some new really annoying toy. She wanted to be bored by some children's movie while watching the little boy instead and seeing how engrossed he was with it all.

She knew there would be tantrums ahead of them. That there'd be fights. That there'd be frustrations. That there would be problems at school. That there'd be scraped knees, more stitches, and likely psychological counseling and the need for a lot of extra help with his homework and learning development. That they'd be teen years when she'd been well into her 50s and that she'd likely spend the next 16 or more years near broke. She knew she was going to have to put some thought into how to manage her work schedule and what to do with him on nights or weekends that she got called in. She knew she had to find somewhere else to live and all the hassles that went with that. She knew he'd likely remind her of Jack as he aged – that he'd likely tell her he hated her and that she wasn't his mother and that she didn't know shit and he wanted her out of his life. But she didn't much care. She would take all of that for even a few more days like they'd had that day and evenings snuggling with him on the couch watching mind numbingly boring cartoons.

"Hello," a man's voice said into her ear finally after so many rings she was sure it was going to go to voicemail. It almost sounded like he might be in a bar there was so much noise in the background.

She supposed that might be possible – it was a Friday night on a holiday weekend. Most people had lives – more-so than her. But then she realized suddenly, he likely did have a life and it was a holiday weekend. He was probably at some sort of family function or getaway. She was likely badly interrupting. She'd just become so engaged in her thought process and had so worked herself up to make the call and to make it right then – to get off her ass and stop thinking about what she wanted, to start acting on it.

"Ah, hi," she said, feeling a little stupid now. "I'm looking for Mark?"

"Speaking," the guy said again, and then she heard him go, "Hey, HEY. Don't do that to your brother. Sorry. Yeah. This is Mark."

She rubbed at her eyebrow and looked at Benji over on the couch again – trying to calm her nerves a bit and to remind herself why she was doing this. It was stupid. She dealt with all sorts of horrific situations and people. But this – all of this – and this phone call in particular, just had her so stressed out. She still felt like all of this was going to blow up in her face so badly. She would get hurt and worse – Benji now was going to get really hurt. She hated thinking about that.

"This is Olivia Benson," she said. "Elliot Stabler told me to give you a call."

There was a long pause – which she suspected was a lack of recognition. But then, he finally said, "Oh, yeah. Elliot's friend. Partner." He seemed really distracted. Based on him yelling at children in the background before, she supposed there was a very high probability he was. "Ah, look …. Olivia? … now is really not a good time to chat. Holiday weekend and all … RILEY! STOP THAT … Sorry. We should talk, though. You've got a guardianship situation? Kid situation, right? You're calling to talk? El wasn't sure you'd want to pursue things there."

He was talking so fast. For Elliot's claims that this guy was good – she wasn't sure how she felt about his level of professionalism so far. She was trying to force herself to give him a pass considering it was a Friday night on a holiday weekend and he was clearly with his family, or at least his children.

"Ah, yeah. It'd be good to get some advice," she allowed.

"Well I charge for advice. But I give perspective and directions towards the necessary paperwork for free," he said. "If you want to start there and we can figure out what you want to do. Or need to do to get to what you want to do. What's your schedule like? Let me check my calendar. So what's your schedule like?" he asked again hastily.

"Ah. Well why don't you just give me a call one evening next week that's better for you?" she suggested.

"No, no. Not doing this on the phone. Need to sit down with you. So what day works for you? How about Tuesday? Tuesday? SOPHIE …." His voice sounded warning. "Sorry," he apologized again.

"Ah… OK. Tuesday," she said. She would've really rather talked to him on the phone first rather than meeting up with him. But she was forcing herself to trust Elliot that this guy was legit. He wouldn't be sending her to him if he wasn't. "What time?"

"Hrrrmmmmmmm," he made some popping sounds into her ear. "3 p.m.? How's that work for you?"

"I'll make it work. Your office?"

"Nah. Don't do free stuff at work. Who works for free? I'll text you an address on Monday or something. Coffee shop or something in your area. You work where El worked, right? Yeah. OK. So I'll text ya? This number?"

She rubbed her eyebrow again. "Umm. Yeah. OK."

"Grrreat! OK. Thanks for calling Olivia. You have a good night – a good weekend! See you on Tuesday."

She didn't have the chance to say anything more – he hung up on her. The whole conversation was actually making her rethink going that route.

She should likely find her own lawyer, if that conversation was an indication of anything. She thought Elliot's definition of a "good" lawyer might seriously be slipping. As she thought about it more, she actually suspected it was some guy he'd grown up with and had decided to throw a bone. She should likely definitely call her own list of lawyers and see who could help, she thought. But then she'd be bringing people into her business and she didn't want to do that yet. She knew enough people knew enough about what was going on. She didn't need to complicate matters by making it even more public – not yet. Not until she didn't look the fool. Not until she was sure this wasn't going go blow up in her face.

Though, maybe she wouldn't even need a lawyer. At least not yet. Not if Jack would talk to her – and she could talk some sense to him. That was a slim possibility. Jack and common sense didn't really seem to go together. But getting him to reassign guardianship was all she needed to start. That didn't necessarily need lawyers involved. Not if she could get him onboard with the plan.

She sighed a little and went back to sit on the couch with Benji. She gave him a small smile. He'd still hardly even noticed her as she returned, so she shook his little socked foot and he glanced at her.

"Wheels are in motion, Benj," she told him vaguely. She knew it would mean nothing to him. But he still gazed at her like it did and then crawled over to her – his arms still in the blanket, though it fell down to his wrists as he moved. He flopped against her and she worked at readjusting the blanket back over him and then wrapped her arm around him.

"Light-ting Mah-Queen really fast, 'Livia," he informed her still staring at the television.

She gave a small snort and looked back to the screen too. "He is. He's a race car."

"Race cars go fast," Benji said.

She nodded. "They do."

"I should be a race car," Benji added.

She snorted and looked down at him and started to play with his hair. "You'd be a good race car, Benj," she told him – knowing it was ridiculous. She didn't care. It was exactly the kind of moments and conversations she wanted.


	42. Chapter 42

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She'd seen Benji go tearing towards the bathroom but hadn't paid too much attention to it. Benji ran everywhere in the place like he had to be there in the next split second. Besides, she'd been slightly absorbed in doing some online research.

She was once again re-educating herself on the guardianship laws in New York State and what would be involved in having legal rights in caring for the little boy. There hadn't been a whole lot showing up on the court site that she didn't already know. It pretty much worked the way she expected.

It could be easy or it could be hard. It would depend on Jack's level of co-operation. She really hoped that in the end it would end up being easy – so they call could get on with the lives they wanted and they didn't have to turn their individual heartaches into extended and shared pain for something that should be a relief and happy moment for all of them.

So she'd rather quickly moved into browsing what sort of two-bedroom apartments might be available and what sort of price-range she'd be looking at to make that jump in extra square-footage. She had an idea in her head about what the price-difference would be but it still made her cringe a bit. She knew, though, that it would be a necessary expense. And, really, each time Benji ran from one end of her apartment to the other in about two seconds flat – she was reminded just how necessary it would be.

She needed at least a bit of her own space – and her own bed to sleep in again. He needed a room to call his own and to play. And, she really wanted a bit more space to deal with some of his toys. He really didn't even have that many now and they were still spread throughout the apartment like a tornado had gone through it. Each time she cleaned them up – or made him clean them up – they ended up thrown everywhere again within hours, if not minutes. Not that she thought that having a bigger apartment would resolve that problem. It would likely just give him more space to spread everything out. But if she had more space, she thought she could upgrade him out of a milk crate and into something that might hold his toys a bit more organized manner – for at least when they weren't on the floor.

Still, she knew she was getting ahead of herself. She knew she wouldn't do anything about an apartment until after she talked to the lawyer and hopefully until after she talked to Jack – and she had a better perspective on what the feasibility of any of this actually working out was. In reality, she'd likely wait until she had her deed of guardianship in hand. Though, she imagined if she waited that long she might be waiting a while.

She'd looked at what was available in her building – mostly out of curiosity. That would sure be convenient. If the area was the best place to raise a child? She hadn't really put much thought into yet. She certainly didn't think it was a bad area to have a kid, though. There were a couple suites available – at least the last time the website's listings had been updated. So that didn't necessarily say much. Still, she was sort of interested in just taking a look at them – to remind herself what a two-bedroom in her building even looked like.

She didn't have much of a chance to dig even further into her getting-ahead-of-herself-but-must-plan-everything-out mind. Benji broke her out of her few moments of silence and contemplation with a holler of, "'Livia, I mess."

She found him standing just inside the bathroom door looking a little embarrassed and almost scared. The stain from him not getting to the bathroom in time was rather apparent, with the wet spot down his one leg running almost all the way to his ankle.

"I SORRY," he blurted out as soon as she came into his view.

She gave him a thin smile and shook her head. "It's OK, Benj."

"Don't be mad," he interjected again with almost a tremble in his voice.

She gave him a careful look as she crouched down, grabbing one of the hand towels on the way to sop up the rather visible puddle of pee he was standing in the middle of.

"I'm not mad, Benji," she assured him. "Let's get you cleaned up."

He just gazed at her, still looking unsure.

"Com'on," she encouraged. "You don't want to stand around in wet pants all day do you?"

He crashed into her at that – an impact she wasn't expecting and that sent her rocking back onto her heels a bit, and grabbing the counter top to steady herself. But she returned the hug of his tight little grip clinging around her neck.

"It's OK, Benj," she told him. "I'm not mad."

"Jee-Peedg got mad. He yelled," he informed her.

She pulled him away from her a bit and took his face in her hands, stroking at both of his temples with her thumbs. "I'm not mad, Benji," she assured him again and making sure to do so with complete eye contact this time.

"Peedg say I'm too big to pee my pants and he yell that I a baby," he told her, looking like he wanted to cry. "He sweared."

She shook her head at him. "Benji, it was an accident. Your cast just means you need to make sure you give yourself lots of time when you feel like you have to go pee. Some times there just isn't enough time and you have an accident – and that's OK."

"Peedg say …"

"Sweetheart, Jack had no reason to be mad or yell at you. It was an accident. You remember the other week at nursery school and you told me that a little boy there peed his pants?" He nodded vigorously at her. "And he didn't even have a cast, right?" He shook his head. "Because sometimes accidents just happen. OK? I'm not mad."

She thought that Jack should actually be thankful that between the death of his mother and the complete instability that was in Benji's life since their move back into the city that the little boy hadn't regressed back to needing a potty training refresher or even wetting the bed. Really, at barely four and him being a boy, Jack should be thrilled that he was fully potty trained at all. A lot of little boys sure weren't. They'd been pretty specific about that at the nursery school and had seemed pleased that Benji was.

She was pretty pleased he was too. The concept of dealing with a four-year-old still needing constant bathroom encouragement seemed like a lot more than she'd ever previously considered signing up for. Jack really needed to cut the kid some slack about his struggles with his pants and the cast. It was an isolated situation and it would pass in about a month's more time.

Still, she wished too that Benji wouldn't wait until his bladder was ready to explode before charging for the bathroom and then fumbling around. But she also wasn't going to yell at him about it. She wasn't going to get that worked up about a little pee. She had much bigger things in her life to get worried and pissed off about. Wiping up some urine and doing an extra load of laundry was not on the list of rage-inducing things for her. Apparently for Jack it was. But the kid was clearly at his wits end and had completely lost all judgment and clarity when it came to dealing with his little nephew.

"Com'on," she encouraged again. "You going to let me help?"

He still was examining her like he was expecting her to start yelling at him any second. So she gave him another smile and poked him in the belly. He gave her a little smile and giggle at that, batting her hands away. "'Livia! No tickles!"

"Com'on," she told him again and reached for his waist, getting the wet pants and underwear off him in one shuck. "Lift up those feet," she ordered kindly and snagged each sock off in the process of untangling the clothes from his legs. She tossed everything into the bathtub to give a good rinse out to after she finished getting him changed. She grabbed one of the washcloths and dampened it before handing it to the little boy.

"OK, Benji, you clean up. Wash off your privates and legs – all the way down to your toes."

He looked at her. "Why?"

And the why game starts again, she thought. "Because you don't want to get pee on your clean clothes, do you? Smell like pee all day?"

He examined her carefully but then shook his head.

"Good," she said and gave him a smile. "I'll go get some dry pants for you."

He had already started with his assigned cleanup as she headed back to the bedroom to look for clothes for him. She hadn't bothered to unpack the bag Jack had left with him yet. She hoped there were enough clean pants in there to at least get him through the next few days.

She thought it was a little strange that barely a month ago she'd been worried that even looking at the little boy the wrong way could get her in trouble with work or child services or Jack. Now cleaning up pee, doing bath time, helping wash his hair, supervising him brushing his teeth, dealing with frustration when it came to waistbands and even more aggravation with buttons and zippers on shirts, pants and jackets was just becoming routine. Where she hesitated about him seeking affection from her at first – she was already craving to get his tight, clingy hugs and sloppy, slobbery kisses. She didn't want to lose any of it. Even cleaning up pee.

She supposed even though a lot of it seemed like work – that's really what having kids was. A life-long job. She knew that and it was still something she wanted. Badly. For years now. These weren't ideal circumstances. But they were the circumstances in front of her at the moment. And, she was just doing what she needed to do. It seemed to be how she functioned. Crappy situations presented themselves and she just figured out how to wade through. Through hell and high water – and peed pants.

Benji had apparently decided his belly needed washing too. When she returned to the bathroom with his clothes in hand, he had his shirt pulled up his chest, tucked under his chin and was wiping it down too. She shook her head at him, wanting to laugh.

"Did you get the pee off your legs, Benj?" she asked and he glanced up at her and gave a nod. "OK, then, I don't think you peed on your tummy," she told him and took the cloth away from him, tossing it into the tub with the rest of the dirtied laundry.

She crouched back down to help him get dressed, holding out his briefs for him. "OK. Undies," she said.

He complied and stepped into them but looked at her seriously. "That a girl word," he informed her.

She gave him a smile and near rolled her eyes. "Is it? Panties might be a girl word. Not undies, I don't think."

"What undies?"

She laughed, and reached to lift his one foot to tug a sock into place for him, while he again supported himself using her forehead as a prop. She wasn't too sure how she felt about his hands being on her face in the midst of a pee cleanup. But she still let him. "What do you think they are? You just put them on."

"Underwear," he told her after pulling one of his thoughtful faces.

She nodded at him. "Yes," she told him and took his other foot into her hand to get on his second sock.

"Why you call them undies?"

She shrugged, as she reached for his pants. "I don't know. Too lazy to say underwear."

"You lazy?"

She snorted at him. "Very lazy." Far from it, she thought. But with his question game, simple answers seemed to be the best way to go.

"Peedg say you crazy not lazy," he informed her.

She rolled her eyes at that, as she finished pulling his pants up his legs and he did his usual little dance that seemed to suggest to her that she consistently gave him a wedgie whenever she helped get him dressed. "Jack is just full of opinions, isn't he?"

"I tell him you not crazy, 'Livia," Benji told her.

She smiled. "Thank you, Benji. Com'on," she said, "let's wash your hands."

He stood on his tippy-toes and barely managed to get his hands under the stream of water she started for him. If he would be with her much longer, she was going to have to add a stepstool to her list of things she needed to buy.

"This mommy tings, right, 'Livia?" he asked her a little suddenly, as she squirted some soap into his hands for him.

"What? Cleaning up pee accidents?"

Benji nodded vigourously.

She shrugged. He hadn't mentioned anymore about that train of thought that morning and she was kind of hoping that he might've forgotten or moved on to other things. But she also sighed a little. "Yeah. I'd say cleaning up pee is a mommy job. Or a nurse."

Benji glanced up at her. "Nurse?"

"A person who helps people when they're sick. You had nurses at the hospital."

"So you a nurse?"

She smiled. "No. I'm a police officer."

He squinted at her at that. "So maybe you a mommy nurse police officer?"

She laughed at that and started to towel off his hands for him. "That's a pretty big job title. I think I'm too lazy for that job."

"You lazy?" he asked again.

"Very."

"But you not crazy," he informed her again.

She actually thought she might be crazy. But agreed with him anyways, "No, I'm not crazy."

"When we go the lie-berry to find out if you a mommy, 'Livia?"

"Hmmm," she guided him out of the bathroom and back into the living room and his toys, aiming to get him re-established so she could work at finishing cleaning up the mess in the bathroom. "We'll head out in half-an-hour or so, Benji."

"When that?"

"After I finish cleaning up the bathroom and after you have snack."

"Hot choc-co-l-at," he suggested.

She smiled. "I don't have any here, sweetie. But when we're out, we'll stop at a store and buy some. Then we can have it whenever we want."

Benji handed her one of Calvin's Lego robot things. "You be In-go," he told her, as he retrieved Bumblebee.

"Benji, you need to play on your own for a little bit, so I can clean up and then get a snack ready for you," she told him, as he dragged the yellow Transformer back over to where he'd left her standing. She worked at at least rearranging the stance of the robot for him – bending its arms and legs into a new position.

"You play, 'Livia," he told her and tugged her hand, clearly urging her to sit on the floor with him.

She sighed and got down to the ground. "A few minutes and then you need to play by yourself for a bit," she told him again, still working the toy in her hands.

Calvin hadn't ever wanted her to play robots with him but she had gotten to help put together the Lego-things. There'd been a couple steps in putting the things together that had been a bit more complicated and Calvin had gotten so frustrated and mad – she had to take over. Actually, if she'd let him work on them any longer and hadn't helped, she was fairly sure the robots would've been smashed to pieces and he would've had to start all over again when he calmed down.

At least dealing with his minor temper tantrums, had given her some perspective on how to get and keep the things in one piece, since Benji seemed hell-bent on tearing them apart every chance he got. Either that or he just played too roughly with them. She thought it was a bit of both. She actually preferred he played with these over the two Transformers, though. She could at least figure out how to put the Lego robots back together. The Transformers never seemed to look the way they were supposed to after Benji had her "fix" them for him. He'd get frustrated and impatient with her as she attempted to change them from a robot to a vehicle and back again for him.

Definitely not an age appropriate toy, she thought. Whoever thought of marketing them to preschoolers obviously wanted to annoy the crap out of their parents.

"'Livia, Bum-bull-bee a Transformer and In-go a Bonk-call. They different but still friends, right?"

She glanced at him from what she was doing and put the toy on the floor between them, waiting to be instructed on what mission their robots would be going on this time. She suspected that it once again involved skateboards, speeding cars, laser guns and saving the world. It seemed to the general theme of all his toys' adventures.

She shrugged. "They seem to be."

"And Mole and Ratty and Mr. Toad friends even when they different ana-mules, right?"

She smiled at what he'd taken away from Wind in the Willows. She nodded. "Yes."

"And I a dog and you a pig and we friends, right?"

She let out a small laugh at that and looked at him. "I'm a pig?" she asked.

She really wasn't sure how she had suddenly had a pig assigned to her and she wasn't sure she liked that very much. First a dinosaur, now a pig. She didn't know which was worse.

Benji nodded. "Jee-Peedg says you named after a pig and it make you crazy. I named after a dog."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head. "Jack hands out really helpful tidbits." Benji looked at her. "Sweetheart, I know for a fact that my mommy did not name me after a pig. And I really doubt your mama named you after a dog."

"How you know?!" he demanded.

She shrugged. "Because Benjamin is far too beautiful of name to give to a dog," she told him seriously.

"But I Benji. That a dog."

She gave him a smile. "You are Benji but you are also the Beautiful Benjamin."

He considered her a moment then crossed the couple feet between them and plopped himself and Bumblebee into her lap. He was starting to work on what was likely going to be an unsuccessful attempt to transform the robot into a car.

"'Livia where Peedg?" he asked after several moments of silence and his concentration fixed on the toy.

She wrapped her arms around him. "I don't know, sweetheart," she admitted.

"He hate me," Benji said a little sadly.

"He doesn't hate you," she told him and put a kiss into his messy strip of hair. "Sometimes when people are upset they say things they really don't mean. I think Jack is going to feel very, very badly about everything when he calms down. He probably feels very, very badly already but is scared to come back."

"He scared?"

She nodded. "I think so."

"Why?"

"He likely thinks we're both really mad at him."

"We mad, 'Livia?"

She gave him another little kiss. "I don't know, Benj. Are we mad?"

He rubbed his head against her chest. "We scared too."

She rubbed her hand up and down his arm at that. "Why are we scared, Benj?"

"Becuz Peedg come back and yell and make me leave 'gain," he said quietly.

She shook her head. "That's not going to happen, sweetheart," she told him. "Whatever happens – you are not going back to that apartment alone with your uncle."

"He make me, tho," Benji said.

"No, sweetie. I'm going to make sure that you don't go back there."

"I live here?"

She hugged him tighter. "For now, Benji."

He didn't answer but handed her the Transformer, apparently reassigning the transforming responsibilities to her. She hoped she wasn't making false promises to him. But she believed it.

No matter what happened – Benji wasn't leaving her apartment with Jack. She'd call Child Protective Services or ACS first. Jack had proven he really wasn't capable of caring for the child when he left him alone on her building's doorstep in the dark. If he wouldn't work with her to make it better for Benji, than she'd get the little boy into the system and she'd figure out how to navigate through there to get the outcome that she wanted. That actually might be easier than dealing with Jack, which just proved how ridiculous she thought the teen was being.

Her phone started buzzing over on the kitchen island as she worked on the robot. So she gave Benji a final little kiss and nudged him off her lap.

"Com'on, sweetheart, I've got to get that," she told him and stood, taking Bumblebee with her to continue working on getting it into car shape for him.

She looked at the ID and answered the call. "Benson," she said.

"You have call display, know who's calling and it's a Saturday on a holiday weekend – and you're still going to answer the phone like that?" Alex said into her ear.

She rolled her eyes a bit. "Work-related caller IDs get work-related greetings," she said flatly.

"Thanks," Alex said, clearly a bit offended. "Well, this isn't work-related. I'm near you. I'm over at the Christmas Market thing at Bryant Park."

"That's started already?"

"Ah, yeah. You miss the memo that the holiday season has officially begun?"

She shrugged, even though, she knew Alex couldn't see it. "Anything good there this year?"

"Don't know. Haven't taken much of a look yet. Want to grab some coffee? Brunch? Take a look around?"

She sighed and glanced over at Benji, where he was crawling around on the floor with the police cruiser and making Indigo (aka In-go) talk to the thing and it looked like stomp on it too, which she suspected meant she'd be putting together the broken robot for him again soon.

"Today's not the best for me," she said.

"Work?"

"I've just got some things on the go," she said, right when Benji decided to set the sirens off on Copper. She snapped at him until she caught his attention and shook her head 'no'. He squinted at her clearly displaying he was unimpressed with that order. He smacked the siren button again to send them wailing a second time.

"What's that? It sounds like you have emergency vehicles in your living room?"

"Some must be going by outside," she commented. It's the city. Alex should be so used to hearing sirens, she shouldn't have even noticed the sound, Olivia thought.

"Mmm," Alex said. "So what? You doing some errands today? Want some company?"

She knew Alex's life was about as boring and empty as hers. She knew that she didn't have any family anymore either and even if she'd ended up at friends' for Thanksgiving, she clearly was now looking for a way to fill the rest of her weekend. Apparently burying herself in work wasn't providing enough of a distraction, if she was calling her.

She felt bad turning down a chat outside of work. It had been a while since they'd gotten together outside of office. Alex hadn't even really gotten caught up in one of her new cases at work lately. It seemed like everything was landing in Casey's lap at the moment. She supposed Alex was still working on some of the ones still before the courts. Either way, though, it meant that Alex hadn't been around enough in the last month to have even an inkling of something being up.

Olivia wasn't sure she wanted to bring Alex into it. Though, she was anxious to get a legal opinion – even though she already had the meeting set up with Elliot's friend. She knew he was likely more qualified to give her an opinion than Alex. He worked in family law – she didn't. But Alex was her friend. Maybe she'd be a bit more honest about the situation. Though, she also suspected Alex would be more likely to tell her things she didn't want to hear.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "I don't think you'd be very interested in my errands."

"It's not like I'm doing anything else. I'm looking at Christmas trinkets that I don't need to buy for anyone."

"Is it very busy out?" she asked cautiously.

"Mmm, not here. Not really – not yet," Alex said. "You planning on hitting some of the sales?"

"I don't know. Maybe," she offered. If there was anything left from the shopping chaos from the day before and the crowds weren't still insane, getting some cheap winter clothing for Benji was on the top of her list of priorities for sometime over the weekend.

"Oh yeah? Where you think you want to hit?"

She snorted. "Target," she half-ways joked.

Fuck, she'd have to look up where there even was one in the city. She suspected that she'd have to cross the river if she was actually serious about that. But she really didn't know where else she could outfit Benji on the cheap. Old Navy again? But she related Old Navy to sale pandemonium.

"You're kidding me?" Alex said with some disbelief in her voice but like she sensed too there was some seriousness behind the comment.

"I need to go to the library," she offered instead. At least that wasn't a lie.

"What do you know? I'm standing right next to a library," Alex responded.

"That's not my branch," she dodged. Who the hell went into that branch? Tourists. No – they just sat on the stairs and took photos of the lions. Generally took up space.

"Yet, I'm pretty sure it still has books," Alex replied. "What do you need from the library?"

She shook her head. She just wanted to get off the phone. "I just need to look something up."

"I'm pretty good at research," Alex offered jokingly – clearly rather desperate for company, if she wanted to spend her Saturday in a library.

Benji came over to her at that point though. "'Livia! Bum-bull-bee!" he demanded loudly.

She sighed at him. She was sure that hadn't gone unnoticed but she handed the little boy his robot.

"You have company?"

"It's nothing," she said.

"HE NOT A CAR! 'LIVIA!" Benji informed her even more loudly.

She sighed into the phone again. "Just a second…" she said and set the phone back on the counter and looked at the little boy. "Benji, I'm on the phone," she told him and took the robot back to try to finish getting it transformed with two hands, instead of the one-handed job she'd been doing.

"I want him a car, 'Livia," he told her again.

She shook her head. "This toy is too hard," she said. "I can't even do it."

"DO IT," Benji demanded in his impatience.

She rolled her eyes and tried to flip the last few parts into place and then handed it to him.

"What do you say?" she said as he grabbed it away from her and examined her work.

"It not right," he informed her.

She groaned and grabbed it from it again, and flipped the hood guns into place that he likely wasn't happy with.

"Now what you do say?" she said as she handed it back to him again.

He squinted at it as he turned it over in his hands. "Tank you," he said then and went back to his play spot on the floor behind the couch.

She rolled her eyes and picked the phone back up. "Sorry," she mumbled, knowing her cover was more than blown.

"Who was that?" Alex asked cautiously.

"A long story," she said.

There was a long pause on the other end of the line. "So, how about a coffee?" Alex asked again.

Olivia let out a deep breath. "Yeah. OK. We'll be there in about 30-40 minutes."


	43. Chapter 43

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Your bathroom definitely smells like a boy lives here now," Alex commented as she returned to the living area.

Olivia glanced up from where she was pouring the tea and gave her a questioning look but then realized what she meant.

"Oh," she said a little embarrassed. "We had a peed pants incident this morning. I haven't had a chance to take the mess down to the laundry yet. Sorry."

"Not house broken yet?" Alex asked from where she was clearing Hot Wheels off the couch to make space for herself to sit.

"He is potty trained," Olivia rolled her eyes. "He is not house broken. He's not a dog."

"Oh contraire," she teased. "He specifically informed me he is a dog."

Olivia shook her head again. "And last night he told me he should be a race car. He's a confused child. … Do you want anything in this?"

"No. It's fine," Alex said, so Olivia brought the mugs around and worked at clearing her own place on the opposite end of the couch. She wasn't as gentle with Benji's things as Alex had been in placing them carefully on the coffee table. She just tossed them in the general direction of the milk crate. They'd be everywhere again after Benji got up from his nap anyway.

"You think you bought enough toys for him?" Alex commented.

Olivia shrugged as she took her own seat. "I've actually only bought him two toys. A lot of this stuff is from when Calvin was staying here."

Alex gave a small nod at that and allowed her a bit of a sad smile. "So he always take naps like that?" she asked, changing the subject and nodding her head back in the direction of the bedroom door.

Olivia nodded as she took a sip of her tea. "Yea, he's pretty good."

"How long will he be out?"

She shrugged. "Usually about 40 minutes. But I think he's kind of mentally and emotionally spent this weekend. He's been acting tired. So he might be down longer."

"Mmm," Alex said. "So you've got about 40 minutes to tell me what the hell is going on."

Olivia looked at her from over the top of her mug while she slowly took another long sip and warmed her hands – making no comment.

"You know I'm not leaving until I get the full story," Alex added.

Olivia had actually been kind of impressed that Alex had managed to hold her tongue and litany of questions that long. She knew it likely wasn't for her sake. It had been for Benji's.

Alex wasn't stupid. She'd likely more than figured out that it would be a little person she had in tow when they found her over at Bryant Park. She'd actually managed to claim a table and some chairs for them to sit at and warded off anyone seeking to grab the unoccupied ones away. Alex would actually likely be good at that. She excelled at glares and snarky responses. But she hadn't acted too surprised to see Benji with her.

The most she'd said at the time, after Benji was settled into his seat and digging into the dragged along juice box and baggie of grapes and Tricuits, was, "This why you've been the invisible person lately?"

Olivia had shrugged. "Partially."

Alex nodded. "Casey had mentioned you'd taken some time off work – just before the Janowski case. You had her pretty stressed out."

Olivia just rolled her eyes at that.

"Not a vacation?" Alex said.

Olivia shook her head. "No."

"You could've let me know," Alex said. The underlying hurt that something like this – something big – could be going on in her life and Alex wouldn't have been on the list of people she'd have given a head's up, was clear.

Olivia sighed. "I didn't know anything was up then," she offered. "Not really."

Alex examined her for a moment but then shifted her attention to Benji. He was rubbing the grapes across the Triscuits and then licking the residual salt and seasoning off the grapes before popping them into his mouth. It was hard to not watch him and break into a smile – let alone not laugh.

"Is something up now?" Alex asked, still watching the little boy.

Olivia gave a small nod. "Yeah."

Her colleague just gave a slight nod in return, acknowledging the response, but her eyes remained transfixed on Benji. "What is he doing?" she finally asked and looked at Olivia shaking her head.

"Eating snack," Benji answered on his own behalf. He held out a grape he'd just finished licking off to Alex. "You want snack too?"

Alex examined him with a considerable amount of hesitation. Olivia laughed out loud. She wasn't sure what was more amusing Benji's ritual and the fact he didn't see anything wrong with sharing his slobbered on grapes or the look of absolute disgust, while still trying to bite her tongue, that was painted across Alex's face.

"Benji," Olivia said, "offer Alex one that you haven't licked. People don't want to eat something you've had in your mouth."

He seemed to consider that and then held the grape out to her instead.

"I want something you've licked?" she asked him.

He looked at her and shrugged.

"Am I not people?"

"You 'Livia," he told her.

"Ah." She accepted the grape and popped it into her own mouth. "Thank you for sharing," she told him as he rummaged in the baggie to get one for Alex.

"You realize that was in his mouth," Alex commented at her.

"Tasty," she nodded.

Alex shook her head and glanced at Benji's offering of another unlicked grape. "Ah. No thanks," she said.

"They very good snack," Benji told her. "You want cracker?"

"I'll have a cracker," Olivia told him, suspecting that Alex at that point generally had a problem with food the little boy had even touched, so diverting his attention. Benji handed her the second grape and returned to examining his baggie of snack to get a cracker for her.

"You aren't going to have him lick that one for you too?" Alex asked.

"Mmm," she mumbled as she finished chewing it. "I've already reached my slobber quota for the day." She took the Triscuit from Benji. "Thanks, Benj."

"Welcome."

Alex had been relatively quiet after that – at least in terms of Benji. She'd pretty much left Olivia and Benji to direct the outing and the conversation. Olivia had appreciated that – not being grilled in front of the little boy.

"So what errands are we doing?" she'd eventually asked after Benji had finished his snack and they'd wandered the Christmas market a bit and gazed at the skaters.

They'd listened to some rather depressing stories about Christmas being for rich people and Santa not existing come out of Benji's mouth. They'd also gotten to participate in a lengthy debate on whether the ice skaters were skating or not. They apparently were not skating – end of story. Alex had seemed to want to argue the point with the four-year-old like she was trying a case and Olivia was the judge. She'd simply refused to make a ruling. The whole discussion was Benji-style ridiculous. Though she'd found it a little amusing to see Alex's willingness to participate in the foolishness of the whole debate.

They'd eventually ended up at a couple stores and she did manage to get some winter clothes for Benji. Though, not without having to hear Alex fawning over what was "so cute" that she just had to buy. Liv didn't. Anything with a price tag over $10 was automatically vetoed as an unnecessary purchase. She didn't see the point in spending more than that on any piece of clothing that wouldn't fit him more than a season likely – no matter how outrageously cute it might've been.

Alex and Benji argued some more during that part of their day too.

"You pick bad," Benji informed her after she'd once again held up a shirt that he didn't like and Olivia hated the price of.

Alex snorted at him. "Thanks, kid."

"Skateboards, dinosaurs, trucks, robots, blue, green," Benji spat his definition of ideal clothing choices at her again. "You pick bad."

"You just narrowed down the choices to about 90 per cent of the content in the store, kiddo," she told him and brushed at his messy spikes on the top of his head.

Benji just squinted at Alex and farted a raspberry at her in response, spittling all over her raised arm.

"You need to work on his manners," Alex nodded at Olivia and moved towards a different rack – clear of the spit.

They seemed to be getting along well enough, though, that Olivia had been able to leave Alex working on a puzzle with Benji for a few minutes in the library's children section to go and talk to one of the staff and manage to accumulate a few picture books that might be appropriate in Benji's quest of determining what a mother was. She was more focused on getting ones about different families and adoption and foster parent situations, though. The librarian she'd been working with seemed to think initially she meant same-sex parents when she had said she wanted a picture book about alternative family structures that was directed at children. She'd had to roll her eyes a bit at that before correcting her and getting back on the right track to what she was really looking for.

Alex's seeming amusement with the little boy continued when he forced them to stop at a vacant construction site on the walk back to the apartment. He seemed happy to get held up on Olivia's hip and gaze at the heavy machinery that had been left abandoned for the holiday weekend.

"Who needs a zoo when you can look at a construction site for hours?" Alex had commented at Liv after they'd been standing there about 15 minutes, just looking at the nothingness. Or at least it looked like nothing more than the start of a building and some yellow CAT machinery to them. To Benji it looked like a whole different world. He was seeing things they didn't see.

"That one a T-Rex," Benji informed them, pointing through the little hole in the fence. "That one a dragon. That one a steg-soar-us. That one a giraffe. That one a rhino. That one a bulldozer."

Alex had laughed out loud at that. "The bulldozer isn't even a bulldozer," she'd told him and pointed to the actual bulldozer. "That one is a bulldozer."

Benji glared at her. "NO. That one a bulldozer."

"You're wrong," Alex had teased him.

"You wrong," Benji had yelled back at her.

Alex had shaken her head defiantly at him. "I'm right."

"You're wrong!"

After they'd gotten by their little spat, Benji had decided to moved on to seeing if he could determine if any of the machines in the yard were Transformers.

"Hello! Transformers! I know you there. I know you're secret. You can be robots now. We won't tell! Transformers!" he'd started calling into the lot.

Alex had started laughing at him again and had mouthed 'Oh my God' at Liv, who'd just smiled. She was used to Benji's obsession with picking out the Transformers from the cityscape at that point. But she could see how he seemed like a crazy person to someone observing it for the first time.

But the levity of their few hours out had faded now – as Alex sat there looking at her expectantly.

"I don't know what to say," Olivia finally admitted. She didn't. She'd offered some minor tidbits to Alex here and there when Benji was distracted. But telling the entire story seemed long and drawn-out. She didn't know it was worth getting into.

"You spent a lot of money on him today if you aren't keeping him," Alex commented.

She shrugged. "At least I'll know he's starting out with clean, warm clothes then."

Alex examined her. "Do you have a lawyer?"

She nodded. "Mark Brunell. He's in Queens."

"Why not the city?"

She shrugged. She didn't want to get into her and Elliot communicating again. That was a whole other story. This was enough for one day. "Someone recommended him to me. Apparently he's good."

Alex looked at her some more. "His name isn't familiar to me. I could've set you up with someone here, if you'd told me what was going on."

"I wanted to keep work out of it," she said flatly.

"I would've kept work out of it," Alex replied, giving her a bit of a steely glare. She was clearly still offended that this had all been going on for nearly a month and she had been clueless.

Olivia just broke the eye contact and went back to drinking her tea. She didn't want to argue about. There wasn't anything she could do about it now. She'd consciously made the decision to keep what was going on as low-profile as possible. She didn't even think she'd done that good of job at that. But she didn't want her personal lie – or failures – to be on display for the whole precinct and the cop and lawyer gossip mill, yet again.

"How hard is this going to be?" Olivia finally asked, after contemplating her tea for a while.

Alex examined her some more and then shook her head and shrugged. "I'd have to look over all the legislation to see the ins-and-outs of it. But it's really going to depend on what route you end up taking – and how co-operative the kid is."

"Best-case scenario?"

"Best-case scenario is likely the kid signs some paperwork, you guys all go appear before court and a court order gets rubber stamped."

"OK. Worst-case?"

Alex rotated her mug in her hands and thought about that for what felt like a long time. Olivia watched her as the minutes seemed to tick by, growing more anxious about it.

"I don't know. Worst-case could be a couple different things. You might have to prove extraordinary circumstances. But even if you did that, I could see getting you the legal custody as a challenging situation since you don't have kinship. So then an alternative route could be to go through Social Services. But that would involve getting him in the system and you'd have to get approved as a foster parent and have him placed with you and then after a year or so, you could potentially start the process to adopt him, depending on what his permanency plan is."

"I don't want to involve Social Services, if I can avoid it."

"You know you can get access to support services and funding, if you involve them?"

Olivia nodded. "That's not a factor in the decision."

"You're thinking permanent, right? This isn't just until his uncle is done with his schooling?"

Olivia nodded. "No. I'm going to push for permanent. He needs stability and continuity."

"So you're going to want to adopt him … eventually?"

Olivia sighed. "Legally – permanent guardianship is the same in terms of custody and legal rights?"

Alex looked at her and shrugged. "Yes and no. Technically, you have more rights if you adopt him but they are similar. You wouldn't want to adopt him?"

"I think Jack will have a big problem with the term adoption being put on the table right now. And, beyond that, adoption needs an agency to get involved. I've tried to adopt before, Alex. I haven't been approved."

Alex looked almost shocked by that. "Why not?"

She shrugged. "Single woman, long hours at work, high stress job with potential for causality or injury, no family or real support network. Not parent material."

"That is bullshit," Alex blurted. "The number of children-in-waiting in this city alone and they deny someone like you? That just kills any hope for the rest of us."

Olivia watched her at that comment. She knew that Alex had marked her 40th birthday earlier in the year and that had really been when Liv had started to take more stalk in her life too. It was a bit more than a mid-life crisis. It was the biological clock ticking, the life clock ticking, the career clock ticking, the loneliness alarm chiming.

There was something about that number that made life suddenly seem pretty empty – especially when you were living in an empty apartment without a long-term (or even a short-term or even one-night stand) relationship in sight and the only thing going for you was a career that seemed to take up all your time, making you even lonelier in life and then more bitter towards yourself and the job. Disillusionment just really started to set in. You really started to want something more.

"I think guardianship might just be easier for everyone," was all she said, though. She didn't think Alex much wanted to talk about herself.

Alex sighed and shook her head at her. "This is a big deal, Liv," she said.

She nodded. "I know."

"And you aren't talking to anyone about it?"

She sighed. "I just … want to get things a bit further along before it's … public knowledge." She shook her head. "Most of the squad knows something is up. I had to take him in one day for a few minutes. The captain … to get the week off on no notice. Nick … helped me find a space for him in a nursery school near the station."

Alex raised her eyebrows. "You have him in nursery school?"

She nodded. "Enrolled until the end of December. He can keep his spot if I give them more money soon."

Alex rubbed across her forehead at that and shook her head. "Wow. How much is that costing?"

"You don't want to know."

"God …" she said and examined her tea again. "Raising a child in this city … it's ridiculous. So expensive."

Olivia shrugged. "What else do I have to spend my money on?"

"You have a nice apartment."

"I need a bigger apartment," she said and glanced around the disaster again. She definitely needed a bigger apartment.

Alex snorted. "Boots?" she suggested instead.

"I do have some great boots."

"No more boots for you."

Olivia smiled. "At least not as many boots."

"Unless they are skateboard, dinosaur, trucks, robots, blue or green boots," she joked.

She allowed a small laugh. "I think that will limit my selection a lot."

"You need to get the kid … the uncle … to sign a letter of designation," Alex said after an extended silence where they both seemed absorbed in examining what was left in their mugs – lost in thought. "That could cover you for up to six months – give you the authority to make decisions for Benji and to care for him. It'd probably put you in a good position in the eyes of the court for getting permanent guardianship too."

"Does that need to go before the court?"

Alex shook her head. "No. There's a form. I'll find it online for you. It needs to be notarized."

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow. "I need to get Jack to speak with me first."

Alex glanced at her. She'd already dug out her phone and was flicking around something on it. "He can't just leave the kid here with you indefinitely. If he does, you definitely have the right to start judicial proceedings. After 30 days, you're well within your rights to do that and if you waited until the six month mark, Benji would likely be deemed as having been abandoned by his uncle. The court would put serious consideration into you as the permanent caregiver since he'd been with you during that time."

Olivia shook her head. "I don't want to leave this hanging in limbo that long either. We all need some stability and clarity about what this situation is. Benji does. But Jack does too. And, so do I."

"This is a big decision," Alex said again. "It's a strange situation. … I just sent you the form."

"I've seen stranger situations," Olivia commented and picked up her phone to take a look at it.

"What would you do if someone walked into the squad with a situation like this?"

She snorted. "Tell them unless there was an allegation of abuse, it wasn't our problem and to call Social Services."

Alex shook her head. "You aren't following your own advice."

Olivia glanced at her from reading over the form – it looked straightforward enough. "Alex, I did everything right with Calvin – I went with the flow of the system and let it do its job – and I got burned. It hurt and I regret that I didn't fight harder at the time."

Alex sighed. "But did the best interests of the child get served?"

Olivia let out a deep breath and shook her head. "I don't know. Calvin's a troubled kid. I don't know his elderly grandparents are in the best position to be dealing with some of his issues."

"But are you?"

She shrugged. "Apparently not. Not in the eyes of the system."

"You are a part of the system," Alex commented.

"The system is broken," Olivia told her seriously. "I see that on a regular basis – and so do you."

"But you think that staying with you is in the best interests of Benji?"

Olivia looked at her a little pissed off. "You don't?"

"I don't know, Liv. I guess given the other options you've described, yes. But are you sure? You have other options … if it's a child … a family, that you want."

She glared at her. "Trust me. I've explored lots of other options."

Alex sighed. "Would you be doing this if it wasn't the grandchild of some ex?"

Olivia shrugged. "Maybe. Likely. That's hypothetical. I'd be helping."

"Not like this."

She shrugged again.

"This could still turn out badly," Alex offered quietly.

"I know," Liv said back just as softly. She didn't really want to think about that. But she thought about it a lot.

"He's pretty cute," Alex offered, though, giving her a small smile – changing the topic a bit for her. Trying to offer some hope to it – to not make it seem as bleak or harsh.

Olivia snorted. "He is. He'd likely be cuter if I didn't see Jack and get a sneak peak at what he'll likely grow into."

Alex let out a small laugh at that. "Most teenaged boys are asses. Some of them grow out of it."

"Hmm, some of them," Olivia agreed. She handed Alex her phone with a picture of Jack and Benji together pulled up on it.

Alex smiled at it. "He may have attitude and a maturity dysfunction but he's a cute kid."

"Hmm," Olivia offered again. "He looks so much like his dad. It's a little strange interacting with him."

"You had better tasted back then," Alex teased her.

"Ah. I wasn't as desperate back then. Jay was the longest relationship I ever had. Sad."

Alex laughed. "Whatever. The longest relationship I ever had was in college too. Who has time for relationships in real life, right?"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Yeah. That line has been one of my problems for 20-something years. That and telling them what you do for a living."

Alex handed her the phone back. She'd flicked through some of the other photos in the album. "Well, if that's a preview of what kiddo is going to grow up to be – you've got a heartbreaker on your hands."

Olivia snorted. "Oh, I think he's already that."

Alex laughed. "Yeah. Those eyes and dimples. And that attitude. He's hilarious. You're in trouble."

Liv shook her head. "I know. I knew that from the get-go."

"You'll get him," Alex assured. "Keep me in the loop. I can help."


	44. Chapter 44

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She let Benji take the book from her so he could examine it after she finished reading it to him. He seemed particularly transfixed with the image of the mother raccoon hugging her baby tight.

She'd found the book a little repetitive and she wasn't sure it was exactly what she'd thought she was getting when she'd added it to her library pile. But it had been the one Benji had picked that night and he seemed to be thinking about it all in deep contemplation, paging back through each of the pictures and re-examining them while she watched him.

"My Mommy watches me play. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy," the book had proclaimed through the eyes of baby animals in each illustration. "My Mommy takes me swimming. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy. My Mommy helps me climb. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy. My Mommy keeps me clean. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy. My Mommy feeds me. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy. My Mommy stays by my side. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy. My Mommy can pick me out from a crowd. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy. My Mommy works really hard. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy. My Mommy tucks me into a soft bed. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy. My Mommy gives me a good night kiss. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy. My Mommy keeps me safe. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy."

"'Livia, I think it sure now mamas and mommys aren't the same," Benji told her after looking some more at the pictures.

"I don't know Benji. I'm still pretty sure it's just two words for mother," she told him and diverted her attention to standing his still damp hair on end for him. She was actually starting to think that she liked his hairstyle more than him sometimes. Whenever he ended up leaning against her, she always found her hands drifting up to it. Benji didn't seem to care.

"But mama didn't do this things," he told her.

She considered him for a moment and let out a breath. "Well, I bet some other pages could go in the book of things Mama did for you. There could be a page that says, 'My Mommy gives me cuddles and shakes. Mothers are like that. I love my Mommy'," she told him.

Benji glanced up at her. "But Mama a mama not a mommy. She did not do mommy tings. The book say so 'Livia. You do mommy things 'Livia," he added. "The book says so. So maybe you a mommy."

She glanced at him again. "Maybe Benji. I don't know. I think maybe we'll have to read some of the other books before we decide that. We need to do our research."

"But you play," Benji told her paging through the book again. "You say we go 'wimming when my arm better. You pick-up so I can see. You do bath. You make food and snack. You have soft bed. You give good night kiss. You very bizzy with work hard. You utter tings too. You like the raccoon and beaver and deer and cat and dog mommies."

She snorted and turned to the next page for him. "What's that animal, Benji?" she asked, trying to change the topic and review what they'd already talked about in his question game during story time.

He considered the image for a moment and then looked up at her. "Otter?" he stated questioningly.

She gave him a smile and put her lips against the side of his head. "Very good, Benj."

He turned the page again. "That a beaver," he told her. "They makin' a dam with wood. They chew down trees."

She smiled and rubbed at his arm. "You're so smart."

He nodded clearly proud of himself.

"You want to tell me about some of the things your mama did do for you, Benj?" she asked.

Benji had really said very little about his home life. Not that she really expected him to say much. He was just three when his mother died. He only had so much of a concept of what his situation had actually been like and what had even happened. Still, she really wanted more of an idea of what he was coming from. Jack had only told her so much and Benji could only tell her so much. And, she had only wanted to push him so much.

She could see that both of the boys were in a fragile state. They weren't some of her victims – she didn't need to grill them until they let go of the information, even as much as she wanted to. Still, she was glad she had the training and the experience on how to talk with children and with victims – how to direct the conversation and how to pick up the bits of conversation and body language they did provide. She'd been chipping away at them both bit-by-bit. But it was a slow process.

Benji was quiet for a long time after she asked him the leading question. He examined the picture of the beaver more. He'd been pretty curious about what some of the animals were as they read through the story. There were enough that were unfamiliar to him that they'd stopped on a few pages to talk about what the creatures even were.

He seemed fascinated. With his fascination, she thought a trip to one of the city's zoos might be in order in the near future. He'd likely be fun to watch there. But Benji's interactions with most things were kind of fun to watch. She liked to see how he processed new things as he was exposed to them and his willingness to explore and experience them. It was good for him – but it was fun for her. And, she felt good about getting to provide those experiences for him.

"Mama go away a lot," he said eventually and she glanced down at him.

"Where'd she go?" Olivia asked.

Benji shrugged and rubbed his cheek against her in thought. "I dunno. But some time she smell 'ucky when she come back. Then she sleep. Un-call Grag yell and Mama yell. Some time she sleep in the bathroom. Then Un-call Grag turn on the water and yell 'gan and then Mama yell 'gan."

She rubbed at his arm and just let the silence hang there for a moment to see if he'd say anymore.

"Then Mama go away and she not come back. Then Peedg come back. And Peedg gone a very long time. But he come back. He say Mama go see God and Popa now and she not come back anymore."

She bit her lip at that and pulled him a bit tighter to her.

"How come she not come back anymore?" Benji asked.

Olivia looked at the ceiling and shook her head. She didn't know she was the best person to explain this one. She knew Jay's family had been fairly religious. Jay hadn't been in her face about it – but it had clearly been something he'd grown-up with and he did have his set of beliefs.

She didn't get the sense that he'd necessarily completely raised his children indoctrinated in the church. But enough little comments had been made that she did get the sense that faith and a belief in God was a part of their lives. She'd noticed Jack had a religious medallion around his neck. Though, she hadn't been able to make out which saint it was. She suspected St. Christopher. And with a name like Jean-Paul? Religion had to be a factor in picking out a name like that.

"After people go up to Heaven, they can't come back anymore, Benj," she told him quietly.

"Why not?"

She sighed. "Because God has decided he really, really wanted their company then and it's time for them to be there. It's not time for them to be here with us anymore."

"Maybe Mama can ask God nicely and he say it OK for her to come play?"

She shook her head and bit her lip some more, willing herself not to get emotional about Benji's line of questioning. "No, sweetie. That's not how it works."

"Becuz she did not like to play with me?"

"I'm sure your mama liked playing with you very much," she told him.

He shook his head and went back to looking at the book.

"Peedg play but then he left. Now Peedg leave again like Mama," he said sadly.

She shook her head and looked him in the eyes. "Sweetheart, Jack has not left like Mama. Jack isn't with God. He is still here. He is just … dealing with some things. He is working on schoolwork. He will be back. He is going to want to play with you again. He's going to want to go skating with you again. He's just busy and sad right now."

"But I stay here when he come back?"

She nodded and put her cheek on the top of his head. "Benji, I am working very hard to make sure that happens. But whatever happens – you are not leaving here alone with Jack and you are not going back to that apartment."

"So I stay here?"

"I don't know, sweetheart. Not yet."

"Why not?"

"Because people have to say it's OK for you to stay with me. You can't just stay."

"Why not?"

"It's just not the way it works, sweetheart."

"Why not?"

She sighed. "I don't know, sweetie."

"Here better," Benji said.

"Why's here better, Benj?"

"There no yelling or no crying."

She held him a bit tighter. "Did your Mama and Uncle Greg yell at you, sweetheart?"

He nodded. "Un-call Grag yell. He yell at Mama and he yell at Peedg. He yell at me some time. He say I a bass-erd and then Mama yell at him. But Peedg say that it just mean I have no Daddy. Peedg say he have no Mama and it OK. It OK not to have a Daddy."

She held him tighter. "It's OK not to have a Daddy," she agreed. "I didn't have a Daddy."

Benji glanced up at her. "So you a bass-erd?"

She snorted. "Sort of. I guess. But that's not a very nice word and we shouldn't use it, Benj."

He looked back at the book again – back to the raccoon, which was pretty clearly his favourite.

"Did your Uncle Greg do anything else mean while you lived on the farm?" she asked.

"He say I not allowed to play with London. But London like to play. London like to lick me. He wag his tail. But then Un-call Grag yell at me. And he yell at London."

She gave him a sad smile. "But did he ever … get angry and do more than yell?"

Benji nodded.

"What'd he do, Benj?"

He thought about that for a long time. "He mean," he said quietly after a while.

"Mean how?"

"He yell at Mama and Peedg. He say they bad."

"But did he ever use more than words, Benji?"

Benji looked up at her. "He and Peedg fight."

"Did he hit Jack?"

Benji nodded.

She rubbed at her eyebrow as she absorbed that. "Did Uncle Greg and Jack fight a lot?"

Benji nodded. "But then Peedg leave and gone a long time. He come back. But they fight again."

She sighed. "Did he ever hit Mama?"

"He push Mama and yell. Mama kick him. He yell more."

"Did Uncle Greg ever hit you, Benji?"

He shook his head.

She considered that more and put another kiss against his head, looking over his shoulder at the pictures with him for a moment.

"When Jack went away for a long time – to go to school – who looked after you, sweetheart? Mama?"

"Mama sleep," he said.

"During the day Mama slept?"

He nodded. "Or go out."

"So who did you stay with during the day, Benji? Did you go to daycare? Do you remember?"

"Nanny take care of me. Nanny make tomato soup and grill cheez. Do you know how to make tomato soup and grill cheez, 'Livia?"

She gave him a small smile. "I think I can figure it out."

"Maybe we have tomato soup and grill cheez," Benji suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea. Maybe tomorrow," she agreed softly. "What sort of things did you and Nanny do together, Benj?"

"Nanny watch TV. One time Nanny take me for a walk. But we go with no shoes. It very muddy. We go see the cows. They moo. Un-call Grag find us and he yell lots. One time Nanny have a pee accident and Un-call Grag yell more. Then she fall. Then Nanny go away too."

"Who looked after you when Nanny went away?"

"Mama."

"I thought Mama was sleeping," she said.

"I watch TV."

"Alone?"

He nodded.

"When Peedg come home, we leave," Benji told her. "We go see Nanny. Jee-Peedg say we have to say good bye to Nanny. But Nanny call Peedg Pauly. Nanny keep talking about crows eating. She tell Peedg he need to stop 'em. Peedg say we would. But we see no crows. We come to New York. There no crows here. There pigeons here. Peedg cry when we leave Nanny. He cry a long time. But he say nuttin wrong. He say not crying."

She nodded at that, considering it more. His grandmother was likely the closest thing that Jack had to a mother. She hadn't fully considered how hard it would've been for Jack to lose his father and then watch his grandmother's mind slip away into Alzheimer's. It could've only just added to his pain. Jack had watched his entire family be taken away from him – bit-by-bit.

"I think Jack likely misses Nanny very much," she told Benji.

"Why we don't see Nanny?"

She sighed. "I guess it's very far to go see Nanny – and very expensive."

"And we poor," Benji told her.

She gripped him. "Jack doesn't have a lot of money, no. But he is trying very hard."

"We leave toys and London at the farm," Benji said.

"I know, sweetheart. You can only take so much on the bus. Jack had to pick what you could bring. You couldn't bring all your toys and you couldn't bring London."

"Becuz London Un-Call Grag's."

She nodded. "That too."

She watched him some more. She hated knowing that he'd already been through so much in his short life. He'd been set up for failure. Jack pulling him out of there had been smart. Though, he wasn't doing much better now that he'd gotten him out of the situation. Jack knew enough that the little boy had to be out of there – but now didn't know what to do with it. Either that or he was just so afraid to relinquish control. He feared giving up the final piece of his family as he saw it. She needed to assure him that wasn't going to happen. Jack was just as damaged as this little boy – maybe even more so. Jack's damage was likely more permanent than Benji's at this point.

"You want to read another story before bedtime?" she offered, trying to pull her mind away from the swirling sadness. She could process after she got him to bed. She couldn't plot with him still leaning against her – his little boy so tense and sad.

She leaned passed him and picked up another book from the pile on the coffee table.

"Horace?" she offered of the one on the top of the stack of books.

Benji looked at it. "They cats," he said of the cover.

She smiled. "They are cats. Let's learn more about them."

She opened it for him and let him examine the first few pages, him slowly turning through the cover and introduction illustrations before he finally got to the first page with text.

She read slowly for him – making sure to give him lots of time to look at the pictures on each page. "We chose you when you were a tiny boy because you had lost your first family and needed a new one," she read to him. "We liked you and we wanted you to be our child."

Benji rolled his head against her as he considered the picture for a long time after she was done reading the page – not turning to the next.

"His Mommy talking to him at bedtime," Benji finally said.

She nodded. "She is."

"We talking at bedtime," Benji informed her.

She gave him a small smile. "We are."

"He need a new family?" Benji asked.

She nodded. "That's what his Mommy is telling him."

"His Mommy pick him?"

"That's what she says," Olivia agreed.

"How she do that?"

She rubbed her cheek against the top of his head and considered that for a moment. "Let's read and find out how she did that, sweetheart."

Benji nodded at that and turned the page.


	45. Chapter 45

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She felt her hot tears intermingling with the warm water of the shower and kept trying to wash them away – to calm herself, to not dwell on it, to move past it and focus on what was ahead.

She couldn't pinpoint exactly what she was crying about. It wasn't a specific thing. It was just the whole situation. It pained her.

It wasn't even that Benji was anywhere near the most heart-wrenching story she'd ever heard. What he'd experienced compared to some of the children she'd had to deal with over the years – who she'd tried to help – was really mild in comparison. Not to diminish his pain or what he'd been through – but she'd seen and heard far worse. And, he certainly wasn't the first child who's broken her heart, who'd she'd gotten too close to. He wasn't the first one that she just wanted to take home and make it better for.

What was different was that he was actually in her home – that she might actually be able to make it better. What was really different was that he was the kin of someone she'd known. She thought that was a big part of it. She just kept thinking back to Jay – or at least the young man she'd known as Jay. Somewhere along the way life had taken a turn towards the difficult, towards the so wrong for him. She thought that's what made her a little sad – more than a little. She thought of the hopes and the dreams they'd talked about. It made her think of her own hopes and dreams when she was some 21-year-old kid. Jay had ended up so far from his. In a way, she had ended up so far away from hers too. Life never works out exactly how you hope – or even how you might think. She'd learned that from a young age but life had a way of consistently reminding her of that – at work and at home. It slapped her in the face a lot.

Jay wouldn't have ever imagined this. His wife leaving him. His daughter dead. His son so hurt and confused. His mother senile. His brother enraged. The farm – the family business – in shambles. And, his little grandchild left damaged and alone in the midst of it while the rest of the family crumbled around him.

Back when she was young, she'd thought Jay sounded like he had a nice family. Compared to what she'd grown up with – it sounded like the perfect family. Two parents. A brother. A dog. A house. Traditions. Get-togethers. They'd seemed like nice people. They seemed stable and loving and supportive. They seemed normal. To her – back then.

But somewhere along the way something had happened and that normalcy had gone hell-bent for them. What they'd established – or what they convinced people on the outside that they had – had disintegrated to the point that there was nothing that even resembled what she'd thought she'd seen there anymore. It made her wonder how well she'd really known Jay back then? Or if something had so badly gone wrong that his entire family's foundation had been rocked – leaving cracks that hadn't ever been able to be repaired. Now there were two children fumbling around in the fall out after the implosion.

The more she thought about what Jack had endured since his father had died too, the sadder it made her for him. She was still so angry at him – but it faded more and more as she thought about what he'd gone through during his teens. It wasn't an excuse for his actions – but maybe it was an explanation. She was worried about him. He was clearly a kid with a lot of potential and he was setting himself up to let it slip away. He was getting ready to make his life even sadder – even more challenging – than it already was.

She didn't think she was going to be able to handle it this time if the system fucked her. She wasn't sure she'd be able to walk into work and deal with children and women and families who'd endured hell and tell them that they could help them. Sometimes she really wondered how much they actually helped. Was the system even designed to help? Or was it al just a bureaucratic way to attempt to monetize and normalize for all levels of government the trauma too many of its citizens ended up having to experience in the grotesque world?

She was at the point she was aching to be able to keep Benji with her – to get the chance to raise him and to watch him grow up. To give him a more normal life and the love he deserved. The love and care it sounded like he'd been so sorely lacking so far in his short life. He deserved that. She fucking deserved it too. She really fucking deserved to have something good – as selfish as she felt to be thinking of herself in all of this. It was really about the little boy and about the young man – and getting them help. It couldn't be about her.

But it was about her too. And, she could already feel the weight of it breaking her if this didn't work out. She knew it would hit her so hard no matter how much she prepared herself for the impact of that potential hurt. She'd wonder and worry and ache for Benji for the rest of her life if he got sent away – dropped into the system or foster care or sent back to his Uncle on the farm. Just like she wondered and worried and thought of Calvin all the time. Even if she continued to get little emails and phone calls from Benji – like she did Calvin. Even if she got the occasional photo from his foster family or was allowed the occasional visit. She knew it wouldn't provide her with what she wanted – or needed. It would likely just make the wound hurt that much more.

It was going to hurt even more than it had with Calvin if Social Services showed up and ripped the little boy away from her. If she thought Calvin screaming and calling and grabbing for her wrenched her heart – she could only imagine what it would be like when Benji was taken away. She'd had a couple sneak previews of the awfulness of those moments. It would be worse when it was officials tearing him away from her – not Jack. Jack she knew she could eventually talk sense to – or at least try to negotiate with. Even with Jack being Jack, he wasn't as much of a brick wall as the system, as the courts, as the bullshit of bureaucracy masquerading itself as the best interests of the child. She was getting far too cynical. She'd worked the job too long. Seen too much pain, too much dysfunction, too much failure.

She'd just connected with Benji so differently than with Calvin. As much as she missed Calvin and worried for his future as he grew into a young man – he'd needed her in a different way than Benji. Calvin needed stability and assurances. He wanted some normalcy. But he wasn't a little boy. He wasn't in his formative years – that few years in time that can really make or break the child. He wasn't as dependent on her in every way. He looked at her to have different needs filled than Benji did. He didn't seek out cuddles and affections from her. He more wanted her to play with him like she was an 11-year-old boy too. He wanted rough-housing and foolishness and sports talk. He wanted a stable friend. A cool Old Lady. He wanted a mom – but in a different way than Benji wanted a mommy.

She wanted to provide for Calvin. She wanted to make sure he was OK. She wanted him to be happy. Her urgency towards Benji felt so different. Her heart was aching for him. Every time he cuddled against her, reached out for her, touched her face, put sloppy kisses onto her cheek, clung to her neck – something in her body … her being … just changed. There was a connection. She could feel the change. He'd taken a piece of her – or maybe more likely being near the little boy had activated some part buried in her DNA. Something had changed in her.

Benji was just a little boy. He needed someone to love him and take care of him so much. He so clearly wanted that. He wanted a home and a mommy and a family. She wanted those things so badly too.

"'Livia," she heard his little voice, clearly in tears.

She'd suspected that he'd have a rough night. He'd been so exhausted in so many ways the day before – the night before – that his body had just let out and he'd slept. But not that night. She thought they'd done enough to wear him out – but as he struggled with bedtime, as he became whiney, as he fought to keep his eyes open – she'd known the fears in his little mind had caught up with him and were battling against sleep.

She'd peaked in on him before getting in the shower. He'd been in bed nearly an hour at that point – but as she'd pushed the door open, he'd still stirred and rolled towards her. She could see in the dark his eyes glinting and still open. But he hadn't said anything and she'd pulled the door back shut – leaving it open just a crack for him. Still, when she'd gotten into the shower – she'd left the door there open just a crack too – so she could hopefully hear him if he stirred even more and needed her. She'd thought there was a high likelihood he was going to need comforting that night – and she'd been right.

She peaked out around the shower curtain. Benji had pushed the door open and was standing just outside of it, red-faced and tears streaming down his cheeks.

"What's wrong, Benj?" she asked, already reaching to turn off the water. Rubbing at her face to rib it of any remnants of tears that the spray hadn't washed away.

"You l…l…left me in the dark," he wailed at her.

"It's too dark?" she asked.

She supposed she should've considered he might have a problem with the dark at the moment – but she hadn't. He hadn't seemed to have a problem with the dark the night before. But she'd really exhausted him with their wandering, museum outing and movie couch-time. He'd fallen asleep on the couch and had slept through until morning – not even stirring when she'd carried him to the bedroom and tucked him in. She hadn't had to worry yet about any of the nighttime fall-out fears that might crop up from Jack's decision to leave a four-year-old alone in the dark in the street.

"IT DARK," he cried louder.

It was sort of dark. She was used to keeping her apartment fairly dark. After the natural light disappeared – which it was usually gone by the time she ever got home – she rarely flicked on lights unless she had reason to. The illumination from the television screen or her laptop was about as bright as it got most evenings unless she was reading or trying to cook or on the very rare occasion was getting changed to go out. So basically, that hadn't happen since she'd broke it off with David.

At the moment, the only light that would've been in the apartment was whatever was seeping out from the crack she'd left open in the bathroom door. But Benji hadn't had a problem with the dark before.

She peaked out the opposite side of the curtain this time and grabbed her towel, pulling it in behind the curtain with her, quickly wiping down and wrapping it around her. Then she pulled back the curtain and stepped out.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," she told him. "Let's turn on some lights for you."

He was sputtering with snot and tears, but she took his hand and stepped into the small hallway that the bedroom and bathroom sat off of. She flicked the switch there and then paraded him the few steps to the living area and turned the switch on the tableside lamp.

"There, Benj. Better?" she asked.

He shook his head. "It dark in the bedroom," he managed to sob out.

She gave a little nod. "OK," she agreed. "Let's turn a light on in the bedroom."

They moved back in that direction and she flipped on the overhead in there.

"Better?" she asked.

He shook his head again.

So she gave him a thin smile. "OK, sweetheart. I'll tell you what … I'm going to get dressed and then we're going to pick another story to read and I'm going to lay down with you and stay with you until you fall back to sleep."

She took the couple steps back in the direction of the bathroom but he gripped her hand tightly.

"Don't leave me," Benji whined.

She looked down at him. "I'm not leaving you, baby. I'm just going to put on my jammies and then we're going to read."

He shook his head. But she nodded and put his back against the wall just outside the door of the bathroom.

"You are going to wait right here and I'm just going to be a second," she assured him.

"Don't leave me outside the door," he cried harder, his tears coming down stronger. "Don't leave me in the dark."

She put both her hands on his shoulder. "Benji, I'm going to leave the door open just a crack like before and you're going to talk to me while I get change. I'll be all of 30 seconds. And, it's not dark, sweetheart. All the lights are on now."

"Don't leave me," he cried.

She shook her head. "I'm not leaving you," she told him but pulled her hand from his and stepped back into the bathroom, closing the door to just a small crack. "Talk to me, Benj," she said to him and quickly finished drying off and grabbed at where she'd left her folded tank and sleep pants on the counter top.

"Wh … wh … what you doing?" Benji sputtered more.

"I took a shower and now I'm putting on my jammies," she told him, as she pulled the shirt over her head and reached for the pants. "It's my bedtime too."

"W... w...why?"

She pulled the door back up and scooped him up to her. "Because it's late, sweetheart. It's time to sleep. But first we're going to do another story."

She carried him back out to the living room and again just grabbed the top book from the stack they'd gotten from the library that day. She handed it out to him but he didn't take it. He was too busy rubbing his snotty nose all over her shoulder. She bounced him on her hip a bit as she carried him back to the bedroom.

"Oh, Benjamin, Benjamin, Benjamin Jiggs, maker of wonderful, marvelous pigs," she recited foolishly at him as she walked. It was a rhyme from a book that Alex had been reading to him while they were at the library earlier in the day. She was just trying to distract him at that point and get the tears to stop.

It worked. "That wrong," he told her.

She looked at him and gave him a small smile. "Is it?"

He nodded. "It Jillian Jiggs. She a girl. I a boy. And I do not make pigs."

"Mmm," she said, as she set him back into the bed and pulled the covers back up over him before laying down on the opposite side. "Maybe you should make pigs. It sounded like Jillian had a lot of fun."

"But I Benjamin," he told her. His sputtering was becoming less prominent.

"You are Benjamin. I must've been confused."

"Why?" he asked and cuddled up against her.

"Mmm. It must because I like the name Benjamin sooo much," she said.

He examined her and sniffled some. "You do?"

She nodded and grabbed a tissue from her bedside table and worked at wiping at his nose and the dribble of snot sitting above his upper lip. "I do. If I had a little boy – I think Benjamin would be right at the top of names I'd pick."

"It would?"

She nodded again and swiped her thumbs down his cheeks, clearing the streaks of tears. "It would."

"Is Ben-jam-an better then Benji?"

She smiled. "Benji is pretty wonderful too. I think my Benji is one of the best I've ever met," she told him – and the only.

He examined her for several moments and she kept the eye contact with him, stroking his head. Eventually he just rested his head against her shoulder.

"Story," he told her quietly.

She nodded and lifted the book up into view. "Story," she agreed.


	46. Chapter 46

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"This a good story, 'Livia," Benji told her. He was so set at looking at the book, he likely didn't even realize how much he was kicking at her while gazing at the pictures.

She wasn't sure how much she agreed with his assertion. She'd gotten to read the story to him the night before in getting him back to bed and had already read it to him twice that morning. She could sense him readying himself to ask her to read it again. Even if she managed to sidestep that request, she knew the picture book would be handed to her again later in the day and the request for it to be read to him would again be demanded.

It wasn't a bad story. It was a really sweet story. She understood why Benji was pretty enchanted by it. But it was hitting a little too close to home and was pulling at her heartstrings in such away that her voice had actually cracked while she read it to him. The concept of a children's picture book making her eyes well up with tears made her feel a little ridiculous. She was getting way too soft in her old age.

But the story of the mother who so long wanted a baby of her own was just ringing a too true for her. Of waiting and hoping that her child would come and how long that wait was. Of wanting to hold that child so badly. Of how lonely she was in her want for the child. Of dreaming about what the child would look like and smell like and sound like. Of finding it so hard to look at other mothers and children when she didn't have one to call her own. Only the mother in the story had finally had a little boy come into her home – and it had made her 'the happiest mother in the world'. She had a little boy to tell the story of him coming home to her.

"Mommy Fox and Little Fox snuggle," Benji informed her.

She nodded. Benji also seemed a little obsessed with reviewing the details of this particular story with her so far that morning. She really didn't know how many more times she could take reviewing them.

She was thinking she should've put off his exploration of mommies and families until she talked to the lawyer. If not for his sake – for hers. She didn't know how many more questions she wanted to answer – how much she wanted to get either of their hopes up until she had more clarity about if she'd actually be able to get the paperwork through, if they could actually be something that resembled a family.

"They do," she agreed.

"We snuggle," Benji told her.

"We cuddle," she told him.

"Snuggle better," Benji said. She was pretty sure he just liked saying the word snuggle better than the word cuddle. "We snuggle."

"Mmm," she allowed.

"You tell me 'bout the day I come home like Mommy Fox tell Little Fox," Benji near demanded of her.

She examined him. He was looking at her expectantly and had started his ritual of pawing at her chin and neck. She still wasn't sure what he was examining when he did that.

"When you came here?"

"When I came home," he corrected her. "You call here home, 'Livia."

"Because this is my home," she told him carefully.

"You tell me 'bout the day I come home," he said again.

She sighed. She wasn't going to argue about the definition of home with him. She didn't think she'd win anyways.

"Ah. OK. Well Jack called me and I was at work, and he said you'd been hurt and were in the hospital."

"Becuz I fall," Benji said.

She nodded. "Because you fell skateboarding."

"So you come to hos-pit-tell," he told her, clearly already knowing the events of the story, or how he wanted the story to be told, in his head.

She nodded. "So I came to the hospital. And I found you and Jack. He was very upset and very worried about you being hurt. And you were crying."

"Becuz I broke my arm and head," he told her.

She nodded again. "Because you'd broken your arm and hurt your head. So the doctor told me that you needed to have surgery. So I sat up with you all night while we waited for surgery – and then I sat in the waiting room all morning while you were in surgery, and then I sat with you in the recovery room all afternoon when you came out of the surgery but were still alseep. Then you woke up."

"From surge-jury?"

"From surgery."

"And you there?"

"And I was still sitting there – waiting for you to wake up. And the doctor said you needed to be very careful because your arm was very hurt and your head was very hurt. You needed to take very good care of them until they were all better."

"So I come home with you?"

She nodded. "So I told Jack that you both should come home with me until you were all better."

"So then I come home?"

"So then you came here," she told him, purposely changing the word choice. Though she wasn't sure he noticed.

He dropped his hands from her face and considered that some more – glancing at the book she was still holding open for him. He hadn't slapped it closed yet – so 'the rules' dictated that he wasn't done with it. She was waiting for him.

"Mommy Fox or-in and Little Fox white," Benji told her, stating the obvious after examining the pictures again for a while.

"Yes," she agreed.

He squinted at her. "We different colours," he eventually said.

She snorted. "Sort of, I guess. My skin is olive. Yours is fair."

"You 'Livia not all-lave," he told her.

She laughed – and took his arm and pulled his shirt up a bit and held her arm next to his. "My skin is darker than yours. My skin is olive colour. Your skin is very light. It is fair."

He considered their arms for a while and then looked up at her and lifted up a bit of her hair, almost stroking it against the back of his one hand. "Your hair is brown. Like Mommy Fox's ears. Mine white like Little Fox."

She smiled again. "Your hair is blond, Benji. Strawberry really."

"Strawberry?"

"Your hair has a little bit of red and orange in it – like Mommy Fox's fur."

He shook his head. "No. It like Little Fox's."

She snorted. "OK."

He slapped his hands onto her face again and tilted her head down so he could examine her – for once actually looking into her eyes while he did.

"Geez, Benj, be gentle," she told him, as his little hands smacked into her cheeks.

"You have brown eyes," he told her.

"I do. You have blue eyes."

"Mommy Fox has brown eyes."

She nodded for him again. "She does."

"What colour Little Fox's eyes?"

"Ah," she looked back at the book. "It's hard to tell. He's pretty little. Maybe grey?"

"They can be blue," he told her.

She allowed him a small smile – though it hurt. "OK," she agreed quietly.

"Mommy Fox says she lonely without Little Fox," Benji told her, reciting his understanding of the text back to her.

"She does say that," she agreed. "She was very lonely before Little Fox came home. She had to wait a long, long time for Little Fox to come home."

"But then Little Fox came home," Benji said.

She nodded. "Then Little Fox came home and Mommy Fox tells him that made her very happy."

"Because she his forever Mommy now because his Mama Fox couldn't be anymore."

"That's right, Benj."

The fucking kid. He was trying to make her cry. Or at least make it harder for both of them if this really blew up in her face.

He thought about whatever his little mind was thinking about some more and turned the pages to look at the pictures again.

"You get lonely, 'Livia?" he asked.

"We all get lonely sometimes, Benji," she said.

"When Mommy Fox lonely she prayed."

She nodded. "That's what Mommy Fox did."

"You pray, 'Livia?"

She shrugged. "I guess. Sometimes."

She didn't want to even try to get into a discussion about religion and faith with a four-year-old and to attempt to explain that she wasn't an overly religious person and she really didn't know where her faith sat or what she believed in anymore with everything she'd seen over the years. She believed in trying to make the best of the hand you'd been dealt in a given day. That was about as good as it got for her. She wasn't sure she had much faith in others or the world anymore – or in humanity and life, in general.

She tried. But it always seemed to slap her in the face just when she thought it might be getting better. She wasn't sure how to do her job and to believe in God or something higher. Humanity had a way of wrecking itself – even if God did happen to exist. There was just too much pain in the world – and in life – for her to have much use for religion or faith most days. Without Elliot around to drop little reminders about its importance – she thought about it even less. She always struggled to understand his continued faith in the midst of everything they dealt with. She respected it – but didn't understand it. And their notions of right and wrong and moral compasses some times clashed because of it anyway.

"So God knew Mommy Fox. And God knew Little Fox. And God knew when it was time for them to be together. And then Little Fox got to go and live with Mommy Fox."

She nodded. "That's what happens in the story," she agreed.

"It a good story 'Livia!" he informed her like he was unimpressed with her level of enthusiasm – or lack thereof.

She wasn't sure she could give more, though. It was a good story. She hoped it could be a reality. She was scared it wouldn't be. She didn't want to try to explain that to him. She was actually feeling horrible about this story choice. It was putting ideas in his head. Or just reaffirming ideas that were already there – maybe too soon and too quickly.

"It is a good story," she agreed and rubbed his back a bit, trying to calm him.

"I could be Little Fox and you could be Mommy Fox," he suggested.

She gave him a thin smile. "Right now, I think I should just be Olivia and you should just be Benji."

"You do not want to play Mommy Fox and Little Fox?"

She shook her head. "Right now, we'll just be Olivia and Benji."

"Why?"

"Because, Benj."

He squinted at her and then tugged the book until she had it sitting upright on their laps again.

"Let's read story again," he very near demanded.

She sighed and closed the book.

"'LIVIA!" he protested and glared up at her as she impeached on his story-time rules.

"Later, Benji. We've already read it a couple times this morning. We'll read it again later. Right now we need to talk about something else that's important."

"This important!" he told her like she just wasn't getting it. She gave him a small smile. She was more than getting it. She was feeling it bear down in her. So she was putting a stop to it for the moment before it suffocated her.

"It is important," she agreed with him firmly. "But there is something else important we need to talk about."

He huffed and crossed his arms in a sulk, glaring at the couch cushion in front of him. She rubbed his back, ignoring his little snit.

"Tomorrow is Monday, Benji," she told him. "So that means I need to go to work and you'll be going into nursery school."

He didn't even look at her.

"I know that you've had some rough days. But I think we've had a pretty fun weekend. And now we're going to have to get back into routine. I can't miss work, sweetheart. So I'm going to need you to be a big boy – and get up on time tomorrow and not argue. And for there not be any tears when I drop you off at nursery school. OK?"

"Why you go to work?" he huffed.

She smiled. "Because on week days – Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday – I go to work and you go to nursery school. And, on weekends - Saturday and Sunday - we can stay home and do fun things during the day. Tomorrow is Monday. It is a work day and a school day. So if you co-operate tomorrow and show me again what a big boy you are – it will make me very happy."

He flopped his head against her. "But you leave me there," he whined quietly.

"I drop you off there," she corrected. "And I'll give you a big hug. Then you'll go and play with the other kids and your teachers – just like before. You'll do crafts and dancing and games and blocks and colouring and lots of fun stuff. And you can tell me all about it when I pick you up after work."

"So you leave me," he said somewhat defeated.

"No, Benji," she told him firmly. "I am not leaving you. I am dropping you off so you can go to school – like a big boy – and then I pick you up after you are done school and I am done work. You are not being left anywhere – and you will not be alone. You will be with all the other kids and your teachers."

"You will come back?"

"I will always come back, Benji," she assured him.

"You promise?"

She nodded and hugged him tight to her. "I promise."


	47. Chapter 47

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Picking Mark out at the dive of a diner was easy enough.

She wasn't entirely sure was to expect based on the telephone conversation on Saturday night. She was even less sure what to expect when he'd picked a rundown greasy spoon as an appropriate place for them to have a discussion about her wanting to get permanent guardianship of a little boy. But at least it was just outside of the block-range that would likely attract people from the station stopping in for a bite – thereby hopefully giving her some privacy. Maybe that was all he was going for – close enough that it was convenient yet far away (and possibly just gross enough – even for a cop's palette) that it would be private. Beyond that, he definitely looked the part of a lawyer too. He actually looked a little out of place in the dilapidated booth in his suit. He had some files spread on the table in front of him and was thumbing madly at his phone as she walked up to him.

"You're Mark?" she asked.

He glanced up at her, still more looking at whatever was on the screen of his Blackberry than at her. "Ah. Yeah. Olivia?"

She gave him a thin smile and a nod. She held out a hand in introduction but he'd gone back to the phone and stopped just long enough to wave his hand at the booth across from him. She considered him for a moment – still not sure about this guy at all – but then slid into her side of the table. It was still took him several seconds before he finished what he was doing and put down the phone and actually looked at her.

"Sorry," he apologized. He seemed to like to do that, if their phone conversation was any indication. "Hi. Nice to meet you."

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "Hi," she offered back. She was still kind of measuring him up. She really didn't think she was liking Elliot's recommendations in lawyers. Maybe she'd be calling Alex up that night and taking her up on her offer to set her up with someone in Manhattan. Maybe this guy had been dealing with clients out in Queens a little too long.

The waitress came up to the table. "Can I get you something?" she offered.

Olivia glanced up at her. "Ah. I'll just have a tea," she said.

The woman nodded and disappeared for a moment.

"Sorry, I'm going to eat in front of you," Mark said and gestured at a soggy looking sandwich and plate of fries that he had shoved at the opposite side of the table. It didn't look very appetizing at all – and it really didn't look like he was even paying attention to it being there with the amount of paperwork he had all over the place on the table. "Got one kid at dance and piano tonight and the other at tutoring and basketball. It's kind of …. AHHH ..." he pulled some sort of crazy face at her with that sound, and she really looked at him like she was ready to just call Alex and get out of there right then. "So, if I don't eat now – it will be 9 p.m. before I get some dinner. Who eats dinner at 9 p.m.?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow again considering him. "I think a lot of New York probably eats dinner at 9 p.m."

He examined her at that point and then stuffed a soggy fry into his mouth. "Not me," he mumbled around it.

The waitress put the cup of hot water in front of her with a teabag sitting on the saucer. "Cream and sugar," she gestured to somewhere that vaguely resembled a clear spot in the midst of Mark's disaster. The little bowl containing the packets was barely visible. But she nodded her thanks at the woman and just ripped open the bag and settled it into the cup to steep.

"How do you know Elliot?" she asked, as she bounced the bag up and down in the water a couple times.

"Mmm," Mark still mumbled around the food that he was still picking at. "He's a client. Giving him a big discount for the referral."

Dead silence hung in the air between them for several moment and he looked up at her. She didn't look impressed at all.

"I'm joking," he said and shook his head. "Well, about the discount part. He is a client. You're wound as tightly as him. We're neighbours. I've lived three doors down from the fam for about ten years."

"He's a client?" she asked again. His 'taking a break' sounded like it was a bit more than 'taking a break', if there were lawyers involved.

Mark looked at her again but just offered an "Mmm" at that and was very clearly not going to let anything more slip. She could see some gears shift him like he already felt as though he'd said too much by indicating Elliot was a client when she didn't know that to begin with.

"So what can I do for you?" he asked instead. Clearing up some of his files and pulling his meal closer, while also pulling a yellow note pad and pen out of a bag he had sitting next to him on the bench, and plopping it on the table.

"You're taking notes?" she asked.

He looked at her again over the tops of his glasses. "Is there a problem with that?"

"I thought this was just a chat?"

He shrugged and put the pen down. "OK. I thought having some notes might help us along, if you decide to sign on with me. But have it your way. We can redo do Round 1 later. You want to know what I charge on my billable hours?"

She shook her head at him. She really wasn't impressed. She actually was feeling kind of concerned for Elliot and if this was who he had dealing with his separation proceedings or with any custody battle around Eli. She knew money was likely rather tight for him at the moment – but she was also sure he could do better than this.

"This is just a chat – on the recommendation of a friend. I don't know I'll be using your services," she told him.

He just shrugged again – like he really could careless. "OK. What do you want to chat about?"

She looked at him. She just … didn't like his vibe at all. She didn't feel like his professionalism was at the level she wanted – not in a lawyer. She didn't feel like he was taking the situation seriously – or her. He seemed glib. She trusted Elliot. But she wasn't sure she trusted him with this. Not after not speaking to him for more than a year. Not with something that was so important to her and she still wasn't entirely sure where he stood in being supportive of her decision.

"Look, Mark," she sighed. "I didn't realize you were Elliot's lawyer. I'm not sure you getting involved in my situation is the best idea. So thanks for your time. But I think I'm just going to seek out my own counsel through other channels."

She started to shift in the bench, readying to leave. But he held up his hands and shook his head at her. He pushed his food back off to the side and pulled the pad of paper directly in front of him and picked up the pen.

"OK. Just wait," Mark said. "Here's the deal. I'm all the way out here meeting with you – as a favour to El. Look – I get that I'm probably not as polished as some fancy Midtown attorney you can get over here. But to start – I can guarantee I'm going to charge you less than whoever you go and sign onto your case. Beyond that – I work almost exclusively with police families, Olivia.

"El said you've had some trouble with the system before? Bullshit about your job? I can get you in and out of the system while shutting down any of that bullshit. It's not going to be the key consideration in your case. You want through this quick and dirty like so you can get home to your family and forget that any of this bullshit happened? You'll sit here – drink that tea and tell me what exactly it is you're dealing with. Then I'll tell you how we're going to blitz it. And this chat – free. How can you turn down a free legal advice session? No matter how much you dislike my charming personality."

She examined him as he concluded his little monologue. She wasn't sure she much liked Elliot telling this man anything about her. She also really didn't like the idea of Elliot calling in favours on her behalf. It made her feel like she owed him something. She already felt like that enough most of the time. She didn't want to add more to the list.

Mark tapped his pen on the pad of paper. "So? You want to tell me about what's going on?"

She shook her head and shifted her cup around on its saucer. She really wasn't sure she did. She liked the concept of him working with police families. That could potentially be useful to her. Or it at least suggested a certain sense of dedication and loyalty to the Blue Line from him. As much as she didn't buy into all the macho-ism around that, she had learned to see the value in it. In the very least the squad had definitely become her family over the years – even if that had changed a lot and wasn't quite the same as before.

She was willing to acknowledge that being a cop did present its unique set of workplace challenges that you did end up bringing home and impacting family life. She hoped that wouldn't be an issue this time around with Benji – that it wouldn't come up. But it would be nice to have someone who had experience navigating that with a judge and in Family Court. He likely had his set of case law and precedents to refer to and little lines and testimony to pull out of his ass all ready.

"OK," Mark sighed. "How about we go over what I do know about this situation you've got, which isn't much, and we can go from there?"

She looked at him at that. She'd be interested to hear what Elliot did tell the guy.

Mark put his pen down and folded his hands on top of the pad – giving her even more of his attention.

"So right now a young child – a boy – is in your care. He is under the guardianship of a family member, who I'm told is legally an adult, but still a teenager? And, you would like to have that guardianship nullified and to keep the little boy in your care? How am I doing?"

She shrugged. "I guess that's an OK summary."

Mark nodded and picked his pen back up. "OK. How about you fill in some of the blanks for me?"

She allowed a small nod.

"How old is the child?"

"Four. He turned four in September."

He nodded and wrote something down. "Name?"

"Benji. … Benjamin. Lewis."

He nodded again. "OK. How long has he been in your care?"

She shrugged. "On and off for about a month."

Mark looked up at her. "Just a month?"

She nodded.

He made a note and a bit of a sound. "How long have you known him?"

"Just over a month," she said and his head snapped back up again, only this time he squeezed the bridge of his nose. "I can be more specific with the dates," she offered.

He made a sound again and shook his head. "No. Not right now. It's just a month … it's not the best timeframe for establishing you as … anything."

She rubbed her eyebrow. "Do people need to be established as … anything? Children get placed in foster care all the time. How is this different?"

He let out a deep breath and waved his hand like she should forget about it for the moment. "How much it matters will depend on how we pursue it."

"You tell me what I need to do – and I will do it," she said firmly and seriously, drilling her eyes into him. That was her stance at this point. Whatever needed to get done for her to get Benji – it would get done.

He gave he a nod and thin smile. "OK," he agreed. "Ah. OK. Well what's your connection to the child? How'd this kind of come to be?"

She sighed and looked at her tea. Trying to explain the situation to anyone felt ridiculous. It felt unbelievable. It felt like only the kind of thing that would some how end up cropping up in her life and smacking her in her face. Elliot was right. She did tend to get herself into situations.

"He's the grandson of a man I was in a relationship with in college."

"Hmm," Mark said at that and made a note. "OK. I like that. That's good. How long were you in a relationship with him?"

"About 18 months – give or take."

He nodded. "And how long ago was this? This is where I ask your age," he gave her a bit of a teasing smile.

"Ah. I guess … 22 years … ish."

"And you two kept in touch after that – as friends?"

She shook her head. "No."

"No?" He gave her a funny look.

"No," she confirmed.

"OK. So we are back to the original question then … What's your connection to the child? How did this come to be?"

She sighed again and looked back at her cup. "Ah. Benji's uncle … his guardian … Jack … he's been struggling. He's a student at City. They aren't from here. He doesn't really have a support network in the city. He … knew about me from his dad and knew I lived in the city. So … I guess, he kind of sought me out to get some help."

Mark examined her at that but then went back to making some notes. "OK. So is Jack on-board with all of this?"

She let out a deep breath. "Right now, no, not really. But … he's not in the position to be raising a child."

"If he's the kid's guardian, a judge disagreed with you there," Mark said flatly.

She glared at him. "He's 18. He is a student – trying to raise a child and live in New York City. He has him living in a studio apartment in Harlem …"

"Some people would say that's pretty trendy these days … especially for a university student."

"It is not on a 'trendy' block," she spat back at him. "It's on a block that I'm uncomfortable walking around on. OK? He has Benji sleeping on an air mattress on the floor. They have almost no food in their fridge. He is working part-time to pay for Benji's 'daycare' with some woman that has 40 kids running around a complex courtyard. He is not making rent on time. He could be evicted. And, he's really close to losing his scholarship – so then if he wants to continue school – he's going to have tuition and everything else that goes with it too. I don't know what the judge who granted him guardianship was thinking – but I don't see how it's in the best interest of Benji or Jack, for that matter."

Mark was scribbling across his paper quickly and glanced up at her, giving her a small nod to indicate he was still listening. "OK," he agreed.

"OK?"

"That's some good information," he offered. "Compelling."

She gave a snort and shook her head.

"I'm just getting all the facts straight in my head, Olivia. You know you can go a few different routes to do this, right? If you have Jack on-board, it will be a lot easier for you. A lot," he stressed.

She nodded. "I know. I'm going to try to get him on-board. Again. Just tell me what I need out of him – and I'll work on it."

Mark nodded. "OK. We'll get to that. Few more questions. Benji's mother? She's deceased." Olivia allowed a nod in affirmative. "How long?"

"June. So five months, I guess."

"And the father?"

"Unknown."

"How sure are you he's unknown?"

"That's what Jack told me."

"Have you seen the birth certificate?"

"No."

"That's one thing you need – and the mother's death certificate too. Technically, Jack should have copies of them if he's Benji's guardian. You have seen that paperwork, right? His deed?"

"Yes."

"OK. We'll need some other paperwork too when we get to filing things. It would be faster … easier … if Jack is just able to give it to you. Otherwise we'll be collecting it from … ?"

"Horseheads. Upstate."

Mark snorted. "Man. I'd love to be able to say I'm from Horseheads. That's a great name for a town."

She allowed him a thin smile.

"What about other living relatives? Besides Jack?"

"Jack's full name is Jean-Paul," she told him as an afterthought. He nodded at that and scribbled it somewhere closer to the top of his page. "Ah. He has a great-grandmother. But she has Alzheimer's and is in a home. And, there's a great-uncle. But he apparently didn't have an interest in having anything to do with Benji. It sounds like he had … a confrontational relationship with Jack and Isabelle, Benji's mother, after their father died."

"OK. So your ex – the grandfather – he's dead?"

"Yes."

"And the grandmother?"

She shrugged. "I think she's known but she hasn't been involved in the children's lives since they were small. Jack doesn't seem to know who she is or where she is."

Mark nodded. "OK. With there still being living relatives, that's likely going to impact what classification you're going to want to get for yourself. I'm assuming you're looking at permanency here? Not just until the guardian is done school?"

"Yes," she said.

"OK," he said and tapped on the pad, looking at his notes and clearly processing the whole situation. "How old is Jack again?"

"Eighteen," she said. "He'll be 19 at the end of December."

Mark nodded and added it to his page. "What role do you see him playing in all of this – assuming you get some sort of custody of Benji?"

"I absolutely want him to continue to play a role in Benji's life. I don't want to take that way from either of them. They just both … deserve better than what the situation is right now. It's destroying Jack and Jack's … sort of … contributing to the destruction of Benji. But Benji will need that connection to his family. I know that – and I want him to have that. He needs male role models too."

"You're good with the lines," Mark gave her a teasing smile. "You testify in court before or something?"

She shook her head and examined the table. She didn't think he was very funny.

He rubbed at his face. "You know you can seek guardianship of Jack too?" he asked after a pause.

She gave him a look. "What do you mean? Jack's an adult. He's a guardian."

Mark nodded and gave a small smile. "See. I think that could be a nice little way to play with the system a bit. Getting his guardianship revoked. But filing for you to take on permanent guardianship of both of the boys … I think we could get that rubber stamped."

"Jack's an adult," she said again.

"He can request a guardian up until his 21st birthday," Mark told her, "or until he's out of school. Whatever comes first."

She snorted at that and rolled her eyes.

"You don't want to take on guardianship for the other kid?" Mark asked.

"Oh. I think suggesting that to him would go over like an even bigger lead balloon than broaching anything to do with Benji."

"Mmm," Mark said. "OK. Yeah. I could see a guy his age not liking that idea."

"He has been very clear that I am not his mother and that he does not want a mother. And that he doesn't need a babysitter either."

"Somehow I don't think you completely agree with that," Mark said.

"I think it's pretty clear interacting with him that he grew up without a mother – and that he spent most of his teens without parents at all. He needs support."

"That's what being a guardian to a young adult basically is," he told her.

She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow at that. "Well what responsibilities would I have to him, if did sign up to be his guardian too?"

She didn't really know how she felt about that idea – at all. She hadn't even really considered it. She wasn't sure she even really know it was a possibility. Even if she had, she didn't think it was something that Jack would ever approve of. And, God, the concept of trying to be motherly to Jack made her blood pressure go up anyways. It sounded like dealing with a lot of snark and attitude.

She wanted him to be involved with Benji. She wasn't sure how involved she wanted to be with him. At least not in that capacity. She wanted things to be easier for him. She wanted to help him. But help him that way? That was more than she'd considered signing up for. But maybe it was what he needed too. It just seemed like a whole different level of commitment.

"It's basically the same responsibilities as you'd have to Benji – to any other child. But realistically – Jack is an adult. You'd only have to do so much for him. It'd just really give him stability and security within the system – and maybe in life, generally."

"In the system?"

"He'd have access to some services, programs and funding. Depending on how we filed it."

"I was really hoping to keep Social Services out of this."

Mark looked at her. "You realize that really limits our options."

She nodded.

He let out a deep breath. "OK. So you're looking at permanent guardianship – and that's the only option you're willing to look at?"

She nodded. "That'd be my preference."

"If you don't get Jack on-board – getting that could be challenging."

"That's what I'd be paying you the big bucks for. Isn't it?"

He allowed her a small smile. "Is there a reason we aren't going to be chatting about foster care? Or adoption?"

"I would prefer to keep Social Services out of it," she said simply again.

"Why?"

She sighed. "I don't want Benji to get jammed up in the system."

"This has nothing to do with you having being denied as an adoptive parent in the past?"

She glared at him and crossed her arms. She was really unimpressed that Elliot would've shared that with anyone – let alone a complete stranger.

"Just because you had a crappy experience with one agency – doesn't mean you'd have the same results with another," Mark told her seriously.

She offered him no response.

"You understand that you moving from permanent guardianship to adoption can be extremely difficult?"

"My legal rights to him would be the same with either, though?"

He nodded. "Yes. There's some differences. But I'd prefer to save those for a larger discussion. That's getting into heavy-duty legal advice. It's just some people really prefer adoption versus guardianship and what that can mean for a family. Adoption requires a termination of parental rights. So there's a bit more permanency to it."

"I thought permanent guardianship was permanent," she said back sternly.

"It is. Basically. If someone in his family decided they wanted to challenge it – they'd have to file for custody in court. Then other factors would come into play. It would depend on how long he'd been with you before someone decided to do that – if that were to ever happen – what the outcome would be, likely. Getting past the six-month mark without any contact from them will count for a lot. But biology tends to be a factor. His family would continue to have visitation rights – by court order – too, if they wanted them."

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at that. The way Jack told it, Benji's father didn't likely even know he was a father and if he did, he was a kid too and not interested in being a father. Him suddenly deciding to want to play Dad after four years just pissed her off. And, if Greg decided to make their lives more difficult after everything the two boys had already been through … that just enraged her even thinking about it.

"You'd have a good case for private adoption, I think, Olivia," Mark told her. "With his mother deceased and if his birth certificate really doesn't identify a father and there's no assumed father – there's no parental rights we'd have to fight to have terminated. Assuming Jack is willing to relinquish his guardianship or we are able to prove that it should be revoked, in the best interests of the child. He'd be your son – legally yours in every way."

The lawyer saying that really hit her. She hadn't allowed herself to even think that adoption would be an option up for discussion at this point. She didn't think there was any way Jack would agree to that at all. He'd put up way too many roadblocks to make it possible. It'd just end up hurting everyone involved. And, then there was the underlying fear that she wouldn't make it through the approval process again, and she'd really lose out on Benji. That would destroy her. But the concept now being waved in front of her – that she could be more than just a guardian for Benji, that she really and truly could legally be his mother … she wasn't sure she could say no to that. That's what she wanted. But she had to think about it. She had to keep thinking of not just what she wanted – it was about Benji and his best interests and that meant she had to consider Jack's thoughts and feelings too. She had too. It was a factor in her getting anywhere near what she actually wanted. If she didn't take them into consideration – none of this would work out at all.

"If you don't go for adoption now – you'll have to wait until you've had about two years of guardianship before filing to change that status," Mark added. "That's longer than if you went the foster route too. You can start looking at adoption after a year of fostering him."

She rubbed her fingers across the top of the table as she thought about that more. "An agency would be involved, though – and another home study."

He nodded. "But I can make some suggestions on maybe agencies that might be more understanding to your situation," he offered. "You might have to do a home study anyway."

She looked at him. She so didn't want to go through that again. "Why?"

"If you decide you want to continue to pursue this as a permanent guardianship – when you haven't known the child a long time and we're having another's guardianship revoked – the judge may still request it before making their ruling."

She sighed. Home studies weren't cheap – and they were drawn out. And based on her last one – she really wasn't sure she was set up to pass one, even if Mark could recommend an agency that his clients had had previous successes with.

"You're going to need to have a background check and a criminal record check done too. I know that's not a problem. But just giving you a heads up to start getting that paperwork in order."

She nodded. "OK."

"So tell me a bit about yourself," Mark said.

She looked at him and shrugged. "Like what?"

"How about where you live? To start."

"Murray Hill."

"I mean – Rent? Own? Condo? Townhouse?"

"I rent an apartment."

"Been in it a long time?"

"Long enough."

"So you're pretty established in that community?"

"It's a place to sleep and keep my belongs."

He snorted and pinched the bridge of his nose at that. "Ah. OK. We need to work on that answer. How many bedrooms?"

"One."

He looked up at her seriously. "You need to change that. Soon."

She shrugged. "I know. I've started looking. But I think it'd make more sense financially to wait until after I had some clarity on if Benji."

He shook his head. "It makes sense to change that soon. Immediately. Yesterday. You need to demonstrate your commitment to this – especially if a home study gets ordered. It will be a problem if you don't have a room for the child."

"He has my room."

Mark shook his head. "You've done a home study before – you know that is not going to fly. Get a two bedroom. Now. If you consider signing on as Jack's guardian – think about a three bedroom, unless he's clearly established as living somewhere else. Or at least make sure – either way – you will be able to demonstrate that there's sleeping space for Jack, especially if you're going to be stating you want him to remain involved in Benji's life."

She nodded. She knew it was something that needed to be done. She hated the concept of moving and taking on all that extra expense if this didn't end up working out – but if it was what needed to be done to have Benji stay with her – she'd do it.

"If you're serious about this Olivia – that needs to happen – soon," he stressed again.

She looked at him hard. "I understand. It will get done. I told you – tell me what I need to do. I'll do it. You get me Benji – and I'll do what I need to do on my end. I'm not going to argue about it."

He nodded. "OK. So what else can you tell me about yourself?"

She shrugged.

"What about your family?"

She shook her head. "It was just my mother. She passed away several years ago. I have a half-brother. We aren't close. I don't see him very often."

"Are you in a relationship?"

She shook her head again. "No."

He examined her and made a few more notes. "What about a support network?"

She shrugged. "I have friends. Colleagues."

He gave her a bit of a sad look at that. "So are they supporting you in this?"

"I guess the few people who know are."

"And they'll be a source of support – help, some one to talk to – after you're officially a parent and dealing with all the trials and tribulations of raising a kid?"

She shrugged. "Sure."

He tapped on his pad of paper. "You know, depending on how this goes – what judge your paperwork ends up in front of, or who you end up in front of – these could be the kind of things they ask and take into consideration. The reoccurring question you're going to hear – that you're going to have to answer in the paperwork and before the court – is why it's in Benji's best interests to be with you. So you better start thinking of how you want to answer that and what examples you can provide to support it. Saying that you want to be a mother isn't going to be enough. Saying that you'd be better than Jack – isn't going to fly either. Prove it."

"I'm 44 years old and I've spent my career working with and helping children – how can I not be better qualified than Jack?"

"Jack is his biological uncle, who another court has decided is qualified to be Benji's guardian and that him being his guardian is in the best interests of the child. Those two things are going to count for a lot in the eyes of the court – whether Jack is on-board or not. Modifying a guardianship decree isn't taken lightly – and it's going to be taken even less lightly when it's with someone who's only known the child for a month or two when the paperwork gets filed and when you aren't biologically related to the child. So you better work on your answer."

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at him. But she made a note of it. She'd do it. She'd organize her thoughts and figure out the best way to state not only why she deserved this but that she could do this, and that it was exactly what Benji wanted and needed – and really fucking deserved too.

"Beyond having a cop's salary, how are you doing financially? Any major debt? Assets?"

She shrugged. "I don't have much debt and I don't have much in the way of assets either. No car. No residence. I've got some debt on credit cards but nothing major. I have savings. Bonds. A pension plan."

He nodded. "How's work?"

"I thought you said I should hire you because then my job wouldn't play in this," she shot back at him.

"Your job is not going to be the determining factor in this case. But it will play in this. I'd like it to play well," he said. "How's work?"

"It's work."

"What are your hours like these days?"

"Under control."

Mark just looked at her, clearly unimpressed. "OK. We can talk about that later. … You got any skeletons in your closet that are going to crop up and bite us in the ass?"

She snorted. "I guess that depends on how deeply they end up digging into my background and my family. But I think we can save that discussion until I decide if you're my lawyer."

Mark shook his head at her. "OK. Fair enough," he allowed and went back to writing some notes.

"A friend told me I should get a letter of designation from Jack," she said to the top of his head.

His head shot up. "You don't have one?"

"No."

"And the child is in your home?"

"Yes."

He shook his head. "Ah, yeah. You should get that – now – especially if you're coming up on the 30-day of care mark. Do you have the form?" She nodded. "Get him to sign it. Now. Try to get him to agree to the full six months. That will give us lots of time. Sometimes the court likes there to have been a six-month release before reassigning guardianship. But if Jack has already agreed to him being in your care for six months – it could cancel out."

She nodded. "OK."

Mark looked at her again for what seemed like a long time – but then finally said, "So I guess you've got some homework. You want to take some time and work on those things? Think about the route you want to take? Talk to Jack? Then get back to me and let me know how we're going to proceed? We'll set up a real meeting. You can bring Jack along, if he's going to be co-operative. We can get started on some of the paperwork."

"You're assuming I'm going to sign on as a client," she said, not looking at him. She was looking at her empty cup. She was thinking. Too much. She had so much to do. She just wanted it to all be done now – to have that clarity and stability now. She knew it didn't work that way – but it was still what she wanted. So badly.

"I can get this done for you, Olivia," Mark said. "We can get Benji into his forever home and family within a matter of months. You just have to give me the green light and I'll get to work."

"What'd Elliot say to get you to do this?" she aske after a long silence.

Mark shrugged and finally went back to picking at his long cold platter of food, pulling it closer to him. "I've not Elliot a long time," he offered. But she just kept looking at him. "You've known him longer," he said. "He said you were partners for more than 12 years. That you saved his ass more than once – in more than one-way. That you helped him through some shitty situations with his kids and were there for him during his and Kathy's last Battle Royale. That you'd be a great mom. That you really want it. That you really deserve it. And that he wants to make sure it works out for you and that little boy. And then some beer might've been promised somewhere in there – and him actually paying me on time for once. So it was added motivation."

She allowed him a small smile at his latest attempt at a joke. She rubbed at her eyebrow. "El and I haven't really talked much over the past year," she allowed.

Mark nodded as he took a bite out of his sandwich. "I don't get the sense he's really talked to much of anyone over the past year."

"Is he OK?"

Mark glanced at her from his examination of his meal. "I'd say he's under a bit of stress and emotional distress these days," he eventually allowed after a hanging silence.

"Are you his divorce attorney or custody attorney?" she asked.

"I can't really discuss that with you," he said.

She allowed a thin smile and a small nod. She had to try.

Mark let out a deep breath after picking at his fries some more. "Right now, he has Eli every other weekend and Wednesday nights – if you happened to be looking for a playmate for Benji," he offered without looking at her. "Sure sounds like they spend a lot of time at Flushing Meadows. Kid seems to like the Hall of Science."

She nodded. "Thanks," she said quietly.

Mark gave no response – like they were both supposed to pretend he hadn't said it.

She sighed and looked at the table. He seemed OK. He seemed to know what he was doing. Elliot trusted him. She didn't really care who her lawyer was. Not really. All she cared about was ending up with her little boy at the end of all this.

"Start the paperwork, Mark," she said. "I'll talk to Jack. I'll call you in the next couple days to set up a meeting."

He gave her a little smile and a small nod. "OK. Good."


	48. Chapter 48

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia looked up from her work when she heard Rollins ask, "Looking for someone?"

The almost too quiet response from behind her had been, "I came to talk to her."

She knew the voice and she'd rotated in her chair to find Jack standing several feet behind her. He looked far more timid than usual – almost embarrassed. The teen met her eyes briefly but then quickly became very interested in his feet.

"Hey," he mumbled, still without looking at her.

She sighed and stood up. "Let's find a room," she told him, and lightly touched his shoulder, turning him to follow after her.

"Liv? Need some help?" Rollins had called after her.

But she'd just glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. "We're good. I'll be back in a few minutes."

It was past the end of the workday for most at that point – so there were options of where to take Jack to get some privacy. Really, the hallway might've been private enough. But she knew if they ended up going at each other, it'd likely attract attention and be embarrassing. She wanted to avoid that. So she opened the doors of one of the interrogation rooms and nodded at him to go inside. He looked hesitant about it.

"I want some privacy for us to talk, Jack," she told him sternly.

He let out a small sigh and walked inside – looking around and standing by the metal table and chair almost like he was scared of it. She shut the door and with the sound of it, he spun around again and kind of looked at her and then longingly at the door. He seemed almost a little scared of being in there.

Good, she thought. He could deal with some fear. Maybe it'd give him a small glimpse of what he'd put his little nephew through.

"Is this an interrogation room?" he asked. "Like I'm a suspect or something?"

She crossed her arms and took one of her favourite spots against the wall – out of sight of the window for anyone passing by and looking in on them.

"It's an interview room," she corrected. "Sit down."

She could see him biting at the inside of his cheek when she demanded that of him. He clearly didn't want to.

"Sit down, Jack," she ordered again, this time with a bit more force in her voice.

He glanced at her and then looked in the mirror of the one-way glass. He looked so uncomfortable. The most uncomfortable she'd seen him – and she was going to let him continue to feel that way. She'd really just picked the room for the privacy factor, but if he found the room intimidating, maybe he'd drop the attitude and listen for a few minutes.

"Is that a window?" he asked quietly. At least he'd moved his hand to the back of the chair as he considered the mirror. She allowed him a small nod. "So are people watching us?"

She snorted and shook her head. "No one has any reason to watch us, Jack. Sit down."

He looked at her again for a moment but did slowly lower himself into the cold, hard metal chair and then rest his elbows on the table. He pulled his arms towards him almost protectively after they did settle there and he continued to glance around the dimly-lit room, taking in the concrete walls and the recording equipment up in the corner.

His whole body language had changed in the room. She could tell he felt like he was in trouble – and rather than that adding to the defiant chip on his shoulder, he looked like he just wanted out of there. Mr. Big Shot – the teen who wanted to know if she'd had kill shots, who delivered snark to her every chance he got, who made sure to let her know he thought she was about as dumb as shit, who was convinced he didn't really need anyone – he'd left the building. She thought if she did actually settle into interrogation room mode, she'd likely make him cry for his mommy. But that wasn't her objective.

"You've had me pretty worried about you," she told him after giving him an extended amount of time to really feel the chill and hardness of the seat, the loneliness and claustrophobia of the room.

He looked up at her and over to the wall she was still leaning against with some surprise. "Why?"

"Because I didn't know where you were, Jack. I knew you were upset – under distress. But I didn't know where your head was at. If you were OK."

He pulled his eyes away from her at that and went back to examining hands on the table.

"Are you OK?" she asked him directly.

He shrugged. "Yeah," he said so quietly she could barely make it out.

But she nodded. "OK. That's good. I'm glad – because I am also incredibly mad at you, Jack."

She saw his eyes dart in her direction but he didn't move his head – keeping his chin downcast and face long, like he really was guilty of something.

"I really hate it when you don't look at me when I'm talking to you, Jack," she said to him rather directly and sternly. "It's so disrespectful. I look at you while you're speaking – even when you're saying things I really don't like."

He let out a deep breath at that but instead of looking at her, his head drifted up so he could gaze at the ceiling – like maybe the answers that would get him through this conversation would be there. She let him look at it – hoping that he'd eventually look at her instead. He didn't, though.

"So is this where you yell at me?" he asked.

"Do you want me to yell at you?" she returned and finally moved across the room and took the seat across from him. She brought her hand up so she could rest her cheek and chin against it while she watched him and waited for him to answer. He looked like he hadn't been shaving – though his facial hair clearly grew at an extremely slow rate. He was patchy and scruffy-looking with his teenaged stubble. "Is that how you respond to people, Jack? Conversations have to be confrontational? Your uncle yelled at you, was rough with you, so now you think you have to be the same way with everyone else whenever you think you're about to hear something you don't like?"

He finally did meet her eyes at that. They looked sad – a little scared and very tired. She knew he would've spent the last five days simmering in guilt. If they were at the farm, she suspected, he likely would've been terrified to go home. Still she knew he likely had to build up a lot of courage to convince himself he did need to come talk to her. She wanted to keep him in his place – but this wasn't the farm and she wasn't his angry uncle.

"I don't want to yell at you, Jack," she told him. "I don't want us to yell at each other. I want us to talk."

He exhaled another deep breath at that and returned his gaze to examining his hands on the table. She let him do that for a few minutes – waiting to see if he'd open the conversation, if he'd offer an apology or an explanation, or even say why he was there. She was glad he was – that he'd taken the step to re-enter the conversation on his own, that she hadn't had to force it on him during his shift at work the next day. As the minutes ticked by, though, he didn't say anything more. So she decided to open the conversation – to get it moving and to start it with the information that would likely enrage him the most.

"I spoke to a lawyer earlier today," she offered, "about Benji."

He did look at her at that. "What do you mean?" he demanded, though not quiet as loudly or angrily as she might've have expected.

She brought her hand away from her face and clasped it together with her opposite one on the table, making sure to give him her full eye contact and complete attention.

"What you did, Jack, just proved to me that you aren't in a position to be able to raise your nephew," she told him flatly. "I'm talking to a lawyer about what the best options are for Benji – to make sure he's getting the care he needs, and deserves."

Jack gaped at her a bit and shook his head. "I … I just couldn't do it anymore. He just kept crying and whining and talking and …"

She held up her hand. "That's what little boys do, Jack," she told him sternly. "That's not going to change. It might be the reason you did it – but it's not a very good excuse even."

"I just …"

She shook her head. "Jack – asking for help – there is no shame in asking for help. There is nothing cowardly in asking for help. It takes a lot of strength of person to know when you need help and to be able to go out and admit it and to get it. But what you did – leaving Benji alone, in the dark, in the street – that was cowardly. It was mean. What if I hadn't come down? What if I hadn't been there?"

"I knew you'd come down," he said at a near whisper.

"None of us know anything a hundred per cent. Benji could've been left alone out there. He was alone out there long enough as it was. He was terrified. He is still terrified."

His eyes snapped to her at that and for the first time she actual saw some regret in his eyes and a more real realization of what exactly he'd done.

"What would you be doing if I didn't live in the city? If you hadn't found me? If I hadn't been willing or able to help you?"

He shrugged. "I don't know," he replied so quietly.

"What you're doing … it's not working. Not for you and not for Benji," she told him.

He hung his head and looked at the table again. She again let him sit in that silence and reflection for some time.

"So you're having a lawyer get children's aid to come and take him or something?" Jack finally asked.

She shook her head. "No. I'm having my lawyer help me get legal custody of Benji."

He looked at her and there was a glint of anger starting to flicker in his irises.

"Jack – I have the financial means to care for him. I have space in my life – and my heart - for him. I have a lot more life experience to draw from to raise him. I'm ready and I'm willing to do this. I want to do this."

"You don't make sense," he mumbled at her. "You don't even know us. You don't even know him. You're just … desperate. It's pathetic."

She didn't like him saying it. It bothered her. A lot. But she forced herself to keep her temper and emotions even – and for her voice to follow suit. "Is that what you need to hear me say, Jack? What you want me to say?"

He glared at her.

She rubbed her eyebrow. "You want me to talk to you like an adult? I will. You're right. I haven't had much luck with relationships. I've been married to my job for a long time. That was a choice I made and now I'm middle-aged and I'm alone. I don't have a family. I know that, Jack. But I have wanted a family – a child – for a long time. Not when I was 21. Not when I knew your dad. But my life priorities have shifted a lot over the past seven years or so. I've looked into adoption. I've looked into in-vitro. I've explored options. None of them have worked out for me yet. So, yes, this situation is appealing to me. I think it should be appealing to you too. And, I'm going to be pursuing this with or without your co-operation."

"That's not fair," Jack spat and slapped his hands onto the table, his face starting to flush red with anger. "I … I came to you to get some help. Not for you to take him away."

She shook her head. "I'm not trying to take him away, Jack. I'm trying to give him a better life. He deserves that. What's been happening to him these last several months – even all of what he's had to put up with so far in his short life – that's what's not fair. None of it has been situations that a little boy should have to deal with or endure or try to understand."

Jack brought up his clenched hands and beat them against his forehead, his face become more flushed. She had to lean far across the purposefully wide table – designed to keep the room's occupants out of reach of each other – but she managed to grab his wrists and pull his hands hard back down to the table. His eyes were welling.

"Don't do that to yourself," she shook her head at him. "Don't fit yourself. Hurt yourself. That just makes me worry about you more."

"You can't just take him away," he near sputtered. "It's not fair."

"I'm not trying to take him away, Jack," she told him again. "I want you to be involved in his life. That's important to me. It's very important for both of you. In an ideal situation, I'd like us to get to the point that you're the top name on my list of people to call if I get called in on a weekend and someone needs to watch Benji. I want to trust leaving him in your care. I want him to not be scared about what's going to happen when he's alone with you – that he won't be yelled at or won't be left behind somewhere. I want him to be able to go out skateboarding with you. I want you to be able to come over and see him whenever you want. I want you two to continue to have a relationship. I want you to be welcome in my home. I want you to get to be his uncle – not his parent – and to be a good friend and good role model for him. That's what I want, Jack. I don't want to take him away. This isn't about that."

"He's not yours," Jack spat at her.

"He's a person, Jack," she said. "He doesn't belong to anyone."

"You aren't his family," he told her through gritted teeth.

"I'd like him to be," she told him. "I would really like him to be."

Shook her head and sighed. She tapped at her chest, just above her heart. "He's stolen a big piece of my heart, Jack. Already. It's been a month – and I feel it already. I love him. I can give him a good life. He will be cared for. He will be loved. He will be spoiled even. Don't try to take that opportunity away from him."

Jack made a loud and frustrated sound and slammed the heels of his hands into his eyes. She took his distracted opportunity to swipe at her own too, where she could feel the tears starting to well. But she wasn't going to get that emotional in front of him – not now.

"I think it's pretty special he's your dad's grandson too," she told him after she managed to compose herself again. He hadn't and still wasn't looking at her – his face buried in his hands. "I like that a lot."

"You hardly knew my dad to care," Jack mumbled through his hands.

"I knew your dad in that period of his life. We all go through different phases in our lives. But I see bits of your dad in you. I see it in Benji too. It makes me smile. It brings back happy memories. It feels a bit like a do-over in some ways for me."

He was still visibly upset and offered no response.

"You know, Jack, I think part of the reason that you came and found me is because you wanted to be able to talk to someone who knew your dad and had memories of him. That you're looking for that connection? I'm happy to talk to you about your dad, if that's what you want. I'd like to hear more about the man he grew into. I'd even like to hear some of the college stories he told you."

He folded his arms and put his head on the table at that. Looking at his back, she could see his breathing had changed drastically, and though she couldn't hear any sobs, she was pretty certain he was crying.

"Things are going to be alright, Jack," she assured him. "I know the last few years have been really hard for you. I know growing up had its share of challenges for you too. I know you don't really like me comparing my experiences to things you've gone through – but I do think I can relate to more than you know. We can talk. Or I can just listen. I'm willing to do that for you. You don't have to feel alone. You aren't alone, Jack. I want for us to work through this together. I think you working with me on this is best for Benji. But I really do believe it's for the best for your life and future too, sweetheart. I hope that at the end of this you'll be able to think of the three of us as a family – that we'll be able to establish a family for you again. I'd really like for you to get on-board with that idea – and stop fighting me every step of the way. You found me. You wanted help. Let me help."


	49. Chapter 49

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Cragen looked at his watch as he came into the squad room to find it vacant except for Rollins. It was after 6:30 p.m. already. He hadn't realized he'd be stuck down at Police Plaza that long. But at this rate, it seemed like the day was never going to end.

"Has everyone headed home?" he commented at Rollins, as he folded his coat over his arm and headed towards his office.

"John just went out to grab his dinner," she told him, barely looking up from whatever paperwork she was still busily working away on.

Cragen allowed a small nod and then glanced around the quiet squad. His detectives better enjoy their evenings, he thought, because things were about to get busy when they got in for shift in the morning. He'd been so wrapped up in running the afternoon's discussions over in his mind and what he would be relaying to his detectives, that he hadn't paid much attention to the time to know he wouldn't have to lay down the law with the group of them by the time he got back.

"Did Benson ever come back from whatever she disappeared to this afternoon?" he asked Rollins. Olivia's attendance record had been spotty at best lately and her level of engagement on the job just hadn't been there. It'd been more than apparent that Amaro was covering her ass.

He'd had to bark at her about where she was going when he saw her clearly getting ready to leave the station earlier in the day – yet she hadn't notified him she was off anywhere or working on some case. She'd begrudgingly allowed that she was taking a couple hours personal time and she'd be back.

"You better make up the time," he'd told her sternly.

He knew it wasn't entirely fair. Olivia had put in more than her share of extra hours over the years and had never put up any fuss about it. But things were different now. They were all being watched so carefully – and she just didn't seem to care lately. She was still doing her own thing – marching to her own drum. Not to mention, she clearly thought her number of years on the job put her in the position to make her own calls on things without having to ask permission or even give a heads up. Him being her superior didn't seem to matter much to her anymore. She was constantly bending the rules and pushing the limits. It was going to get them all in trouble – and it certainly wasn't helping him while he remained under the microscope.

"Oh yeah, she's still here," Rollins had confirmed. "She took some kid down to an interview room a while ago."

Cragen raised an eyebrow at that and dropped his jacket over the back of the chair at one of the vacant desks. "Did she catch something?"

"I think she's just taking a statement or something. Kid asked for her."

"You're letting her work it alone?"

Rollins finally looked up at him at that. "She said she was all good, Captain."

Cragen shook his head slightly annoyed and headed towards the interview rooms. He found his detective sitting inside one, leaning across the table with her hand resting on the forearm of the teen who was sitting across from her. His face was clearly flushed red and evidence of tears were streaked down his face. He was hardly looking at her, though, it looked like she was speaking. He could just see the side of her jaw moving slowly.

He shook his head again. If this kid's story warranted her taking him to an interview room and not just taking his statement at her desk – she shouldn't have been in there alone. Even worse that the kid was clearly emotional and she was touching him. His detective's judgment hadn't been stellar lately. She was too distracted. It was starting to really affect her work. It was pissing him off – but it was also concerning him.

He pushed in the button on the intercom next to the door to get a gauge on what the hell was going on in there.

"Can I see him?" the kid asked her.

Benson had shaken her head. "No. Not yet. That's not a good idea."

"That's not fair," the kid had mumbled. "You can't keep him from me."

"He's still very hurt and very scared, Jack. We can talk about that more tomorrow and figure out how we're going to do that. Benji needs time to be prepared to see you. You can't just see him tonight."

"Is he OK?"

"He is scared. He is hurt. He is very clingy and very teary. But he is safe."

"Where is he now?"

"He's safe."

"Is he at daycare?"

"Jack …"

"Did you hand him over to ACS?" the kid demanded louder. "To the lawyer?"

"Jack, I don't want you to do anything stupid again. He is safe. He is being looked after. I'll be seeing him soon."

The kid brought his hand up and rolled his forehead around on his palm, resting his the weight of his hunched body against it.

"Do I need a lawyer?" the kid asked.

"Not if you're going to co-operate with me on this," Benson had replied, "you don't need a lawyer."

And, that was it – Cragen knocked hard and loud on the window. He didn't know what the hell was going on in there – but his detectives did not advise against obtaining legal counsel.

He saw the kid's head snap up at his knock, though.

"I thought you said this was private? That no one was listening?" the kid demanded. He sounded about ready to freak out.

Benson glanced over her shoulder and gazed into the mirror, letting out an extremely audible sigh.

"Someone likely just wants to use the room. Com'on," she told him, "we'll talk more tomorrow. I need to head out soon too anyway."

Benson kept her eyes on the one-way as she walked the boy towards the door. It seemed like it she was very conscious that it was him who would be on the other side and she didn't look pleased. And, she wasn't. She burned her eyes into him as she came out with the teen. Cragen just glared back – preparing for a talk he knew his detective didn't want to have.

Benson pulled her eyes away from him, though, and squeezed the kid's elbow. "OK, Jack, I'll be by your work tomorrow around 5:30. Make sure you tell your boss you'll be taking a break around then – and make sure you're there. You're going to make this a lot harder on yourself if you avoid all of this."

The kid didn't offer her any response but also eyed Cragen as he walked away. There was a considerable amount of distrust and distaste in the look as he did.

Cragen turned his eyes back to his detective as the kid disappeared down the hall.

"What the hell are you doing?" he demanded of her.

She shook her head and started to walk away. "Now – I'm going home."

Her movement away from him just pissed him off at her even more. He spun and barked at her back, "If a victim's statement warrants taking in an interview room – it warrants there being two detectives in there. Follow procedure, detective."

He heard her snort at that and her walk back to the squad room stopped, her turning towards him and shaking her head. "At least that means you weren't eavesdropping on my personal conversation very long," she spat at him. "He's not work related."

He shoved his hands into his pockets and returned her steady glare. "You know better than to be using city property and city time for personal conversations too," he told her.

She shook her head – clearly upset with him calling her out on her behaviour as of late. But she started to move away from him again.

"Olivia," he called, "what the hell is going on?"

She stopped in her tracks again and now it was her head that hung while she examined the floor for several beats. She turned back towards him with her arms crossed tight across her chest.

"You know, I've given my life to this fucking squad," she told him. He could see the anger radiating off of her but her voice was ever. "It really pisses me off how much you've been up my ass lately – about nothing. I've seen you cut a lot of people slack over the years – Elliot, Fin, Nick, Rollins. Get off my back – and out of my business. PLEASE!"

"You want me out of your business, Olivia? Then don't bring your business to work – and don't you even suggest that I've never covered for you, had your back, or given you a huge breadth of leeway. I think we both know that's not true. Do you want me to start listing off all the times the rules have been bent in your name?"

She sighed and held up her hand. "Just … get off my back."

"I can't do that," Cragen told her. "Not with how you've been acting at work lately, Olivia. You've been missing time. You've been disappearing in the middle of the day without explanation and you aren't coming back with work done to show for it. You're distracted. It's pretty clear your partner is covering for you half the time. It seems like you're watching the clock most days anymore. You're out of here like a shot when your shift is over – no matter what our caseload is. Now you're bringing personal business into the squad – and taking it into our interview rooms? We're still under a pretty big microscope right now, Olivia. You can't be doing that."

"Who's fault is that?" she spat at him.

He bounced his hands in his pockets at that, clenching them tighter. He didn't like when she was disrespectful to him. He respected her too much to be able to take the attitude when she delivered it – when she slammed up her walls, even with those she knew cared about her. And, he really hated when it was her who brought up the allegations he'd had to endure. He knew his choices would forever result in whispers and looks – but he didn't like them coming from her even if she was at least doing it to his face.

"What is going on Olivia?" he asked again – flatly but purposefully.

She bounced her crossed arms against her chest at that and continued to glare at him.

"Don't make me get blindsided," he said. "I think we both know the danger of secrets – and what can happen when they surface."

She sighed and examined the floor some more. She finally looked up, making firm eye contact. "I'm taking legal custody of the little boy I had in here a few weeks ago. That was his current guardian. I was just making some arrangements to take some initial paperwork over for him to sign. That's all."

Cragen examined her at that – not sure what to say. He knew his detective wanted a family – that had been apparent for years. But he hadn't entirely seen this coming. He had thought that a mess might be in the works when he'd seen that little boy and she'd asked for the week off. Still, he hadn't quite spun it in his mind to take this form. And, when there had been no other mention of the child, he'd hoped that her story of a 'friend needing help' might've been partially true. He'd known something else was still going on with her absences and distractions – but he didn't think it would've been quite as involved as this. Legal custody of a child – that was big, life changing, career changing. It would mean more change for the squad room too.

Part of him wanted to be happy for her. He knew how hard it was to spend life alone – especially in their line of work. He knew she badly wanted a family. And, he certainly felt that Olivia deserved to be happy. But this sounded far from a done deal. It sounded like there was still a lot of potential for her to end up hurt and alone once again. He wasn't sure this was the best way for her to get what she'd clearly been looking for and hoping for so long.

"Guess I'm so desperate to have a family, I steal other people's children, right?" she finally spat at him, almost like she could hear his thoughts.

He shook his head at her and let out a breath, taking his own turn to examine the floor. "That's not what I was thinking," he said, "and that's never how I meant for you to take that comment, Olivia."

She shook her head and started to move again. "I need to go. His daycare closes soon."

"What's his name? The boy?" He called after her, sighing. He didn't want her to be hurt again. But he also didn't want for the squad – or him – to be the ones that ended up hurting her.

She looked over her shoulder at that. "Benjamin. … Benji."

"How old?"

"Four."

He gave a small nod, which she took as a conclusion of their talk and continued back down the hall. But he called out again. "Liv, you do need to make some time to talk to me," he called to her. "We need to talk about your availability."


	50. Chapter 50

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Hey, hey, Moms," Gecko greeted as they walked into the skate shop. "You bringing someone else to not spend money at my facility?"

Olivia just shook her head at him and rolled her eyes. "Where's Jack?" she asked. She couldn't see him over at the workshop counter at the back of the store where she'd found him on her previous visit to the shop.

Gecko just jutted his chin. "He's in back. You can go ahead. Don't be too hard on the fucker, ladies."

She gave Alex a little nod to follow her but the ADA looked about as perplexed by the shop as Olivia likely had on her first visit. Alex was glancing around amid the blaring music – clearly not sure what to make of the place. Olivia doubted she'd ever had reason to go into a skate shop before either – and was probably hoping she'd never have reason to again. But she finally made eye contact with her and Olivia gestured again for her to follow.

After they'd wandered to the back of the store and through the door in behind the workshop counter, they found Jack sitting on a counter top in the little break room that also looked like it was also serving as equipment storage space and an office. He had a half eaten apple in his one hand and a textbook in the other. Though the stereo wasn't going through the room – the blare of the music from the storefront was still echoing into the space.

"That your dinner?" Olivia asked and he glanced up at her and shrugged. She shook her head at him and rubbed at her eyebrow. "This is Alex Cabot," she gestured. "She's going to notarize the letter of designation for us."

"Well I haven't decided if I'm going to sign it yet," Jack told her with a clear edge to his voice.

"If you don't sign it – I'm well within my rights to take this to court now, Jack," she told him. "You can't just leave a child at someone's house. He's in complete limbo right now, especially if an emergency were to arise. If you don't sign it – I'm calling my lawyer and we're filing an emergency guardianship order tomorrow and I'm also going to have to call ACS."

Jack looked back to his textbook. "You've said that before. You haven't."

"You don't know that."

He shrugged. "You wouldn't still be threatening to do it, if you had."

Olivia sighed. So Alex took a step forward. "Jack, I'm a lawyer …"

"Her lawyer?" he demanded, his head snapping upright at that.

Alex shook her head. "No."

"Want to be my lawyer?"

Alex gave him a thin smile. "No, I don't. I'm here acting as a notary public, but if you want, I can go over this form with you, so you understand what's going on."

Jack shrugged. "I'm not signing it. So we don't need to go over it."

"Jack, I think maybe you should look it over," Alex advised. "Signing this form tonight would likely be easier for you and less emotionally and financially stressful than having to go through the courts."

"She can't make me sign it," he said again.

Olivia sighed. "OK, Jack," she looked at him, "I know you're struggling with the larger issues here. So let's take those off the table right now. This is not about the future. It's not about whether or not I'll get custody of Benji. This is about his immediate care. Right now – he is not in your care. He is in my care – and I need to have the ability to be able to care for him. You signing this form will provide me with the capacity to do that – for right now and for a specified period of time. That's what this is about."

"He's only in your care because you won't let me see him," Jack informed her.

"No, Jack, he is in my care because you left him on my doorstep, alone in the dark in the middle of the night."

He glared at her at that.

Alex pulled the document out of her briefcase and moved closer to him. "Why don't we just take a look at the form?" she said again and leaned against the counter next to him.

Jack glanced at it. "I thought you said it was a letter. That thing is a novel," he spat.

"It's a legal document," Alex told him. "It's really not that long and it's fairly basic. We can get through it quickly."

"Why's it say 'person in parental relationship'?" he demanded. "She's not his parent and she's not going to be."

Alex glanced up at Olivia, but she was shaking her head and examining the floor.

"The purpose of this legal agreement is to give Olivia the temporary designation of a parent to your nephew," Alex told Jack. "It will give her the ability to make what would be considered routine parental decisions. That's why it's labeled as a parental designation."

"She's not his parent," Jack stated again.

Alex ignored his repeated comment and just flipped a few pages in.

"This is the list of areas that Olivia will have the ability to make decisions regarding, to speak to professionals regarding, and to access documents and information about in relation to your nephew," she told Jack and stared running the top of her pen down the list for him. "So basically, it's his education and schooling, any medical issues and his health care, financial decisions around his care, and consenting to his participation in any activities that might require parental permission or a waiver.

"Olivia has also asked that some additional authorizations be added – so you can see those here," Alex said and tapped the pen against the hand-written clarifications. "So this clarifies that that the references to schooling include her ability to deal with his daycare and nursery school administrators and to make decisions there. It also provides her with the authorization to deal with having him enrolled in kindergarten in her school district."

"I know he needs to be enrolled in kindergarten," Jack spat out finally. "I'm not stupid. She doesn't need to do that."

"When's the enrollment period start, Jack?" Olivia asked him, looking up and meeting his eyes while he sat there and looked stumped and sputtering.

"It starts January 7th," she told him. "That's soon. It's coming up quickly. Do you have the documents you need ready to do that? Do you know what schools are in your district? Your zone? Do you know which school would be your first choice to have him enrolled in? Which schools you intend to rank as your second and third choices? If he doesn't get into those schools – do you really want him in just whichever school up there? There is one elementary school in my zone – and it's a good school. There is a reasonable chance he'll get admitted. Don't you think it makes more sense for me to deal with it?"

Jack offered no response and Alex went back to the document. "And this last addition, clarifies that for the mental health clause, she also has the ability to take him to a counselor or therapist – or a group session – in that realm. So basically, a qualified psychologist or social worker rather than just a psychiatrist."

"There is nothing wrong with Benji!" Jack blurted and glared at her. "You're going to make him feel fucked up."

Olivia let out a deep breath. "I do not think there is anything wrong with Benji," she said. "I do think that he's lost his mother and he's gone through a lot of change and confusion over the last several months. I think he MAY benefit from some form of counseling or therapy, Jack – with someone who knows how to talk to small children about these kinds of things. To give him an outlet to express some of his feelings and to ask questions. Just because he's four doesn't mean he isn't feeling very deeply about everything that is going on around him. Trust me – he really is."

"There is nothing wrong with him," Jack spat again.

"I do not think there is anything wrong with him," Olivia said again, "and I want to keep it that way."

"OK, Jack," Alex said, moving him along. "We can also add any clarifications or limitations here that you'd like to see included."

"She can't take him to the crazy doctors," Jack spat out. "You can strike that one out."

Alex nodded. "OK. Why don't you think about that for a few more minutes while we finish going over the rest of this – and we'll come back to it."

She flipped back to the first pages of the document. "So, Olivia has requested that this designation span the maximum six-month period. The designation can be revoked at any time with proper verbal, followed by written, notification and subsequent removal of the child."

"Like now?"

Alex ignored him. "And, you can see that the rest of the form has been filled out on your behalf. You'll likely want to look it over to make sure the information is correct. It's just your phone number and address – and confirming your name and age. We've got your nephew's name here as the child in question, and we'll need to fill in his exact birth date. When's that, Jack?"

"September what?" Olivia directed at him when he didn't respond to her friend.

Jack glared at her for several beats but then allowed, "Thirtieth."

Alex wrote it into the document. "OK. Then it identifies Olivia as the person you are temporarily entrusting your nephew's care to and are providing her with the parental designation. It confirms her age, phone number and address as well – should you need to reach her or have anyone else reach her on your behalf."

She flipped to the back of the document. "Then the rest of this lays out that during the duration of this designation, Olivia will have the ability to request, receive, review and have unlimited access to any records related to Benji – including confidential documentation – in terms of his health, financials, medical and personal-identifiable records."

"What's that even mean?" Jack groaned at her.

"It means she can request his previous health records, his birth certificate, information regarding his trust fund or any other monies that were left in his name."

"So it really means I'm making all of this easy for her to get what she needs to get what she wants?"

"Jack – there are all kinds of reasons that I may need a copy of his birth certificate. Enrolling him in kindergarten being one of them," she told him, starting to feel more than a little annoyed with him. "If something comes up – having access to his previous health records could become important. Beyond that, you're living in the city now – you should be finding him a doctor and having those records transferred here anyway. And, as for his finances – I really don't care. But I had offered previously to try to help you get access to some of that money now rather than waiting until you or him are 21. I'm really not after a four-year-old's money – if there even is any. Com'on. Stop being ridiculous."

Jack just glared at her some more.

"And, then, the last thing you should likely understand about this form is this final clause here," Alex said, pointing at the page for him. "It indicates that this designation can be renewed but provides the clarification that in that situation, long-term care providers should consider seeking a more permanent arrangement and that Olivia is within her rights to begin judicial proceedings to become Benji's legal guardian and to ask the court to determine his custody."

"So be signing this I'm basically just handing him over to her?"

"No," Alex told him sternly, "you are giving her the means to care for him for the next six months and you are acknowledging that because of that she has the right to seek a more permanent arrangement and for clarification around Benji's custody. That doesn't mean a judge would fall on her side."

"But it is opening the door in her favour?"

"I'm not here as a lawyer, Jack," Alex said, "and I don't practice family law. But I can tell you that you opened that door yourself the moment you left your nephew in her care."

Jack made a huffing sound. "Well, I'm not an idiot. I'm not signing something I haven't had a chance to read."

Olivia shook her head. "It's eight pages, Jack. Alex just went over it with you nearly clause-by-clause. But if you want to sit there and read it – we'll wait."

"I should likely have MY lawyer review it before I sign anything," he added back.

She snorted at that. "Your lawyer? OK, Jack. Let's put this another way – are you planning on coming and picking up Benji at some point soon? To take him home and care for him? Or are you planning on leaving him sitting at my apartment indefinitely?"

"You just said you were going to call ACS if I tried to come and get him," he shot back at her.

"I did. So are you planning on leaving him in my care? Or are you going to come and get him?"

He crossed his arms defiantly at that.

"I can't care for him properly, Jack, if you don't sign this document. Don't waste my time – or Alex's time. Sign the piece of paper."

"I'll tell my lawyer that you strong-armed me into signing this. That you threatened me," he told her.

She shrugged. "OK. You do that."

Alex held out a pen to Olivia. "OK, Liv, I'm going to need you to sign here," she told her, clearly trying to move things along for everyone.

She stepped forward and filled in the couple lines before signing and dating the form. Alex nodded and then notarized below it, adding her stamp to the piece of paper. She flipped back to where Jack needed to sign.

"OK, Jack, we've got two dotted-lines to get your signature on," she told him, offering him the pen.

He didn't take it and instead glared at Olivia more.

"Jack, we can argue about the rest of what I want later," she told him, "right now – this is 100 per cent about Benji and ensuring he is properly cared for for the next six months. That will take you through until the end of school too. Don't be an idoit. Take advantage of this. Sign the paper."

"Is this going to make it easier for her lawyer to get her Benji?" Jack demanded of Alex.

"I don't practice family law, Jack, and I'm not here to give legal advice – to either of you. I'm here to witness you signing the form. That's all."

"Is she paying you for this?" he spat at her.

She shook her head. "No."

"Do you know her?"

She nodded. "Yes."

"How?"

"We work together."

He looked back at Olivia. "You think just because you're a cop and just because you know lawyers you can do whatever you want."

She sighed. "No. I don't Jack. I really, really don't. That's not the way these things work. And, you know what? We could go through all of this – but the reality is, if you aren't on-board with this and you don't co-operate with me – there's a very real chance I won't get custody of Benji. But I think if you aren't on-board and you don't co-operate – it's not just me you're going to be hurting. You're hurting yourself and you're really going to hurt that little boy too. And, we still aren't talking about any of that right now. Right now – the only thing I'm concerned about is being able to take care of Benji while he is living with me. Right now – I can't do that properly, so I need you to sign this paperwork. Please, sign the document, Jack."

"I want to talk to you first – alone," he spat.

She shook her head. "Sign the document – and then Alex will go and get a copy made for you while we talk."

He sat glaring at her.

"OK. Jack – this is ridiculous. I have Benji in my home. I'm caring for him – and legally – my hands are tied. If even minor things come up at nursery school – I can't do anything. Right now, I don't even have any way to reach you if something did come up and a decision needed to be made immediately. I'm having to chase you around and call your boss to get your fucking schedule and hope you show up at work that day."

"Because you aren't his parent," Jack told her defiantly.

"Yes. Because I'm not his parent. But you have placed me in that role – and I need the ability to be able to do that."

"Or you could let me come and take him home."

"So you can lose control of the situation again? What happens the next time you can't deal with him, Jack? Where are you going to take him? How are you going to deal with it? You must be coming up on exams. Have you been able to bring your grades up? Finished your assignments? Do you have time to study?"

He glared at her.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "I'm really sick of playing this game, Jack. Each step doesn't need to be a battle. The harder you make this – the more you're hurting yourself and the more you're hurting Benji. I deal with this kind of bullshit every day. You're pissing me off – but this game, this attitude – it's not me that's going to be hurting in the end."

He didn't answer.

She sighed. "OK," she shrugged. "Don't sign it. But as soon as I get out this door, I'm on the phone with my lawyer and the paperwork for an emergency order is going in tomorrow morning, Jack. I can't continue to do this and not have the ability to make decisions or legally take care of him. It's dangerous, it's irresponsible and it puts me in a horrible position." She gestured at Alex. "We're leaving."

They started moving towards the door but it finally prompted Jack to do what Olivia knew he was going to do anyway, which was what had made the battle that much more infuriating. "OK. I'll sign it," he said.

Olivia really had to pull everything together in herself to keep from outwardly showing how aggravated she was – to keep from shaking her head or rolling her eyes. So she kept her back to Jack for a moment while Alex returned with the paperwork and again showed him where to sign.

He considered the page for sometime. "Does it have to be for six months?" he asked quietly.

"Six-months is the maximum period allowed at a time for the designation," Alex told him. "If you went shorter, you'd have to keep renewing it. It's easier to take the maximum and to know you can revoke it at any time, should there be a reason to do that."

"It seems like a long time," Jack said. "He hasn't even been with me six months."

"Six months is the period of time that Olivia is requesting," Alex told him again.

"It can't be shorter?"

"It can be – but like I just explained – six months likely makes the most sense unless you have reason to believe you won't need her help caring for your nephew for that whole period."

"I can care for Benji," Jack said.

"That's really something for you and Olivia to discuss – or for you all to discuss with your lawyers."

"I can't afford a lawyer," Jack said quietly.

"If you're going to be challenging this, you can go to a legal aid office," Alex told him. "I'm sure there's some sort of clinic on campus as well."

Olivia turned around. "Jack – stop worrying about the big picture right now. This is just about the now. This doesn't determine the rest of it."

He sighed but finally put the pen to the paper and signed in the two places Alex pointed out for him, and she followed suit, signing, dating and putting her seal.

Olivia felt her heart skip a little as the signatures finally went into place. Relief washed over her and some more hope. She didn't want Jack to feel like he'd been played – but she hoped having him agree to the six-month period would work in her favour. She knew that all of this could still go badly – that it may end up not meaning anything or even being a real factor in the court's decision around her challenge. But it was a positive first step. And, now she was going to have Benji for six months. She had faith she could leverage that six months into giving him a forever home and for her to finally have a family. It could be really happening.

Alex glanced at Liv as she finished. "I'll go see if he can make some copies of this for us and wait out front," she said and headed out the door.

Olivia crossed her arms and looked at Jack, who was examining the floor. "Thank you," she said.

He gave a small nod.

"You wanted to talk?"

He shrugged.

She let out a small sigh and shook her head. "OK, Jack, we've played enough games for one night. You want to talk or you don't want to talk – but I'm not going to stand here and try to pry a conversation out of you."

"You said we could talk about when I could see Benji again," he said quietly.

She nodded. "OK." She stuck her hand into her jacket pocket and pulled out his abandoned phone. "Here. Us being able to communicate with each other is going to be a good step in that direction."

He took it and looked at it for a few moments like it was some kind of foreign object. "So when can I?" he finally asked.

She shrugged. "I'll start talking to him about that tonight and gauging his readiness to do that. Maybe this weekend."

Jack gave a small nod. "I miss him," he said quietly.

"I know. He misses you too. But he's still very scared that you hate him, that you're going to yell at him and that you're going to leave him somewhere alone. There's been waterworks every day so far this week dropping him off at nursery school, Jack. They've been calling my phone during the day to talk to him. He's crying when it starts to get dark and I haven't picked him up yet. So we're talking tears from about 4:30 on, Jack. He's exhausting himself. He's spent. He's likely over there in hysterics right now."

Jack hung his head more at that. "I … didn't mean … for that to happen … I just … couldn't …"

"I know Jack. But how you dealt with the situation is having its implications – on him and now on you. So I need some time to prepare him for a visit."

He nodded – and then bounced his heel on the back of the counter he was sitting on, like he was thinking.

"Is that it?" Olivia asked. "I want to go and pick him up. This has already taken longer than I wanted it to. Longer than it needed to."

Jack didn't make eye contact with her. He just kept looking at the ground. "That thing you mentioned yesterday. How's it work?"

She sighed. "What 'thing', Jack? We talked about lots of 'things' yesterday."

He was quiet again for an extended period. "You being guardian of me too. What's that mean?"

She sighed. He was driving her crazy. He had put on such a show and such a fight about signing the damn form. He wouldn't tell her if he was on-board in terms of Benji or not. He was challenging her every step of the way – but he wanted to know about this. And, she had to just go with the flow. Not let her frustration and anger with him show and try to work with him on this.

For the first time since being in the room, she pulled out one of the two chairs sitting at the small, cluttered table in the room. It didn't look like anyone actually used it to sit at. It was a flat surface to pile crap on. She sat.

"Come sit down, Jack," she said.

He glanced at her. "I am sitting."

She let out a breath and just left it. "OK. If I were your guardian, it would mean until your 21st birthday, I'd have parental responsibilities to you – similar to what talked about today with Benji."

"That's dumb. You can't be making decisions about my schooling and stuff."

She shook her head. "No. It's not like that. It's more … you could sign onto my health benefits at work, which is likely better than what you have right now. If something happened to you and you weren't able to make your own decisions while you were sick – if you were incapacitated in some way – I could make decisions for you. I could tell the doctors to go ahead with a surgery or an MRI or to give you a medication. Things like that. If you got into some sort of financial mess – I'd be financially responsible for you. I could be a guarantor for you on a loan or lease. I'd legally have your back for the next three years – until you're done university."

Jack stayed quiet and continued to examine the dirty floor.

"If that's something you're thinking about, Jack. We can schedule a meeting with my lawyer. We can go over and talk to him about it. He can explain more to you about how it would work – better than me."

He shrugged. "Maybe."

She nodded. "OK. Maybe. Have you decided if you're going to be working with me on Benji's custody or not?"

He shook his head.

She nodded again. "OK, Jack. You think about it a bit more – but know that I'm in the process of getting the paperwork together I need to file in court. This is happening with or without your support. And, it's happening soon. I'd still prefer for all three of us to be in this together. Hurting you is not part of my objective."

He allowed a small nod at that.

She watched him for a few minutes. He wasn't talking and his body language was still so sad and so stressed.

"How are you doing with your school work?" she asked.

He shrugged.

"You think you're going to manage to hold onto that scholarship?"

"I don't know," he said quietly.

"I think you should really be trying to focus on that right now," she told him.

He shrugged again.

She tapped on the table. "When I was looking into you, Jack, the press release from the university, about you being one of that year's honors students, it listed what you guys get at the school. Housing benefits were on the list. Do you have a room in residence? And you just couldn't live there because of Benji?"

Jack glanced over at her and actually briefly made eye contact. "Yeah," he said quietly.

She nodded. "Well, Benji's going to be with me until the end of the academic year now, Jack," she said. "Are you month-to-month with your apartment?" He barely nodded. "I think you should be typing up a letter for your landlord tonight – and dropping by there when you get home – and telling him you're moving out. Move back into residence. Save the money you're making here. Does your housing benefit include a meal plan?"

"Sort of. They give you a bit of money on your account at the beginning of the year. It doesn't go very far."

"OK. Well, if you get out of that apartment, you're going to have more money to buy into something like that, aren't you?"

He shrugged at her again.

"An apple is not dinner, Jack. How you're eating isn't helping you focus on your studies at all. You need to get some real food into you. Get out of that apartment. Get back into residence – and take advantage of that that means … free everything … laundry, phone, internet, cable, laundry. I've looked into the residence buildings there, Jack. They have a fitness centre, billiards rooms, study lounges, TV lounges. You must've had fun living there last year? I don't know why you aren't jumping at the opportunity to live there now. That's a huge money saver. It's a big deal. Your scholarship is a big deal. You being in the honors program is a big deal. The architecture school – urban planning and design – at City. It's all a big deal."

He just shrugged again. So she sighed.

"Jack, you wanting to hurt me is one thing. But you hurting yourself – that's another. Take advantage of these next six months. This is a big opportunity for you – you can focus on your studies now. Keep that scholarship. Find some time for fun. Act like a kid your age. Go play some pool. Go skate. Go to some parties. Take Gwen on a date."

"I'm not dating Gwen," he spat at her.

She looked at him. She'd clearly hit a sore spot – what, she wasn't quite sure. But she just nodded at him.

"OK, sweetheart. I didn't mean anything by it. She just seemed nice … and interested."

"Don't call my sweetheart either."

She looked at the table. "Sorry. I didn't even realize I said it."

He was quiet again.

"Do you have a mentor or advisor who follows your academic progress?" she asked. He allowed a small nod. "Are they talking to you about how this semester has been going for you?"

"Yeah," he near whispered.

"Are you listening to them? And any advice they're giving you?"

He shrugged.

"I hope you are." He still offered nothing. "Have you told anyone about what you've been dealing with this semester? What happened at home over the summer and the added responsibilities you've had this term?"

Another shrug.

"I think you should make that priority too. I don't know how much they'll be able to help you at this point – but if you've got people there who believe in you, and I suspect you do, they're going to try to help you and accommodate you as much as they can. They're going to wish you told them sooner about what's going on – so they could've helped you."

He still wasn't looking at her and wasn't talking.

She sighed. "OK, Jack," she said after giving him several more minutes of opportunity. "I'm going to get going. I'll be in touch. I think we'll start you out on the phone with Benji and work up to having a get-together. I think you should be prepared to offer him an apology and a lot of assurances – that you love him, that you don't hate him, and that you will NEVER do anything like that to him again. And, mean it, Jack. Really mean it.

"You call me too. Or text. Whatever you're most comfortable with. About any of this. About your decision. About if you want to come to one of the meetings with my lawyer with me. Or just to talk. OK?"

Still nothing.

She nodded and gave the table a bit of a sad look. She didn't know if she was getting through to him. She didn't know if she ever really would – if he'd ever be willing to drop some of the walls and really let her in.

"OK," she said and stood. She stepped towards him and gave his elbow a squeeze and a small rub on his back. He didn't jerk away at least. "I care about you, Jack," she told him quietly. "You aren't alone. Hang in there. I'll see you later."

He didn't say anything so she just left him to continue to sit and examine the floor.


	51. Chapter 51

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia gave Benji a little smile as she got down onto the floor next to him where he was again sitting behind the couch and working at building something with his few Duplo blocks. She didn't think she'd ever had reason to even consider sitting on the floor in her apartment before. Now she felt like she was spending at least 60 per cent of her time in the place either sitting on the ground, crawling around on the ground or picking things up off ground.

It had taken the better part of a week – but she'd finally managed a day where she did actually get out of the squad around 5 p.m. It had made all the difference in maintaining her and Benji's sanity levels so far that evening. She was definitely finding that even for her it was just feeling a little less overwhelming and exhausting.

The week had just been so fucking busy. In addition to dealing with him, she was also trying to get everything Mark needed in order: background check, criminal record check, fingerprinting. She'd called a broker and now was dealing with the emails, texts and phone calls from her as the woman tried to set up viewings for her. She'd tried to express that she really didn't want to do more than a few and that she wasn't going to be overly picky – two bedrooms, clean and in good repair, preferably the same neighbourhood and a specific price cap. Hell, she'd almost prefer if it did just end up in the same building – make it as easy as possible. It was just a lot above and beyond what had become her normal routine of … well, just going to work and staying at work. She knew it was a good change and a change she wanted. She was just struggling with how exhausting it was while she was trying to find a workable routine for her and Benji too – and deal with his anxieties and issues.

It was the first night she'd managed to go and retrieve him before the daycare was readying to roll up the doors. The first part of the week had been pretty miserable for both of them. With picking him up at 7 p.m. – it meant she wasn't getting him home until 7:30 or 8, which really should've been when she was trying to get him to bed. Instead she was trying to get some food into him and to spool him down. He had himself so wound up when she picked him up each night – traumatized that it was dark and she wasn't coming back – that it had taken an extended amount of time and reassurances to calm him. He was wailing enough as she carried him down the street and home each night, that she'd earned glances from other passersby, likely wondering what sort of strange torture she was putting the child through. And, then the fact that she was getting him home and settled so late – it just meant he was going to bed later, which meant he was getting less sleep, which was just making him even more exhausted for the next day. It'd been a bit of a vicious cycle.

She'd struggled with finding a balance in terms of her home-time and parenting while Calvin had been in her care too. But at least with Calvin she could leave him alone for a while – and he was such a nighthawk anyway. She'd never really found a true routine with Calvin – she really hadn't had him long enough - but at least she had a bit of leeway with him. She didn't really with Benji – that was becoming abundantly clear quickly.

She was going to need to figure out a way to have him home by dinnertime most nights and to be able to be starting him into bedtime routine by about 7 p.m. – not picking him up at daycare at that time. And, really, that was likely going to be a challenge because she knew there were going to be a lot of nights where even getting out of the squad by 7 p.m. was going to be unrealistic. She'd been very lucky so far. It wasn't always going to be like that. It was another reason Jack needed to get onboard – she needed his help to be able to do this. Who the hell else did she have to call when she got tied up at work?

Benji was fairing much better that evening, though, with them arriving home in time for her to make him a real dinner. She'd never really been very good at cooking for one. Who wants to put all that time and energy into the cooking and clean up for just themselves? But she really didn't mind doing it for other people. She really had tried while Calvin was with her. But he was a picky eater and unless it came out of the freezer section and involved punching some numbers into the microwave to get it ready – he would turn up his nose at it. More points for Vivian's parenting abilities, she'd thought with some disgust. Benji turned up his nose at just about everything she put in front of him too (unless it was toast and peanut butter), usually accompanied with a rejection of "Not veg-tab-bulls 'gin 'Livia!" and then he ate it anyway. And, he usually ate all of it. Not that she was putting heaping helpings in front of him – but still. She was surprised at his appetite. Maybe he was going through a growth spurt. He certainly looked like he had room to grow – even compared to some of the other kids at the nursery school. Getting a little healthy weight on him likely wouldn't hurt him either, she thought. She'd already noticed that his complexion had improved over the month where she'd been responsible for the majority of his meals. He was always going to be a fair-skinned child but at least he didn't look as waxy and pasty as when she'd first met him.

She was generally feeling a lot more comfortable with how that evening was going for both of them. It wasn't even 7:30 yet and she'd fed him, got him through bath-time and had him in his pajamas. She was letting him play a bit and she was pretty confident she'd have him read to and into bed by 8 p.m. She'd actually manage to get some time to get some things done or catch up on work before she passed out herself. She'd decided adding a child to the mix was a pretty good cure from her insomnia. Dealing with Benji and all that entailed after dealing with work all day left her more than ready to grab some sack time most nights it seemed.

"What you building sweetheart?" she asked him, after he hardly acknowledged her arrival at his level, he was so absorbed in his construction project.

"Steps," he informed her matter-of-factly.

She allowed a small smile and shook her head. "Steps?" For once what he was making out of the bricks was actually recognizable as what it was supposed to be. Not that steps seemed like an overly exciting thing to build.

He just nodded at her, though, still completely focused on the task at hand.

"What are the steps for, Benj?"

"Flame needs them."

She smiled again. "Why does Flame need them?"

"To jump off."

"To jump off?"

"He need to learn to fly. So first he jump."

"Ah," she allowed and again tried not to laugh at Benji's imagination. "Don't you think he might hurt himself if he jumps off the steps?"

"Skaters jump off steps all the time, 'Livia," he told her like she was pretty stupid.

"Do they ever fall?"

He shook his head. She didn't believe him. "They fly."

"They fly?"

He nodded.

"Hmm. I might have to see that."

He nodded. "It very cool."

She let out a little noise of humour at him – but he didn't seem to notice. "So is Flame going to skateboard down the steps?"

"NO 'LIVIA!" Benji protested finally looking at her. "He jump and then he fly."

She again tried not to laugh at him and nodded in agreement. "Ah."

She watched him for a few more minutes. He seemed determined to use every one of the bricks in his little collection to build his steps. It looked like Flame was going to have a long way to fall to learn how to fly. Fortunately she estimated that the dragon was about as tall as Benji's creation, so she thought the toy should likely survive the little boy's imaginative efforts.

"Hey, Benj, I've got something for you," she told him after observing for a while longer. She pulled the shopping bag she'd put behind her out into his view.

He looked up and examined her and the bag questioningly, if not a little suspiciously. Benji seemed consistently hesitant of anything new being presented on the scene – especially if it was something being given to him. He seemed to really struggle with the concept of receiving things – it was such a foreign idea. He was consistently asking if items cost money and informing her they couldn't afford it and they 'could do free, it OK'. So rather than jump at the opportunity to see what was in the bag – like she would've expected most four-year-olds to do – he turned back to his project.

"Wazzit?" he asked cautiously.

"Well, why don't you look in the bag and see what it is, Benj?" she tried to encourage him.

She wasn't sure Benji and presents really worked – or would. Even picking clothes with him had been a challenge – him being given the opportunity to pick the police cruiser and Flame had been even more extended affairs. A gift where it was an unknown – a present – that seemed like it would be an even harder concept for him to grasp. He'd already directly informed her that Christmas was for rich people and that he was not rich – closely followed by Santa doesn't exist, adding that Santa had not ever visited him in his recollection.

She hadn't tried to argue with him about it either way yet. She wasn't sure how she wanted to deal with Christmas. Part of her really wanted to get to do a Christmas – especially with a little kid on the scene. But she didn't want it to be a stressful or traumatizing experience for Benji. Getting him to accept a single toy took enough convincing, getting him to look into a bag with an unknown in it was taking coaxing. She imagined convincing him to open presents and that they were actually his would be a little overwhelming, if not downright confusing for him.

But not doing something for him over the holidays seemed wrong too. Maybe she should just be focusing on the paperwork and routine and everything else, though, and not worrying about a one-day-a-year thing. It just seemed like such a defining part of childhood and it made her a little sad he hadn't experienced it. It'd be one thing if he was able to spout off some talk that made her think the family had been more religious than she thought and he had 'Jesus is the reason of the season' notions to project at her. But, instead, it just sounded like more of the Lewis family being in shambles in Benji's formative years so he had missed out. She didn't really think that that meant he should continue to miss out – and that she should continue to miss out too. If things didn't work out – this year could be one of her only chances to ever get to do a 'normal' Christmas, as abnormal as it might be to 'normal' families. It could potentially be the most normal Christmas she'd ever had.

She pushed the bag a little closer to Benji. "You want to take a look, sweetheart?"

He glanced at her. "Wazzit?" he asked again.

"You want me to take it out of the bag for you, Benj?" she asked.

He scrunched up his face in thought at that and added another brick to his steps. But then he got up on his knees and gazed into the bag. He looked up at her again.

"You can take it out of the bag, sweetheart," she assured him. "It's for you."

He sat on his heels in front of the bag like he had to consider that. Everything was a consideration with Benji. She kept having to make sure that everything had extra time ahead of it – not just preschooler get-ready time but Benji maul-things-over time, which seemed to sometimes take a rather extended period. It didn't matter if the decision was if he needed to take a pee, if he wanted a glass of milk or water, or what book he wanted from the library. It all seemed like it had to go through a series of checks-and-balances in his little head before he decided how he wanted to proceed. She was trying not to rush him. She wanted him to be secure in knowing that she respected his decisions – and that she wouldn't get upset with whatever he decided, or how long he took to decide. He was safe with her was the message she was trying to get across.

So she waited - on the cool, hard hardwood floor. It had her thinking she really needed to add some sort of rug for behind the couch, where he seemed to favour playing, to her ever growing list of things that she needed to make her apartment more suitable for a child. When she'd have the time or the extra income on her pay cheque to run out and get some of those things was another story. Though, she supposed after she did manage to find somewhere to move she was going to have to go on a bank-breaking shopping spree to get him some furniture for his bedroom. Or at least a bed. She supposed she could get a way with just a bed to start – maybe – assuming she didn't end up having to do a home study. Somehow she doubted a room with just a bed in it would earn her parental-material points.

Thank God for having near no life for 14 years, she supposed – at least it meant she had savings to put towards some of this stuff. Still, she thought she could've lived a little more frugally. She'd actually decided that after she had realized how much in-vitro would cost and then factored that expense into the cost of just raising a child and then the cost of raising a child in New York City, especially if she wanted to stay in Manhattan on a cop's salary. Even then – she could've dealt with putting more away with each pay cheque, she was quickly realizing with Benji. Start-up costs of getting him established were adding up. Nursery school was a small fortune. But for once at least she had something meaningful to spend the money on.

Benji finally leaned forward again and pulled out the stuffie and hugged it too his chest. He'd clearly figured out what it was before he'd taken out of the bag, because he gazed at it in complete fixation, before starting to play with its ears.

"It Mommy Fox," he said quietly.

She gave him a little smile. "It is."

She reached out too and stroked the one ear of the toy as well, before reaching and brushing at his hair. She hadn't done a very good job at toweling it dry that night. It still felt damp and with how Benji wringed about the cold, she thought she might have to give it a second try before she put him down. Though, if she didn't, she might save them both the effort of getting it to stand on end 'right' in the morning.

"I know you've had a pretty rough week at nursery school, sweetheart," she told him, "and I thought maybe if Mommy Fox goes with you to keep you company, it will be a little easier for you to be brave after it starts to get dark."

He looked at her and wrapped his arms around the stuffie tighter.

"Mommy Fox wouldn't leave Little Fox after waiting for him for so long, right?"

Benji considered the toy and then looked in the bag again. "But where Little Fox now 'Livia?"

She gave him a small smile. "You're Little Fox, Benj."

He looked at her again at that and then back to the stuffie. "Mommy Fox lonely for Little Fox," he said, again repeating back the lines of the story that she'd read for him an endless number of times that week.

She nodded. "Until Little Fox comes home," she agreed. "So she's not lonely anymore. Now she just wants Little Fox to be as happy as she is. So I think she'd like to go to nursery school with you – and see everything you get to do there. See how smart you are."

Benji nodded and kept looking into the toy's dark beaded eyes. Mommy Fox might beat out Flame in the tag-along department for a while, it looked like.

She tugged at his foot until he glanced at her again.

"Sweetheart, there's something else I want to talk to you about," she told him, trying to get him to keep the eye contact, but he was far more absorbed in holding the toy at that point. She wasn't sure if that was a good or bad thing for this discussion so she'd just have to see how it went and adjust with how it goes. "You're going to live with me for a little while, Benji."

He glanced at her. "I aw-ready live with you 'Livia," he informed her.

She smiled. "I know, sweetheart. But now you're officially going to live with me. I talked to Jack and he said it's OK."

"Becuz Peedg do not like me no more?"

She shook her head. "No. Because winters are very cold and very lonely and I told Jack how much I would like your company so it's not as cold and lonely."

"Like Mommy Fox and Little Fox?"

She nodded. "Like Mommy Fox and Little Fox."

"But then Peedg be lonely and cold," Benji lamented.

She shook her head again. "No. Jack told me he's going to be soooo busy this winter. He has so much big boy schoolwork to get done. But he'd still really like to play with you and visit. I thought maybe we should call him before story-time and tell him good night."

"But maybe he hate me still," Benji said and examined his new toy some more.

"I don't think he hates you, Benji," she told him. "I think he really, really loves you. He just made a big mistake and I think he is very sorry and would really like to tell you that."

"He left and he not come back," the little boy informed her.

She nodded. "He did. Do you want him to come back, Benj? Would you like to play with Jack?"

He gazed at her at that and again made his thinking face. "He yell?"

"No, sweetheart, Jack isn't going to yell at you."

"Maybe he yell and swear 'gin."

"If he does, Mommy Fox and me are going to be there to protect you," she promised him.

"Maybe he make me go 'gin!" Benji said and shot her his big blue eyes at that.

She shook her head at that. "No, sweetheart. You're home now. You are staying here with me and Mommy Fox. Jack signed a piece of paper that says you can live with me for six months. And I'd like you to stay so much I'm talking with people to try to make sure you can stay for as long as you want – much longer than six months."

Benji looked at her like was trying to process that. She didn't blame him for not being able to wrap his little head around it.

"I'd like you to live here with me, Benji," she tried again. "If that's OK with you."

He considered that more. "Forever?" he asked after a long pause.

"Right now – for six months. Until winter is over and it's spring and warm again."

"You don't want me forever?"

"I'd like forever very much, Benji, and I'm working really hard to make sure this is going to be your forever home."

"With Mommy Fox?"

"With Mommy Fox, sweetheart."


	52. Chapter 52

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia crawled out from under the blankets and cushions of the fort her living room had been transformed into.

If someone had told her two months ago that she'd on a Saturday in the not-too-distant future she'd be gathering all the clean linen in her house, moving around her living room furniture, dining table chairs and island stools – and then devising ways to make a fort that meet a four-year-olds coolness factor, followed by crawling around on the floor to get inside it and play with him – she probably wouldn't have quite believed them. But that's exactly what her Saturday had looked like so far. They'd managed to determine that both foxes and dragons lived in dens. So they weren't technically in a fort – they were in a den. And, if Benji had his way, they'd be staying in the den all day.

"'Livia it not time to go yet!" he protested as she worked at getting up to go and see who has pushing on the buzzer.

She wasn't sure who it was – but she hoped it wasn't Jack. They'd agreed they'd get together at the story-time and craft-time at the library the next day. If Benji managed not to freak out about the visit – they'd go for lunch and then maybe the park or a visit at the apartment. She really hoped that Jack was respecting the set-upon plan and not aiming to derail things when they'd managed to make progress with him and Benji over the phone.

"I'm just seeing who's at the door, Benj," she assured him. "I'll be right back."

She pushed the intercom button in. "Hello?"

"It's Alex. Let me up."

She made a face at the intercom but pushed the button to buzz her in. Alex two weekends in a row? That was out of character for her. Really the only time they got together outside of work was something bookended with work – lunch, a drink, a coffee, dinner. Really getting together outside of the office only happened maybe every few months and was almost always planned in advance – not random phone calls or drop-ins.

"'Livia come back," Benji called at her – having now stuck his head out of one of the little passages made out of two narrowly-balancing cushions from the couch. It was really only big enough for him to scoot in-and-out of, though he seemed convinced she should be able to contort herself enough to get through it without causing the entire fort to crash down around them. They'd reached a compromise of creating a second passage for her with the two chairs from the dining table instead.

"Alex is coming up," she told him, "and the cookies are almost done. I'll come back after that."

"Cookies?"

"Will come out of the oven in a few minutes but then they need time to cool, Benj. So a while yet."

He growled at her – she wasn't sure if it was a fox growl or a dragon growl – and disappeared back under the tent of blankets.

Olivia moved over to the door and popped it open just as Alex knocked on it.

"Hey?" she greeted her questioningly but let her in.

"Hey," Alex nodded and wandered inside.

Olivia wasn't sure of the purpose of the visit so she made no move to offer to take her coat or anything else. Beyond that – Alex had been at her place often enough to know there were hooks by the door and where the closet was, if she did intend to stay. Olivia didn't really excel at playing hostess anyway.

"What's up?" Liv asked as she moved back towards the kitchen, readying herself to pull the peanut butter M+M cookies from the oven when the timer went off.

Alex shrugged and followed after her. "Nothing. Just checking on you. You seemed … a little overwhelmed the other night."

Olivia snorted and shook her head. "Just tired. All things Jack-related seem to wreck havoc on my blood pressure."

Alex shot her a small smile but had clearly turned her attention to the mass of blankets that had taken up occupancy in her living room. "Can cope with rapists and pedophiles but not a snotty teenager?"

"He's particularly snotty," Olivia allowed.

"Oh, I thought he was delightful," Alex teased her. "What are you two up to?"

"Hanging out," Olivia allowed. "Making forts and cookies."

Alex shook her head at her. "Aren't you becoming all domesticated?"

She rolled her eyes at that. Benji had crawled back out to peak at them and Alex spotted him.

"Hello Benjamin," she called at him, clearly with a tease to her voice.

He purposefully pushed the draped blanket up on the top of his forehead just using his head so she could catch full sight of his face – and then blew another farting raspberry in her direction.

"Mmm," she allowed and looked back at Liv. "Still working on those manners?"

"I think he likes you," she told her.

Alex nodded. "Yeah. I definitely get that impression."

She dug around in her oversized purse for a moment and pulled out something that Olivia quickly recognized as a shirt. "Here, I got something for you," Alex said as spread it out on the island counter for her to take a look at. Olivia eyed it for a moment. "Well, it's for him," she allowed, "but it's more for you. It meets his green and blue requirement."

Olivia snorted at that. "It does meet the green and blue requirement," she agreed. She gave the shirt a small smile, though a little sad. It had 'My Mom is outta your league' plastered across the front of it.

"You're going to get him Liv," Alex assured her after Olivia had gazed at it for several seconds but said nothing more. "You need to calm down about it. You can't be this stressed about the whole thing for the next however many months. It's not going to be good for any of you if you are."

"Arrr," she sighed and shook her head, shrugging in the process.

She just didn't know. She believed it –but she didn't. She still really felt that this could all just fall apart at any time- kind of like the precarious fort in her living room. One false move and the thing was just going to collapse around Benji.

"You're out of Jack's league," Alex told her. "He's not going to challenge it anyway. You could tell. He wants the easy out too. He's just not ready to admit it yet."

Liv rubbed at her eyebrow. "It's just that…"

"You didn't have a lawyer with Calvin," Alex told her before she could even get anymore out. "You didn't actively pursue it. This is different – and a completely different situation legally too."

Liv just eyed her and shook her head not knowing what more to say. She hated it a little that Alex could tell how worked up she was about the whole situation when she felt she was doing a pretty good job at keeping it all private and in check.

"It's a cute shirt," she allowed. "Thank you."

"You need to calm down," Alex stressed to her again.

She nodded. "Yea. I'll be fine – as soon as I've got some of this paperwork out of the way. … Find an apartment."

"Did you get a broker? Just suck it up – let one of them handle that. Just like getting a family attorney. Let them do their job."

She allowed a small nod. "Yea. She's actually set up an appointment for me to go look at a suite upstairs this afternoon. That's how ridiculous this city is – I need a broker to go look at an apartment in the building I'm already living in."

"Let her handle it," Alex said again. "It's one less thing for you to stress about."

She nodded again but didn't say anything. She was going to stress about it anyway. Even if the broker was on the lookout and setting up the appointments – it was still going to be her who had to go and look at the places and decide if they would work for her and Benji, and if she could realistically afford it, and if it was in an area she wanted, and if she'd be putting all that money into moving and a more expensive lease only to have it ripped out from under her in a few months. There was a stress-factor to it no matter how she contrived it.

"Here," Alex pulled another piece of clothing out of her purse and put it on the counter too. "There's what I really got you. Met his green and dinosaur requirement. Did not meet your under $10 requirement."

Olivia snorted as she examined the knitted vest with the skiing dinosaur in a Santa hat on it. "Very Christmas-y," she commented a little sarcastically.

"You can really only get so Christmas-y when he has skateboarding, dinosaurs, trucks, robots requirements," Alex commented back to her with just as much irony in her voice.

Olivia allowed a small laugh at that. "Good thing he's anti-Christmas then."

Alex shook her head at that. "No way. You're putting him in the vest and taking him to do pictures at Macy's or the precinct holiday party or the detective's association party or the Rockettes – or something. Liv – you've got to do some of the fun stuff or you're going to go crazy. Don't just sit around waiting for all the paperwork to go through – you're just going to miss out on opportunities. Don't do that to yourself."

"We do fun stuff," she offered in somewhat weak protest.

"Your fort looks pretty fun," Alex allowed, though Liv wasn't sure she quite believed her. "And, looking at a construction site for half-an-hour last weekend – my definition of a good time."

Olivia allowed another snort at that and shook her head while she examined the counter and the two shirts.

"Go do some of the things you've been waiting to do," Alex said. "You've been waiting long enough."

Olivia gazed at her at that and let out a breath. "I haven't decided what I'm going to do with him in terms of Christmas yet," she said.

"Stop thinking about it," Alex said. "Just do it. You think you can't convince a four-year-old that Santa exists? You're losing your touch."

The timer on the oven went off and Liv glanced over her shoulder and moved to get the heating pads to grab the try. Alex started to move away from the counter and over to the fort.

"I'll convince him," she said. "Argue my case."

Liv snorted again from where she was grabbing the cookies from the oven. "Good luck with that," she called back to Alex, who she saw now crouching at the dining room chair entrance of the fort.

"GIRLS NOT ALLOWED!" Olivia heard Benji protest at her from inside the structure.

"What?" Alex said in clear shock. "Olivia's a girl. She was in here."

"She not a girl!" Benji protested back.

"Ahhh, yes, she is," Alex clarified for him.

"SHE IS MOMMY FOX. YOU DO NOT KNOW HOW TO BE MOMMY FOX. YOU NOT ALLOWED IN THE DEN!"

Liv saw Alex glance over at her, where she was now working at getting the cookies off the tray and one the cooling racks. There was a clear look of 'what the fuck' on her face. But she just sat her ass on the ground outside the fort.

"OK, I'll talk to you from out here," she told Benji.

Olivia snorted at that and listened as Alex and Benji again began a heated exchange around if Christmas wasn't just for rich people and if Santa existed. It seemed about as productive as Alex's previous arguments with him on if skateboarding and ice skating could both be called skating and which piece of heavy equipment was called a bulldozer. So to each lawyer-style argument she directed at the little boy, it was returned with a "NO!" or "YOU WRONG!" It sounded like she was making a lot of progress.

Another knock came on the apartment door – and Liv looked at it questioningly. She saw Alex looking up at her with the same questioning look that was likely playing across her own face.

"Mr. Delightful?" Alex suggested.

Liv shrugged. "We're supposed to see him tomorrow."

She moved towards the door and looked out the peephole – and let out a small sigh.

It was Elliot – once again making it into her building without buzzing up. She was starting to think that maybe she should switch buildings and get into one with a doorman. Her quiet day of recuperation with Benji was quickly taking the turn towards disrupted and exceedingly awkward.

She hadn't mentioned to Alex yet that her and Elliot were speaking again, let alone that he'd recommended her lawyer. Him showing up at her door was only going to raise eyebrows from her friend – and possibly vice versa. But she knew Elliot had likely heard her move towards the door – she couldn't very well not answer it.

She pulled open the door and looked at him. "Hi," she offered.

He just nodded at her and stood like he expected her to let him in unquestioning this time. She didn't.

"Still don't get invited in?" he asked after several beats of her once again blocking the door from his entrance. She probably would've let him in that time if Alex hadn't been sitting on the floor in her living room. Though, she knew at that point the damage was likely already done. Alex would've heard his voice – and even if she couldn't see him from where she was sitting – it likely would've clicked who was speaking.

"El, it's just not a good time," she tried – and then nearly rolled her eyes at herself, realizing she'd used his name, so even if Alex hadn't gawked to see who the male voice at her door was, she'd definitely know now.

Elliot shrugged, though, clearly looked a little offended. He pushed his hand into his pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "Mark asked me to give this to you."

She took it and unfolded the medical form and looked at it. Mark had mentioned to her the other day on the phone that he wanted her to go and get it filled out by her doctor.

"He could've emailed this to me," she said to Elliot. "Actually, I think he did," she added as she examined it more closely.

Elliot just shrugged again. "He said you had some papers that I could pick up on his behalf."

She gave him a questioning look. "I see him again next week."

Another shrug. "OK. I can take them to him now, if you want him to review them before your meeting," he offered.

"Ah, OK," she allowed at that. She didn't really see what difference it would make. But if the guy was a work-o-holic and wanted to go over some of her paperwork on the weekend, she supposed she'd take it. Maybe it would hurry things along a little faster. And, she didn't really care about Elliot toting around her background check or criminal record check – and the shocking information contained on them. He'd have seen it all before and heard it all before anyway. There wasn't much to tell.

She let him inside – a little weary about it. She knew he hadn't spotted she already had company yet but Alex clearly had. She was standing up as they both came back into the kitchen area. Liv headed over to her desk, where she'd left the paperwork – as Elliot spotted Alex. The ADA offered him a small smile.

"Hi," she offered.

Elliot looked a little stunned to see her there and had a brief deer-in-the-headlights moment, going so far to uncomfortably examine the floor for a moment. "Hey," he returned.

"Liv, I'm going to take off," Alex called over at her where she was still ruffling through the desk drawer and purposefully staying out of the encounter. Not really wanting to explain the situation to either of them – or see how they interacted with each other either.

"I'm just dropping something off," Elliot interjected on Liv's behalf.

Alex shook her head. "I was just dropping something off too," she said. "I'll see you on Monday, Liv."

Olivia sighed. "You don't have to leave, Alex."

She gave her a small smile. "It's OK." She glanced back down at Benji. "You better not let him in there just because he's a boy."

Benji farted another raspberry at her at that but then disappeared back further into the fort. He wasn't too sure about Elliot yet – or any men.

Alex gave Elliot a nod as she stepped by him. "Nice to see you Stabler," she said.

He just raised his eyebrows and didn't return any comment, still examining the floor a little embarrassed.

"Bye," Liv said quietly as her friend left and then shook her head a bit as the door closed.

Elliot looked at her. "Sorry," he said, "I didn't know you'd have company."

She shrugged and rubbed at her eyebrow. "It's OK," she said and walked back over to hand him the couple documents she'd managed to have returned to her so far. But she wasn't really sure how OK it was.

Alex was probably going to be even more pissed off that she hadn't mentioned she was communicating with Elliot than she had been to discover she had Benji and hadn't told her. Not only that, she'd want to know why Elliot was at her home on a Saturday. Basically there was going to be an awkward conversation on Monday that she didn't really want to have. What was she supposed to say anyway? 'I really needed to talk to someone about the whole Benji thing and rather than talk to the people who are still in my life – I reached out to the guy who really hurt me and then didn't speak to me for a year? And, apparently it was getting myself into another mess with a kid was what it took to get him to actually return my call? Oh – and his marriage is in shambles again – and I think I'm using his divorce or child custody lawyer.' That'd be a good conversation.

"I wasn't interrupting something?"

Olivia gave him a look of disgust but shrugged. "Alex trying to get Benji to buy into the magic of Christmas."

"He's back?"

"No. I just usually keep my living room arranged like this," she shook her head at him.

He just gave her a look and then examined the structure. "Your fort looks slightly structurally unsound."

"Well I'm sure you have vast fort building experience compared to me," she allowed.

"DEN NOT FORT," Benji hollered from somewhere under the blankets.

"I don't have much den building experience," Elliot offered. "Maybe that's what a den is supposed to look like.

She allowed him a small smile for that.

"What are you two up to?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Down day. I have an apartment to go look at in a bit."

"Two bedroom?"

"Yeah."

He nodded.

"You don't have Eli this weekend?"

He nodded his head behind him – towards God knows what. "He's with Dickie. They did some sort of overnight thing at Intrepid. I'm picking him up in about an hour. Thought I'd stop by. Give you the form for Mark."

"Mmm," she allowed. Good excuse to come by, she thought. But at least he was trying, which was really more than she'd usually expect from Elliot. He sometimes really sucked in the effort department. "How you and Dickie getting along these days?"

Elliot shrugged again and made that indifferent sound he always seemed to like. She knew there was nothing indifferent about him when it came to his relationship with his oldest son. But the lack of verbal response told her all she needed to know – things were still strained between them.

She felt bad for Elliot. He'd tried to be a good father but somewhere along the way his relationship with his kids just hadn't stood the test. His and Kathy's first separation, the signed divorce papers, that likely had been a good enough wedge. Them having another baby when they kids were nearly grown was likely just an added challenge for the family surmount and she knew all-too-well that kids at that age were less-than-forgiving and really not overly-mature in how they dealt with changes in their reality. Add in Kathleen's mental illness and Dickie's brushes with the law and loss of his best friend, which he blamed his father for – and it was a difficult brew for any family to really deal with. The only Stabler kid that seemed to come away from it all truly unscathed or not outwardly resentful towards her father was Elisabeth and Olivia suspected that that was really an illusion too. Lizzie had put her nose in books and focused on her academics as a coping mechanism. Olivia was all-too-familiar with that path during family turmoil and torment during the teen years.

She was sure the latest drama in the Stabler household was just making things even more turmoil in all their relationships – even if the kids were technically grown. Dickie and Lizzie wouldn't be much older than Jack. She knew that wouldn't leave them very sympathetic or understanding of what either of their parents were going through, what was best for the family or what was best for Eli.

"Benj, you want to come out and say hello to Elliot," she called in the direction of the fort. Maybe getting to witness her mess for a while would make him feel better about his.

"NO!" Benji responded with little doubt in his voice.

"Do you want to show Elliot the cookies you made?" she tried again.

There was some rustling and Benji peeked his head out the little passage again. "Cookies?" he enquired.

"Come share your cookies with everyone," she nodded.

Benji scrunched up his face for a moment but then crawled the rest of the way out and came over to her – making sure to give Elliot a wide breadth, despite him giving the little boy a small smile. Benji latched two of his little fingers around her one belt loop as soon as he got over to her and leaned against her leg, giving Elliot a look of suspicion.

"It's just Elliot," she told him. "Remember? You met him at the park a few weeks ago."

Benji offered no response beyond clinging to her a bit more. She just shook her head at him and grabbed the carton of milk out of the fridge.

"Here," she held it down for him. "Take that to the table."

Benji complied but kept glancing over his shoulder at the man in her apartment. She realized as he got to the table that there weren't any chairs there for them to sit and have snack and she doubted her starting to dismantle his fort-den was going to go over well.

"I can't offer you anywhere to sit, but I can get you a coffee," she told him.

Elliot gave her a small shake of the head. "Milk and cookies sounds good."

She allowed a small nod and grabbed a few glasses from the cupboard and a plate to put a few of the cookies on from the cooling racks. They were still super warm and gooey.

Elliot followed her over to the table and Benji immediately grabbed at the cookies.

"Benj, they're still hot," she warned him as he squished it in his hand and shoved it into his mouth. He seemed pretty undeterred by their temperature level. She started to pour him a glass of milk.

"BIG GLASS," he demanded.

She rolled her eyes at him. "Little glass," she told him. "You can have a second glass it you want another."

"I take to den," he informed her.

She shook her head again. "You can take a cookie to the den. You can't take milk in there."

"Why?"

"Because you'll spill it," she told him simply.

He glared at her but chugged his glass of milk and then disappeared with another cookie in hand. She was sure it'd be squished all over his hand, the floor and the blankets by the time he did crawl back into the space. She let him anyway. She figured he'd probably still lick it off his hand and anything else he could find – and she wasn't going to argue with him about it. Five-second rule.

She offered Elliot a glass and cookie. "They are literally sugar and butter," she informed him as he took one off the plate.

"The best kind," he told her and took a bite. "Good," he nodded.

She shrugged. "Benji made them. Sort of."

He allowed a small smile and stood looking at the fort quietly while he finished chewing on his cookie. Benji was talking to himself inside it – mostly nonsense between him and Flame and Mommy Fox.

Elliot shook his head at her. "This looks good on you," he offered.

She raised her eyebrow at him. "What?"

He nodded towards the messy of blankets and the hidden chatter of the little boy. "This," he allowed again.


	53. Chapter 53

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She still wasn't really sure what she was supposed to say to Elliot – and really comfortable silences didn't feel so comfortable anymore, especially with him taking up space in her home. She felt like she wasn't supposed to ask him about his family, not about him or how he was doing, not about what he was doing, not about what was going on with him and Kathy. She felt like she wasn't supposed to talk about her work.

She knew she was likely allowed to talk about the things going on in her life or what had gone on in the past year or so. Previously she had wanted to tell him about some of those things, rant at him, vent at him, bounce things off him, get his advice or disapproving looks. But now – seeing how he was interacting with her and knowing she'd hand out information about her life and get very little in return about his – she didn't much feel like spilling her guts and laying it all out there for him to see.

She didn't know why she would've expected more from him – or imagined things could be different somehow now. He always knew more about what was going on in her life than she ever knew about his. He'd tell her the good things – the little anecdotes about the kids. Sometimes he'd vent the usual parental-type things at her – annoyances of raising girls, head-butts with Dickie. But he never went into the bad times – the things he might've needed help with – to her. It always kind of came out eventually and she'd find out about it in a backward manner – and, it was always clear he didn't like that very much. She didn't much like it that way either. It always hurt a little that he never felt like he could directly talk to her about those sorts of things when he knew so much about her and some of the things and areas of her life that she kept hidden from most other people.

She knew it was a guy thing – an army thing, a cop thing, a Irish thing, an alpha male thing – or just an Elliot thing. But it still stung sometimes. And right now, it was making her want to keep her cards close to her chest too.

Elliot seemed pretty transfixed with just watching the glimpses of Benji under the blankets of the fort and eavesdropping on the little bits of his conversation in his imaginary play. He wasn't talking and she was starting to think, he was just going to stand in her kitchen for about half-an-hour and then leave to go pick up Eli. It annoyed her slightly. Re-establishing a friendship was going to take a bit more communication on both of their parts. It really wasn't going to be worth salvaging if they couldn't talk to each other. Elliot wasn't on the list of men she just wanted to take up space with.

"Four's a fun age," he finally offered, still looking over at the little boy. Olivia could see him through one of the openings. He was building what looked like a pen with his blocks and based on the conversation it sounded like Flame was about to be put into the cage as some sort of punishment for biting Mommy Fox's tail.

"He's busy," Olivia returned.

Elliot glanced at her and gave her a small smile at that. "Boys," he said.

She shrugged. She didn't have a real point of comparison – beyond the interactions she had with kids at work but that wasn't really comparable at all.

"Mark's helping?" he asked simple.

"Yea. He seems on the ball. Thanks."

He nodded at that. "Good."

She considered him and rubbed at her eyebrow. "He said you're a client?"

He glanced at her again but didn't say anything.

"You want to talk about it?"

He shook his head just slightly enough for her to see.

She sighed. "Look, Elliot, I'm … glad to see you. Really glad. And, I appreciate you setting me up with Mark … and you trying to be supportive. But I … don't know what I'm allowed to talk about with you … and standing around not talking just really isn't going to work for me. It's not like before. Sitting in a squad car in silence for hours is one thing. You standing in my apartment and not talking … now … it's another."

He looked at her. "What do you want to talk about?"

She snorted. "I'd like you to participate in the conversation," she told him.

He shrugged. "I don't have much to talk about."

She let out a small laugh. She was annoyed. "We haven't spoken for more than a year. You don't have anything to talk about?"

He just shrugged again. So she sighed and took another sip of her tea.

"Where's the apartment you're looking at this afternoon?" he asked, apparently deciding that she was serious about the not-talking thing and to put some effort in.

"Upstairs," she said flatly.

He gave her a funny look. "Here?"

She nodded. "Yea."

"You're going to move in your building?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. Right now I'm going to go and look at an apartment in my building."

He shook his head at her.

"What?"

"Nothing," he said.

She rolled her eyes and let the silence fall over the room again.

"Where are you living these days?" she asked.

"Queens."

"At the house?"

"Sometimes."

She sighed. She put her mug down on the counter and crossed her arms, leaning back against the counter closest to the wall. He had his hands on her island and was putting his weight against it while he observed Benji.

"What are you doing with Eli for the rest of the day?" she tried.

He shrugged. "Dunno. Just hang out. Spend time together."

"What are you shooting for with him?" she asked.

He glanced at her again but shrugged.

"El, you've got to give me something here."

"How's the Cap?" he asked after several long beats of silence.

She watched him and let the silence hang between them even longer. "He's coping. I think he's at the point he's thinking about retirement more seriously. He'd likely like to hear from you."

He gave a small nod. "Munch? Fin?"

"They're OK too. Munch mostly sticks with graveyard anymore. Fin gets on pretty well with his new partner."

"What about you?"

"What about me?" she replied.

"New partner?"

"He's OK. He's young – but good police."

"Sounds like you're leaving something out," he said flatly.

She snorted. "El, there's a whole year of my life I'm leaving out. I'm not going to lay it all out if I'm not getting anything back. I don't think you really want to hear about work anyway."

He glanced back at her again but made no comment.

"What have you been doing to fill your time?" she tried again.

He again shrugged and kept his back to her. "Done a bit of consulting."

She watched the back of his head, hoping that if she drilled her eyes into it long enough he might actually turn around and have a real conversation with her face-to-face. But he ignored her.

She let out another sigh and shook her head and examined the ground. "I really hope you've been getting some help, El. Seeing a counselor or… something," she said a bit more quietly. She knew he wouldn't like it. She could see his body tense a bit at it and he offered no response.

"I should get going," he said eventually. "Need to get across town."

She shrugged. "OK," she agreed.

She followed back towards the door and he glanced back at the fort and jutted his chin. "Let me know how this turns out," he said, as he reached for the knob.

She just shook her head and examined the ground for a moment before meeting his eyes. "El …" she said almost too quietly but not really knowing what to say or how to interact with him, " … this hurts," she finally managed to get out. "How you decided to leave – that hurt - and how you're interacting with me now, it hurts too. I'm trying to take better cage of myself these days. I can't do … this."

He watched her for a moment. "I never meant to hurt you," he said.

Her hand had found his medallion around her neck. She wondered if he had noticed it there. She palmed it and ran it along the chain.

"Maybe but you knew you were," she told him. "You know me – and you knew with each call you didn't return, email you didn't answer, handing in your papers without giving me a heads up … you knew what you were doing. You just didn't want to deal with my feelings then. I can understand that. But – now … it's different. We aren't partners. This is not work. I'm not going to do … I'm not going to do an imbalanced relationship with you again. I can't. We're friends or we're not."

He examined her. "That your shrink talking?"

She snorted and looked at that ground. That comment stung too. "I've had a lot more pressing things to talk about with my shrink than you over the past six to eight months, El," she told him pointedly. He wanted her to be embarrassed or hurt – so she sidestepped it and threw it back at him.

"Like what?" he replied.

She shrugged. "Maybe if we start talking you might hear about some of them."

He looked at her but said nothing.

She sighed. "I want us to be friends," she stressed again. "I could use some friends these days."

He shook his head at her. "You have friends."

She snorted. "No, El. I don't. I have about as many friends as you do. I have work. But right now I could really use a bit of a support network. Having someone who's actually raised kids and has raised boys in that support network … it'd be nice."

He still said nothing.

She glanced over her shoulder and gestured at the fort. "I don't even know how to build a fort," she told him half-jokingly. "What the hell do I know about raising a man?"

He allowed her a small smile at that. "Probably a lot more than you think, Liv," he finally said. "You'll do fine. And, he seems pretty happy in your fort."

"DEN!" Benji hollered out of there again and then stuck his head out. "'Livia hurry up! Come back to play!"

"He seems pretty happy with you too," Elliot said a bit more quietly now.

She looked at the little boy for a few moments – he was giving her an expectant glare, like she should jump at his command. She shook her head and looked back to Elliot. "He's bossy. But he's making me pretty happy too," she admitted.

He nodded. "Good. You deserve that."

He finally made some real eye contact with her. She could see a deep sadness in his eyes. There wasn't as much rage and anger in them as she'd become so used to seeing while she was partnered with him. He just looked injured more than anything else now. It made her feel a little sorry for him. She could see that pieces of the man she'd come to know so well were missing.

"I've got to go," he said, "get Eli."

She nodded. "OK. I hope you two are able to have some fun together, enjoy each other."

He let out a little snort at that – almost like he didn't think that was a possibility. But she had trouble believing that his relationship with his small son could be that wounded already that Eli wouldn't enjoy Daddy time? There was a lot more to the story of what was going on with him and Kathy and how he'd dealt with the past year if that was true.

"Give me a heads up the next time you want to come over," she told him as he stepped outside the door. "Maybe we can do something with the kids?"

He allowed a small nod. "Yea. Maybe," he said and started to head towards the elevator. "You enjoy him."


	54. Chapter 54

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Why are your feet in the air?" Olivia shook her head at Benji. He was being goofy – and clearly was no longer listening to the story she was reading to him.

He reached up and grabbed at his toes with his hands. "You should put your feet in the air too 'Livia," he informed her without answering her question.

She snorted at him. "If I put my feet in the air – I'm going to knock down the den."

"Noooo," he protested.

She nodded. "Yes. My legs are a lot longer than yours."

He flopped his legs on top of her at that – firmly kicking her in the stomach, hard enough that she made a small noise and then grabbed at his feet to still them before he started flailing around like a maniac and kicking her harder. But he seemed to think it was all just a game and giggled.

"I take it you're done listening to the story?" she asked him, not waiting for an answer as she put down the book and poked at him, prompting a larger fit of giggles.

He rolled away from her and got up on his hands and legs – his ass stuck up in the air.

She shook her head. "Now what are you doing?"

He glanced at her as he continued to position his feet and balance on the tippy fingers of his casted arm. "London Bridge," he informed her.

"Ah," she said and watched his efforts from where she was still laying on her back under the blankets of the fort. "It looks like downward dog to me."

He glanced at her again. "I a dog," he said.

She snorted. It didn't matter how many times he said it – it still struck her as humourous. "You're a little boy."

"And a dog," he added.

She rolled her eyes.

"You know how to play London Bridge, 'Livia?" he asked.

"I vaguely remember playing London Bridge back in the last century," she told him.

He glanced at her again and gave her a funny look before moving towards her on his tippy-toes and tippy-fingers.

"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down …" he started to sing-song and then threw his one leg to her opposite side and then balanced on his one hand and moved it to her other side too.

She shook her head at him and put her hands up to support around his little belly.

"You better not be doing what I think you're doing," she smiled at him.

His mischievous grin just grew wider at that and he sputteringly giggled out the rest of his song.

"London Bridge is falling down, my fair is lay-day!"

She caught him as he let his arms and feet kick out from under him with the clear intention of flopping on top of her. Instead she lowered him slowly down – avoiding have his weight crash into her chest. Even for a little boy – she knew that would likely knock the wind out of her, if not leave a bruise. But he still giggled and flailed around on top of her.

"You're goofy," she informed him.

He moved his arms like he was going to get up and repeat his little game but she wrapped her arms around him in a hug.

"I don't think so, Benj," she said.

In his continued flailing he ended up planting his cast-encased hand smack on her face. She lifted her hand and moved it away.

"Gross, Benj. Keep that stinky, rotting cast out of my face," she teased him.

He flopped back down next to her at that. "Why it stinky, rotting?" he asked, looking at her questioningly, almost like he was offended.

"Because you've had it for over a month, Benji. That's what happens to casts."

He looked at her for a moment and then held up his cast to examine it. "When it go away?"

She shrugged. "We'll ask your doctor when we see him next week. Hopefully soon."

"Then I skate 'gin?"

She rolled her eyes at that. "We'll ask him about that too. Probably not right away."

"Prolly?"

"No. Probably not," she stressed.

He whacked his cast against her again and she again moved it away from her face. The thing seriously had a nasty odour at this point. She did actually hope that it would be coming off him soon. Beyond dealing with all the extra care around it – she wasn't sure how much more of the stench being shoved in her face she could take. It was starting to contend with things she'd had to smell in the morgue and Warner's lab.

"Did you like the apartment we looked at, Benj?" she asked, as he started rolling around and getting his feet in the air again while grabbing at them.

She knew he'd really have a staggering opinion and that it really mattered to her. She was actually finding it a little strange how Benji was becoming a source of conversation for her. She said the most random crap to him – things that he couldn't possibly have much of an opinion about, or an opinion that she really cared about, at least – but she still found herself putting it out there for him. And, he usually responded. It was usually a ridiculous response but it was a response. Probably kind of like some of the ridiculous comments from him that she responded to. The kinds of things that really didn't need any sort of response – and yet now she was commenting on them. And, she kind of liked it. It was nice to have someone to talk to – even if it was a four-year-old. She was so used to not having anyone to talk to while she was at home. Now she had a little person talking at her and to her and responding to her – even when she could use some quiet. It was taking some getting use to, but she thought she liked it.

"It had lots of frogs," Benji said.

She snorted. "Yes, there were lots of frogs in the bedroom. I think the little boy who lives there right now must really like frogs."

Benji glanced at her. "Dragons better… and foxes," he added.

She smiled. "Maybe. But I guess not to him."

Benji grabbed at his toes more and pulled his socks off. She just watched him but knew he'd be complaining about cold feet soon – and that the sock removal likely meant she was going to find them shoved between the cushions on the couch. That seemed to be his favourite place to put them – not the hamper.

"I think we might move into that apartment, Benj," she told him.

"Why?"

"So you can have a bedroom of your own."

"I have bedroom," Benji told her seriously.

"OK. So I can have a bedroom of my own," she corrected.

Benji considered that. "Will frogs be there?"

She let out a small laugh and shook her head. "No, Benj. The family living there would take their things with them – and we've move all the stuff in here upstairs."

"Why?"

"Because it would be where we'd live. We'd need all our stuff to make it home."

"But this home," he interjected.

She looked at him and considered that comment. Part of the reason she was thinking about just moving in the same building was because she didn't want to bounce Benji around too much. At least if they stayed there the building would remain the same even if the space changed. She hoped that might make the added transition a little easier for him.

"Well, we'd still have all the same stuff and we'd still be in the same building. We'd just have a bit more room," she told him.

He gazed at her and scrunched up his face at that. "I like here," he eventually declared.

She nodded. "I like here too but I thought the apartment upstairs was pretty nice."

He shook his head at that and flopped on top of her again. "No, 'Livia. We live here. We home."

She gave him a small smile and rubbed his back a bit. "Well, Benj, part of the deal for you to live with me is to get you your own bedroom."

"I HAVE BED!" he protested again.

"I need my own bed too," she clarified for him.

"You have couch," he informed her.

She snorted. "I'm too old to be sleeping on the couch for much longer," she told him.

It was the truth. She was a couch-sleeper but before Benji she'd always wake up at some point in the night and move to her bed. Staying on the couch was definitely having its impact on her back and neck. She was sore. She really was craving getting a few nights on a real mattress. Even the crib was starting to seem appealing again.

"You old?"

"Pretty old."

"How old?"

"It's rude to ask a girl how old she is," she informed him.

He considered her a moment. "You a girl?"

She snorted. "Last time I checked."

"Alex say you a girl. A grown-up girl," he told her.

She smiled. "Yes. A grown-up girl."

He plopped his head down on her stomach at that and considered the top of their den. It was really starting to sag from all the play and movement and coming-and-going of the day. Olivia suspected that it was only a matter of time at that point before the blankets were resting on top of them instead of hanging above them.

"What crafts we do tomorrow 'Livia?" Benji finally asked – his interest in the previous topics clearly gone.

She worked at improving his faux-hawk. "I don't know, Benj. It likely depends on what stories they read."

"What stories they read?"

She snorted. "I don't know, Benji. They don't announce that ahead of time."

"We finger paint 'gin?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. I don't know, Benji."

"Jee-Peedg do not know how to finger paint."

She snorted at that again and gazed at him. He was still fixed on the blanket above them and holding out his one hand and examining it in the air. "I think Jack will be able to figure it out. You can teach him."

"Becuz he do not know."

She smiled. "Good thing you know all about it," she allowed. "Maybe you'll be doing a Christmas craft, though."

His head snapped to the side and gazed at her at that. "NO?!" he said almost horrified.

She actually didn't think they would be. That seemed a little too denominational for the public library's family circle time. But she shrugged at him anyway. "Maybe," she said. "Why don't you like Christmas, Benj?"

He squinted at her. "Chris-miss for rich people," he informed her again.

She shook her head at him. "It isn't. I'm not rich. I celebrate Christmas."

"You rich," Benji told her.

She shook her head at him again. "I'm not."

He nodded.

"Just richer than you – because you're a little boy."

"I big, 'Livia!" he protested, rolling onto his side and glaring at her.

She smiled. He did regularly inform her he was a big boy. She didn't quite see it in the same light. But she humoured him.

"And you think you're too big of boy to believe in Santa?" she asked.

"'Livia Santa is not real!" he screeched at her.

"Did Jack tell you that?"

"No," he said.

"Did someone tell you Santa is not real?"

He pouted at her at that.

"Because I'm pretty sure you need to believe in Santa or he doesn't come," Olivia told him.

"'Livia Santa does not come," he told her with a clear edge of defiance to his voice.

"Santa has never, ever come to visit you?" she asked. "Maybe you were just too little to remember."

"Santa does not come becuz he not real!" Benji told her again.

She rubbed her eyebrow and looked at him. "You know, Benj, I was thinking about it and I bet your Mama forgot to tell Santa where you lived."

Benji looked at her at that.

"You didn't know that, did you? After a baby is born – the Mama needs to send a letter to Santa to tell him there's the new baby and where they live, so Santa can put them on his list."

Benji scrunched up his face at her. "That not true!"

She nodded. "It is very true. And, I bet your Mama was just really busy and she forgot she needed to send the letter."

Benji shook his head at her.

She just nodded again. "So I thought, maybe I could send Santa a letter for you and say you're living here now and you need to get on the list. It's very important you get on the list, Benj."

"You lying!" Benji protested.

She shook her head. "I wouldn't lie to Little Fox."

He flopped back against her again at that and lay looking at her with squinted eyes, like he was really thinking about that and trying to process it.

"Mama forgot?" he asked after a long time.

She shrugged. "Well that's the only reason I can think of for why Santa wouldn't have visited you yet. Why else would he bring presents to so many other kids and not my Little Fox?"

He rolled his head against her at that. "Maybe I bad," he suggested.

She rubbed his back. "You definitely aren't bad, sweetheart. Besides, Santa even brings the bad kids coal. You didn't get coal, did you?"

He shook his head hard at that.

"See? I think Santa just didn't know where you lived. You weren't on the list. I better write him right away so he knows you need to be on that list."

He considered that some more.

"Santa bring toys, right?" he asked.

She nodded and stroked at his head a bit more. "That's right, sweetheart. You can ask Santa for a toy and he'll try very hard to have his elves make it at the workshop and then he'll deliver it on Christmas Eve – and fill up your stocking."

"Stocking?"

"It's a special sock. You leave it out for Santa and he'll put some special treats in it for you – if you leave him some milk and cookies."

"Cookies?"

"Santa likes cookies."

"You sure 'Livia?"

"Santa left me a present and a stocking when I was a little girl – when I left cookies out for him."

He scrunched his face at that. "You get a tree in the house at Chris-miss. But London pee on it and Un-call Grag get mad."

She wanted to laugh at that but she knew it wasn't in any way funny. "Well, we can get a tree, sweetheart – and London isn't here to pee on it and Uncle Greg isn't here to get mad."

"You go to ch-er-sh at Chris-miss too," he told her.

She nodded. "Lots of people go to church at Christmas. Is that what you and Mama did at Christmas?"

He shook his head hard at that. "I go to ch-er-sh with Nanny and with Peedg. You see Baby Jez-us. There is straw and sheep. And aim-gels. They light can-dells. And there a very big tree and you sing. Nanny sing loud. Peedg say she have to sing quieter."

She smiled. "What else did you do for Christmas?"

He scrunched his face at that. "I eat candy canes and chalk-co-lat. We watch Rue-daw-f. He get lost and has a red nose."

"There's a song about him too," she told him. "He's one of Santa's reindeers. The reindeers have to pull the sleigh so he can deliver all the toys."

He thought about that. "On TV."

She shook her head. "In real life too."

"Nooooo," Benji said.

She nodded. "Yep."

He squinted at her again at that with some disbelief but eventually asked, "Is Peedg on Santa's list?"

"Mmm, I think he likely was when he was a little boy your age. But maybe Santa thought Jack was too grown-up for a present to be left for him since he was away going to big boy school last year."

"Peedg not bad, though," Benji told her.

She shook her head. "No, he's not bad. But Santa doesn't usually come anymore after kids are grown-up. So maybe Jack hadn't told Santa what he wanted or he'd told Santa he was too grown-up for a visit anymore."

"Is Peedg a grown-up 'Livia?"

She gave him a small smile. "Not quite yet – but he's getting there."

"Maybe you should tell Santa Peedg need to be on list too!" he suggested.

She gave a little nod. "I think you're right. I'll do that."

He thought about it a little bit more. "You sure 'bout this 'Livia?"

She nodded. "Pretty sure."

"It sound like a story. You say stories are just stories."

"But some stories are real," she corrected.

Benji shook his head. "Santa a story 'Livia."

She shook her head back at him. "He's not – and you know what?"

He looked at her with big curious eyes.

"Santa travels around before Christmas so kids can visit him and tell them what toy they really want – and he's going to be here, in New York, really soon. Do you think we should go see him? Then you can make sure he's real and ask him for a toy."

"He is not," Benji protested.

She nodded. "He is. It was on the news the other night. I saw it. After you went to bed."

"You telling more stories 'Livia!" he protested harder.

She shook her head. "I'm not. I can prove it. We can go see him."

"And then you ask him for toy?" Benji looked at her questioningly.

She nodded for him again. "And then when you see Santa you can ask him for a toy."

"What toy?"

She smiled. "Any toy you want Benj – as long as his workshop can make it."

He scrunched his face again. "What can he make?"

She snorted. "Ah. I think he can manage to make most things. It's a pretty big workshop."

"Does he make Transformers?"

She wanted to tell him no. "I think his workshop likely makes Transformers."

"Do he make Flame?"

"Well Flame's kind of a one-and-only but I think he likely makes dragon toys. Does Flame need a friend?"

She was much more hopeful of that option as a Christmas gift. That sounded much better than another robot she had to figure out how to turn into a car or an airplane or whatever the hell they were supposed to be.

Benji puckered his lips in thought at that. "He make finger paint?"

She let out a small laugh at that. "I'm pretty sure he makes finger paint. He makes all kinds of things. You just have to decide what you really, really want and then we'll go see him and ask if he can bring it for Christmas morning for you."

"He come here?"

She nodded. "On Christmas Eve – while you're sleeping."

"To the buzzy?"

She snorted again at that and rubbed at her eyebrow, trying to decide how to talk around that question. "Ah, no, sweetheart. Santa has a special, magic key that gets him into apartments. So he doesn't need to buzz up. He'll just come in."

"WITHOUT ASKING?!" Benji seemed particularly horrified at that.

"You will have asked him – when you ask him for a toy, that's asking him to come in."

"But you have to open the door, right, 'Livia? So strangers can't come in and it safe!"

"Well, when I write Santa to tell him to put your name on his list and to tell him where you're living, I'll have to tell him it's OK for him to come in too. He can only come in when everyone is asleep."

"Why?"

"Because he's really shy. He doesn't like it when people are looking at him and trying to figure out all his secrets."

"He have secrets?"

She nodded. "His magic key – that's pretty secret. And how he delivers all those presents. How his reindeer fly. He has lots of secrets."

"Why they secret?"

"Because if they weren't then too many people would be trying to be Santa Claus and then Christmas wouldn't be as special, right?"

Benji made his thinking face at that.

"Does Santa bring you presents 'Livia?"

"Mmm," she thought about that again. "Santa really just brings toys for children. He brought me toys when I was little. But for grown-ups, he just leaves some candy in their stocking."

"You have stocking?"

"If you think you believe in Santa, we'll have to go and get some stockings so we can leave them out for him."

"Peedg too?"

She nodded. "Him too." She wondered how that'd go over.

He sat up and gazed down at her. "You sure 'bout this 'Livia?"

She nodded. "Very sure."

"Why'd Mama forget?" he asked, some sadness replacing his curiosity.

She shook her head. "I don't know, sweetheart. I think your mama just got … busy with other things and sometimes she forgot what was important."

"Like Santa's list?"

She gave him a little smile and caressed his check. "Like that and like my Little Fox."

He flopped against her again, curling on top of her that time and cuddling her tight into a hug. She rubbed at his back and placed a small kiss on the top of his head.

"How come you know 'bout list and Mama didn't, 'Livia?"

She just shook her head. "I don't know, sweetheart."

"It a Mommy thing, isn't it?" he said. "Mama didn't know Mommy things good."

She gave him a sad little smile against his head and put another kiss there. "Maybe that's it, Benj."


	55. Chapter 55

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She was watching Jack's interactions with Benji almost like a hawk. She was giving them space – staying at the back of the circle-time room and letting Jack participate in the craft with Benji. But she was still watching every movement, catching glimpses of Benji's facial expressions and looking for any indication that he was tense or uncomfortable with being near his uncle.

She'd been so annoyed at Jack. She still was. He'd arrived late. After everything they'd talked about – after her prepping Benji for seeing him – and then he didn't show at the start of story-time.

It left her standing with Benji asking where Jack was and if he was coming and him not wanting to go sit down for story. She'd lied to him and said he was running late – that he'd be there. The truth was – as usual – she didn't know where the hell he was and he wasn't answering his phone or returning texts. He was off operating in his little Jack bubble that seemed to involve ignoring her as much as possible.

The family program leader had been through the first story before Jack finally did show up and sheepishly came and found her, standing with the crowd of parents at the back of the room.

"Sorry," he'd muttered.

"You're late," she'd whispered back at him – making sure it was entirely clear how pissed off she was at him. "He thought you weren't coming, Jack."

"I didn't realize it was this far south," he spat back at her. "I rode."

She shook her head at him. "Your skateboard? I gave you the address."

"I didn't know it was in fucking SoHo," he said back, much louder than a whisper and some of the other parents around them glanced at them. Even the story-reader looked in their direction.

"Watch your language," she hissed at him. "You could've looked at a map. There's multiple stops within two blocks of here."

"I know that now," he said back.

She let out a breath – forcing herself to calm around him again – to not let him get to her. He was just standing there sulking – looking pretty dejected and embarrassed. So she pushed at his shoulder and pointed to where Benji was sitting on the floor looking fairly absorbed in the story. It seemed to be a winter theme going on with the selected books.

"He's right there," she whispered at Jack. "Go sit with him."

Jack eyed her and started to move. She grabbed his shoulder.

"No tone, no attitude, don't raise your voice," she told him pointedly. "Help him with the craft – don't take over and let him go at his own pace – as fast or as slow he wants. If he wants to do both – let him."

Jack glared at her for a moment but let out a huff and held out his skateboard for her. She took it. He slung off his backpack and held that out to her too – so she accepted that as well. Apparently being a packhorse didn't end as boys grew up she thought with the added haul Jack had just added to her. She was already toting around the little vinyl drawstring pack that Benji had claimed as his own at the Police Museum the previous weekend. It was stuffed with Flame and Mommy Fox's heads hanging out the top – because they couldn't leave the apartment without either of them. And then her own purse was loaded down with a snack for Benji and a reusable bag for the latest round of books that she was sure they'd end up dragging out of there that day. Not to mention, she was holding onto Benji's coat and hat and mitts too. She was actually surprised that Jack hadn't shoved his jacket into her hands. She suspected after they started the craft and he realized the mess he was getting himself into, he'd be back there to hand it to her.

But for now, he managed to get up to the front and plant his butt down just behind and to the side of where Benji was sitting. He'd run his hand up the back of his head and Benji had jerked around with a squinted and angry face but when he'd seen Jack, his face had lit up.

"Peedg! You came!" he exclaimed far too loudly.

Jack had just put his finger up to his mouth and made a 'shhing' sound and pointed to the storyteller, who was again glaring at him. They definitely weren't earning any points with the staff at that branch of the library. The movement had made Benji eye him a bit more – perhaps his initial excitement dying a bit with the little chastise that Jack had applied and the fear of a yelling-episode stirring in him. Olivia had watched carefully, readying to go and retrieve Benji if the situation escalated or he needed consoling. But after a few tense moments, the little boy had turned his attention back to the story and sat absorbed in it until the end.

He'd sat up on his knees and bounced around while the leader explained the two craft options. She'd seen him point excitedly and say something to Jack but hadn't been able to make out the words. Jack seemed to just nod in response – clearly not as excited about the opportunity to play with paint and glue and scissors as Benji was. She didn't really know what got Jack excited – besides maybe skateboarding. She would've thought with his interest in planning and design, he'd be a bit more enthusiastic about crafts. But he didn't seem to be.

After they'd moved over to the craft tables, Jack seemed to perk up and even seemed to smile at Benji a few times. She knew the situation was probably strange for Jack – he was out of his element. She definitely got the impression that Jack hadn't accessed any of the free programs in the city for the little boy before – even taking him to the library. And, she already had the sense that if it wasn't skateboarding or watching television, Jack wasn't too sure what to do with the boy. So this was a change of pace for him – and she knew he would've been under the added stress of knowing she was watching him carefully. But she still felt she'd made the right decision to ease into the day with an activity that Benji enjoyed and out in public. It was keeping Benji distracted and happy enough that he didn't seem to be dwelling on his anxieties about seeing Jack. Hopefully they'd be able to get through the craft with Benji's emotions still intact and then they could try something a little less public for the afternoon.

"It's nice you have a helper," she heard a woman say next to her and glanced over. Most of the other parents and escorts of the children had moved up to the craft tables at that point to supervise their child's efforts or participate. She probably could've found the space to get in at the table with Jack and Benji – but she'd been purposely giving Jack the opportunity to interact with his nephew.

She just gave the woman a small smile. She looked about her age, if not a little older. She had her own load of kid-in-tow crap she was toting in her arms. She sort of pointed at one of the tables.

"I've got one too – but I had to really twist his arm to come," the woman said. There was another teenaged boy sitting with a littler boy at the table she was pointing at.

Olivia snorted at her comment. "I guess his attendance wasn't exactly voluntarily either," she offered and nodded towards Jack and Benji.

The woman nodded again. "I saw he got here a little late for you."

She rolled her eyes. "I think everyone saw. … and heard."

The woman offered a small smile. "It wasn't that bad. I've seen bigger disruptions at these things. Paint fight. That was likely the worst. That attracted a lot more attention."

"That must've been fun to clean up."

She gave a small nod. "I think that family got banned. I've never seen them again. Or maybe they were just so mortified they never came back."

Olivia allowed a quiet chuckle at that. She could only imagine. Some of the things that came out of Benji and Jack's mouths in public – some of the behaviour – had her seriously wondering how they could ever go back to certain places and she really hadn't done much of anything with them yet in the time she'd known them. Destructive behaviour or tantrums would make her slightly embarrassed to go back somewhere, she thought. That was probably years of insecurities around being a woman in a male-dominated work environment that tended to still be a gossip mill worse than she saw in most women's circles.

No matter how thick of skin she got about it all, how use she became to standing up to the 'macho' man and putting them in their place – cops and perps – it still bothered her when she thought something had hit the rumour mill that involved her or her life or her work, or previously, her partner, when it had been Elliot. Considering how boring her life actually was, she felt she'd ended up being a victim of chit-chat more than she wanted to think about. She knew she was already easing into another round ot it. She'd barely had a chance to bounce back from the chit-chat about Elliot's departure and then Simon's mess for her to mop up and then Cragen and whiffs of her and David. It'd kind of felt like she'd been a key player on the gossip line for a while.

"I think we live near each other," the woman offered, pulling her from her thoughts. "Or at least use the same park. St. Vart's? I've seen your boys there."

She staggered a bit for a moment. It seemed strange to hear someone refer to Benji – and even more especially – Jack, as 'her boys'. She felt like she should correct her – set the woman straight. She felt like not correcting her was perpetrating some sort of lie. But at the same time, she didn't really want to correct her. It wasn't really any of the woman's business anyway.

"Ah, yeah," Olivia returned, "that's our playground."

"Seeing your two playing together gives me some hope," the woman added. "It's such a fight with mine right now. My older boy doesn't want anything to do with his little brother. Even around the house, he'll just push Charlie away. Him appearing with us in public – I had to bribe him."

She allowed a small snort at that. She was still really struggling with the chit-chat that other parents seem complied to lay on you when you were out in public with the kids. It was like it was a licence to talk – to rant, to vent, to complain, to gossip, to share tips and tidbits. She found it all to be a little much. She really wasn't sure how to deal with it most times it happened. She wasn't that comfortable with the concept of spilling her personal life to strangers – or even participating in the unidentifiable small-talk. But really, she almost felt like a fraud taking part too.

It was a strange sensation having people wanting to talk to her. Really, as a single woman – no one talked to her. Men – occasionally. That was happening less frequently with age and with her diminishing interest in going out ever. But random people – other women, store clerks, coffee shop baristas? That never really happened before. With Benji in tow now, though, there was all this little chatter and small-talk that she was slowly having to get used to and master.

She wasn't sure that just shutting it down when it was someone that apparently frequented the same circle time, library branch and playground as them was a good idea – especially when it looked like she had a little boy close to Benji's age. She might lack in friends – that didn't mean Benji was going to.

"How old are yours?" the woman asked, apparently feeling the need to push on with the imposed conversation.

Olivia glanced at her again – pulling her eyes away from the two boys for a moment. She measured if she wanted to answer that. "Ah, Jack's 18 and Benji's four."

The woman shrugged. "See maybe that's my problem. Needed a bigger age gap," she smiled at her. "My Charlie is five and Trevor is 15. I'm Tabitha, by the way."

"Olivia," she offered cautiously.

"So does it get better? Because 15 …" Tabitha shook her head. "Some days I could wring his neck."

Olivia gave her a small smile but shrugged. "Ah. I'm actually not the best person to ask. Jack's his uncle."

"Oh … oh," said the woman. "I'm sorry." She shook her head again. "You should never assume – especially anymore and in this city."

Olivia just allowed another small nod. But the reality was she was finding people did assume. They saw her with Benji and they assumed he was hers. In a way that didn't bother her. But in other ways it did. It felt like such an illusion, such a lie. She thought it was part of the reason she was reluctant to do things with him, to be out in public with him too much. The assumptions weren't always lost on Benji either and it was only getting both of their hopes up. It was going to make it that much harder if things didn't work out.

And, it also just had her really feeling like even if the paperwork did go through – when it did, if Jack didn't put up a fuss and if the court agreed Benji being with her was for the best – it'd still be kind of an illusion. People would see them still and assume for the rest of Benji's life that he was her son. She thought that it didn't really matter. As a family, they'd know what they were. The label in the eyes of the law didn't matter. How people saw them didn't matter. All families were different. But on other levels it was already eating at her. She was already experiencing the assumptions, the questions, the lines on the forms that were designed for mother/father/son/daughter. He'd be hers but he'd never really be hers. It made her question if she should push for adoption. Maybe it made more sense. Maybe societal, it would be easier. Maybe emotionally for all of them, it would be easier too.

But then there was Jack. It felt a little strange to have people look at Jack with her too and think he could be her son. She was old enough, though, to have a child that age – technically a grown man. More than old enough. She didn't want Jack to feel like his family was being further dismantled in all of this. She wanted him to feel like he was a part of this too – that they were all working towards a common goal together. As much as he was wearing on her nerves – she felt for everything he'd already gone through. She felt for the turmoil he was going through now. The more she looked at him – the more she saw a boy who still really needed a guiding hand, no matter his age. He wasn't all grown-up yet. Most 18 … 19 … year olds weren't.

"Mommy Fox," Benji called and came charging at her. She managed to grab at his hand before he managed to smack paint and glue into her.

"Little Fox," she greeted back. "Are you all done already?"

He shook his head hard. "Peedg say I can't do craft two becuz of cast."

She looked at him funny and then realized it was an activity that involved handprints from both hands. "Well, you can't do the one hand print, Benj. You'll just have to use the same hand twice."

"Why?"

"Because you can't put paint on your cast hand," she told him.

"Why?"

"Because it would be too messy to clean up."

"Why?"

"Because you'd have paint all over it and we can't get your cast wet with water to wash it off."

He scrunched up his face at her thinking about that.

"Go tell Jack you can do the craft – but use this hand twice," she waggled it for him.

Benji still looked at her like he didn't understand.

She sighed. "Jack," she called. He didn't look back. He seemed pretty transfixed by whatever he was doing at the table with the paintbrush. She'd told him to let Benji take the lead, so she wondered if he'd started on his own project. She hoped he wasn't improving on Benji's creation. That would likely create conflict. "Jack," she called again and he glanced her way. She waggled Benji's wrist in the air. "Twice," she called. He still looked at her blankly too – almost in the exact same way Benji was.

She sighed again and shook her head. She glanced at Tabitha. "Guess I get to help with craft-time after all."

Tabitha gave her a smile. "Have fun."

Olivia gave her a small nod and tugged on the shoulder of Benji's shirt. "Com'on, Benj," she said. "I'll come help with craft two."

"Becuz Peedg does not know," Benji informed her.

She gave him a little shake of his head. "Because the two of you are goofy. We need to work on your problem solving."

"Proll-limb solving?"

"Figuring out how to get something to work," she told him as she walked him back over to the table and sat him down.

"Get what to work?"

She shook her head at him and gestured at the bits of the craft sitting in front of Jack. Jack glanced up at her. "This," she said.

She meant the craft – but really … she meant this … all of it. They needed for all three of them to figure out how to get it to work. Together.


	56. Chapter 56

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She gave Jack a thin smile as she came back out into the main area of the room and he glanced over his shoulder at her. He'd apparently decided to help himself to a second serving of dessert while she got Benji down. It sort of looked like his eyes might've been bigger than his stomach (he'd eaten like he hadn't eaten all week at dinner too) and he was just sort of picking at what was sitting a pretty heaping helping in the bowl now.

"You want me to package that up for you to take home?" she offered as she walked by him.

He sort of glanced at her again like he wasn't sure if that was something he was going to agree to but he eventually handed her the bowl of apple crisp.

"My Nan used to make that," he admitted a little sheepishly. "I haven't had it in a long time. Yours is pretty good."

She allowed him another small smile and tapped his spoon against the side of the dish to get the surplus off it and back into the bowl.

"I actually think it might be your Nan's recipe," she said – and Jack gazed at her questioningly. "You Dad had me over for Thanksgiving one year. Your Nan made it. Your Dad raved about it. I ended up with the recipe to take back to school and pretend I did things like cook."

She pulled the recipe card out from the tiny box she had. She didn't even know why she had it. She figured it was a gift from someone at some point, though she couldn't remember who. She hadn't re-gifted it, though, or just gotten rid of it. But it was mostly empty – the cards that came with it all blank accept for a handful that had some simple baking and entrees on them. She'd had it sitting on the little shelf above her kitchen counter as a decoration for about as long as she could remember. She actually pulled it down to take a look at since Benji had been there. She'd even written a couple recipes onto the cards – for the first-time ever. The cookies from the other day, a batch of stroganoff she'd done up in an effort to have something ready in the fridge so she wasn't fumbling around trying to prepare meals for Benji at whatever hour she managed to get him home the coming work-week.

She took the card back over to Jack and held it out to him. She knew he didn't much care what the ingredients were on the list – but she thought he might want to see the handwriting on it. He cautiously took it and gazed at it for a while wordlessly but then handed it back out to her.

"It looks like her writing," he said quietly.

She gave a little nod. "Ah, I think maybe the recipe box I have – that your Nan might've sent it as a gift. I honestly don't remember exactly how I ended up with it. But there's several cards in it with recipes – and it's all the same writing. You can take a look through it, if you want," she offered. "If there's other recipes in there you like – maybe we can try them."

But he just shrugged at that and he just left it. His Nan being sick but her still being alive – but already taken away from him … it was clear it was something Jack really struggled with. She was clearly the only woman who'd treat him like a mother might and he'd even started losing bits of her before he was ready. From things that had been said, Olivia got the impression there had been signs of the Alzheimer's for some time but that the woman had really rapidly regressed after her husband's heart attack and death. Jay's death had only made it worse, she suspected. She couldn't imagine what Isabele's would've done – or if she was still in a mental state to really understand and know what was going on at that point.

She wasn't going to push Jack that night, though. The day had gone too well. She wanted it to end on a good note. There'd been some tense moments. Moments where she really wanted to raise her voice at Jack and put him in his place. Moments where she thought Benji might fall over the edge into a fit of tears and fears. But they'd all managed to hold it together.

Jack seemed to be conscious of how he was acting and how he was interacting with his nephew. She'd seen him pull back a couple times when the situation ramped up – and it alleviated the problem before it became much of a problem. She'd also seen him look to her for guidance a couple times and he'd actually listened when she'd told him how to deal with it. He'd let her take the lead with Benji at certain points without giving her tone or attitude or telling her to put him down, or keep away, or that she wasn't his mom. She could see he was trying – sometimes reluctantly and definitely cautiously – but he was trying and that was a big improvement and she hoped a good sign.

So circle time had evolved into her taking the boys for some lunch and that had continued into letting Benji run around at the playground for a while. Jack still hadn't looked like he was ready to leave yet – so he'd been invited back to the apartment. He'd played quietly with Benji and watched the movie that had been put on. He hadn't protested when she put the little boy down for a nap or injected his opinions about a four-year-old napping. And, when he'd been invited to stay for dinner, he accepted. After that, he read Benji his first story, said good night and good bye – thankfully with no Benji reaction – and he'd stayed quietly in the living room as she finished up getting the little boy tucked in and to shut his eyes. Though, Benji was aware Jack was still in the apartment and she had had to provide a few reassurances that his uncle wouldn't be waking him and taking him away. Benji, though, had seemed fairly comfortable with how the day went. Though, she knew he wasn't asleep yet – he had rolled over onto his side and while she stroked his head and cheek, he had eventually closed his eyes before she pulled the door shut to just a crack and returned back to the living room.

She looked at Jack again from the kitchen. She was starting to wonder when he was going to leave. It was creeping towards 8:30 at that point – dinner was done, Benji was in bed – but he was still gazing at the television.

"What are you watching?" she asked, trying to gauge if he was actually absorbed in something or if trouble might be stirring. She really had no intention of getting into much of a conversation about anything with him that day. She thought that getting through him and Benji interacting again for the first time was likely going to be enough for all of them. And, even though, it had been fairly uneventful, she thought it had been emotionally draining in its own sort of way for all of them.

He darted his eyes at her and then back to the television. "Amazing Race," he said flatly. She allowed a small nod. She didn't think reality television was why Jack was still sitting on her couch. But maybe he read her thoughts a bit. "The Walking Dead is on a nine," he said. "It's the last of the fall part of the season. I kind of hoped maybe it'd be OK if I stayed and watched it." She looked at him some more and weighed that statement. "It's a show," he clarified – like she might've missed that. "A zombie show."

She snorted and shook her head. "I know what The Walking Dead is Jack," she told him, really having to resist rolling her eyes. She couldn't decide if he thought she was old or stupid. Or maybe he just thought she lived in some sort of hole – to be so clueless about anything and everything from pop culture to the latest news to how to cook to dealing with a child. He clearly thought she just didn't know shit-all.

He shrugged and scraped his one chewed-down fingernail along the arm of her couch. "You said you didn't watch much TV," he offered quietly, almost like he thought the previous comment might've now lost him his chance to get to watch the show on her TV.

She shook her head and went back to transporting his dessert into a Gladware container. "No, I don't get the chance to watch much television," she agreed.

"So have you watched The Walking Dead then?" he asked.

She glanced up at him from what she was doing. "I've seen a few episodes – or parts of them, I guess. I wouldn't have pegged you as the zombie-type."

"It's not just about zombies," he said a little dejectedly. He was quiet for a moment and she hadn't responded. She wasn't sure she wanted a series breakdown about what the show was actually about, from his perspective, if she did respond. "So is it OK if I stay and watch it?" he pressed.

She looked up at him again and allowed a small nod. She was accepting that part of dealing with Jack was going to mean creating some sore of rapport with Jack. Apparently that might mean having to sit through some sort of gratuitously violent zombie apocalypse show.

"Are you going to want any of the spaghetti to take home?" she asked instead. "There's not many meatballs left – but I can put a couple in there for you, and some pasta and sauce."

He looked up at her again. She could tell he wanted to say yes but he was measuring his ego against the want to take home some food to have in his fridge – something to eat. So she didn't wait for an answer and just put another container on the counter and started spooning some of the pasta into it. There were only three meatballs left – but she gave him two, keeping one to put in with her or Benji's lunch.

She could feel him watching her and looked up at him again. "What?" she asked.

He looked a little sheepish again and went back to drawing lines with his finger on the arm of her couch. She just shook her head at him and popped the lid onto the container. She should've thought to make a bit more than she did on the expectation that Jack had a teenaged boy's appetite and would eat through what she had thought would be the meal leftovers in his three heaping helpings – and that he'd want to take something home. Note-to-self for next time, she thought.

"You want some of the salad too?" she offered. He allowed a small nod. "You have dressing at home?" He shook his head – so she allowed a small nod back. "OK. I'll put some of what was on the table in a water bottle for you. It's just oil and vinegar. Shake it before you put it on – or it won't taste like what you ate tonight. You don't need a lot."

He gave her another small nod and seemed to watch her again. She was just waiting for some other shoe to drop with how he was examining her – like he'd be waiting all day to say something. But then he said, "Is that leftover mashed potatoes in the fridge?"

She looked up at him and snorted. "Ah, yeah," she said, as she finished getting the salad transferred to a take-home container for him. "Benji and I had something that resembled meatloaf and mashed potatoes last night. You want some of that too?"

He nodded. He was cleaning out her fridge – and depleting her plans of having leftovers to warm-up and avoid cooking during the week. But she wanted him to be eating too. She really suspected he wasn't. Not only was that not healthy – she knew it really wasn't going to be helping with him concentrating to finish up his term and to be studying for his exams.

She opened the fridge and put the left-over container on the counter to split up.

"I've got a chicken veggie stir fry and beef mushroom stroganoff here too. Rice and egg noodles. You want me to package up some of that?" she asked over her shoulder and then looked when he hadn't responded. He looked a little embarrassed, so she just nodded. "I'll do up a couple meals for you," she conceded. He wasn't going to admit he wanted – or needed – the food.

She worked at getting some meals package up for him to take home. He'd at least be going home with enough that she'd know he was having one full-meal a day. It wasn't as much as he needed and he'd likely still be hungry if that was all he ate – but at least he'd be getting something into him.

"Just remember to bring these containers back the next time you're over, Jack," she called at him. "I can't be buying new containers after every one of your visits."

He just glanced at her and offered no response – but she hoped he actually heard her and listened. He hadn't brought back the ones she'd sent food home for him and Benji in and she sort of doubted she'd see these ones again. She really didn't want to be buying more – even the disposable, reusable containers weren't cheap. And, she did use them herself too to have them disappearing all the time, if this was going to become habit.

She placed the meal containers in a bag and put them in the fridge on the top shelf for him to retrieve when he was ready to go.

"Do you want something to drink?" she asked, as she started to prepare herself to join him on the couch. She'd deal with the rest of the clean-up in the kitchen after she got rid of him. She needed a bit of downtime at that point too.

His eyes darted from the screen up to her again. "Coke," he said.

She shook her head. "You know I don't drink soda. We've already had this discussion. Choices are water, orange juice or milk. Or I can put on the kettle for you."

He shook his head so she just poured herself a glass of water and moved over to the opposite end of the couch from him.

"Why don't you drink pop?" he asked as she settled and started looking at the show.

She shrugged. "Because it's awful for you. I stopped drinking it years ago."

"Were you fat or something?" he asked.

She rolled his eyes at him and looked at him. His attitude was starting to show – and she hoped this wasn't the start of something when the day had gone OK, when she'd just packaged up about half her week's meal plan for him, and when she'd agree to let him to continue to take up space on her couch. "Jack, that's a really obnoxious thing to say to someone. It's rude."

He shrugged. "No it's not. If you were, you aren't anymore."

She shook her head at him. "I wasn't fat. I just stopped drinking soda."

"Why?" he asked again.

"Because it's full of sugar and chemicals and artificial colouring. I don't need to be putting any of that into my body. Neither do you – but that's your choice."

He eyed her. "But now you've made that choice for 'Jamin too?"

She kept the eye contact. "While he's living in my home, yes, I guess I have."

He let out a breath but didn't say anything and shifted his gaze back to the show. So she did too, watching for a few minutes.

"You bought him new clothes," Jack mumbled quietly, "and pajamas."

She looked back at him and nodded. "I did. It didn't seem like he had many winter clothes. He's been cold and he needed clothes for nursery school."

Jack observed his finger as he moved it along the arm of the couch again and didn't say anymore for quite a while.

"Why's he keep calling you Mommy Fox?" he asked.

She sighed. She didn't want to tell Benji he couldn't or shouldn't – but when it had come out of his mouth a couple times during the day (though mostly in him being annoyed or frustrated with her or something else around him), she knew that Jack would notice and not likely like it.

"It's just something out of a story book he likes right now," she said. "I haven't told him to be calling me Mommy, if that's what you're asking."

She also hadn't told him to stop calling her Mommy Fox, though. She knew it would only be a matter of time until 'fox' fell off the end of it. It'd been clear that that was what Benji was shooting for. And even though she'd been measuring in her head the dangers of letting the little boy get that phrase into his vocabulary – she couldn't bring herself to tell him not to call her that. She liked the sounds of it too much. She was anticipating what it would evolve into too much – and getting to hear just 'Mommy', directed at her, come out of his mouth for the first time.

"But you want him to?" Jack asked. There was a bit of an accusation to his tone.

She caught his eyes and let her thoughts settle for a moment while he glared at her. She let out another breath and glanced at the ground almost a little embarrassed. "Right now, Jack, I just want him to call me whatever he's most comfortable with. If and when it's appropriate for him to call me Mommy – and if that's what he wants to call me – then, yes, I'd like that very much. I'm never going to tell him that's something he has to call me or even should be calling me. I'm fine just being Olivia to both of you." She was – but she wasn't. She so wanted to be Mommy – for someone, finally.

Jack eyed her some more. She couldn't get a full read on him. But she was starting to understand him more – to get better at judging his looks and his body language, to be able to gauge what was coming never. He wasn't in a rage that day – he was just hurting, struggling. He needed a really gentle hand from her – and she needed to keep applying it – or she was going to lose him. Losing him just increased her chances of losing Benji.

"He really likes you," Jack admitted quietly after a long silence. "You can tell."

She allowed a small smile at that. "Well, I really like him too, Jack. A lot."

He nodded and took up examining the floor.

"Have you thought anymore about what we've talked about?" she tried.

She really hadn't been planning on broaching it that day. She was going to just get through the day and she was going to push harder with Jack after she got through the next meeting with Mark – after she had a clearer idea of what the next several weeks or months were going to look like, what more needed to get done. But Jack just shrugged at her anyways. She knew he would've been thinking about it. He just didn't want to talk about what his thoughts were on any of it yet.

She nodded, though, and rubbed at her eyebrow. "OK. Well, I went and looked at an apartment yesterday," she told him and he glanced at her a little more wide-eyed. "It's just upstairs," she clarified. "It's a two bedroom. I need to get into a bigger place, if I want this to work for us. I just wanted to let you know that I filled out the form – put in an offer. I'll find out tomorrow likely if I get it. But the one bedroom – Benji's bedroom – it's really kind of long and narrow. It has more closets than any little boy could likely ever need. So I'm going to get a futon or daybed or something to put in there too – for you. Give you one of the closets as your own. So you'll be able to visit and have somewhere to sleep – to store some clothes and things."

He eyed her again. "Why?" he finally asked.

"Because we're adding me to this family, Jack, not you. I want you to continue to be a part of Benji's life and I want you to feel welcome here – if we're all able to continue to have days like this and not … days like before. And, I want you to have somewhere safe and warm to sleep when you need it."

He made another sound and looked at the ground some more.

"Did you give your landlord notice?" she asked. He did allow a small nod at that and she almost wanted to let out a sigh of relief. It was a good sign. It at least meant he likely wasn't going to decide to cut the parental designation short.

"I'm glad, Jack," she said. "That's a positive first step."

He shrugged. "I still owe him some money."

She nodded. "You come and talk to me first, if that's a problem. We'll work something out. If you need help moving your things over to residence too – let me know. We'll figure it out. Rent a car for the day or something."

"I can't afford that," he mumbled.

"I can, Jack," she said.

He glanced at her and let out a breath. She thought he was going to spit his 'I don't do charity' line at her again but he didn't.

"What about school? Are you wrapping up the semester OK?" she asked.

He shrugged again. "I guess."

"Is Gecko giving you enough time off to keep up? Get caught up? Study for exams?"

"Work's fine," he spat a little – clearly a bit annoyed at her. "Gecko's cool."

She allowed a small nod. She wasn't going to fight with him about it. Work. School. It was his business – even though she really felt those things being in order would work in her favour. If he could get some stability in other areas of his life – relieve some of that stress, he was more likely to co-operate with her – to not want to add more stress back to his life, more turmoil.

She rubbed her eyebrow. "What are your plans for the break between semesters?" she asked. "For Christmas?"

He looked back to her at that and examined her. "I don't know," he said.

She nodded. "I just meant – you're planning on staying in the city, right? You weren't planning to go upstate?"

He shrugged. "I guess."

She nodded again. "OK. Then I guess the other thing I wanted to let you know is that I am going Christmas with him. Santa will be coming for him this year – he'll get a present and a stocking. And, I'm likely going to have a few things under a tree for him to open too."

He eyed her but said nothing.

"I get the impression that Christmas hasn't been too special at your house the last few years," she allowed. "He deserves a Christmas – while he's little and it can still be fun and magically."

He still said nothing. She rubbed at her eyebrow.

"You're welcome here too," she said. "Just give me a bit of a heads up. You don't have to tell me now."

He was examining her. She could see him processing and thinking. She could see shadows of sadness tracing across his complexion. But he still said nothing.

He flared his nostrils at that and looked to the television again. She sighed. She felt like she'd fucked it up with him again. She was so struggling to find the right balance and direction to navigate the Jack maze.

But maybe she'd done OK?

"I'm not saying I'm co-operating," he finally said quietly after glaring at the television for several, long, silent minutes. "But I'd kind of like to have your lawyer explain to me what the hell you're trying to do."

She eyed him at that as it set in. Progress. Fucking progress. Even when he was pissed at her – something. He was giving her something. She'd take it. She'd really fucking take it – for all it was worth.

"OK, Jack," she agreed. "I'll call him and see about setting that up."


	57. Chapter 57

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"'Livia I be' thinkin'," Benji informed her as they walked down the street.

There was something about getting to hold a little person's head while making her trek across the city that she was absolutely falling in love with. Though, she wished she could manage to get Benji out the door a bit faster or that his little legs could carry him a little farther quicker. Sometimes she felt like he was either near jogging beside her to keep up with her pace or she was dragging him behind her. It usually ended up meaning she needed to slow down considerably to match his little strides and his general doddling – as he made the most random observations about people, buildings and garbage on the street – not to mention him stopping to pick up and examine the latter. She'd either end up having to put the located treasure in her pocket or purse for him – or keeping an eye out for the next trash can. Needless-to-say, hand sanitizer had already found a permanent, accessible location in her purse with the addition of Benji to her life.

She sometimes found annoyance creeping into her being about his tardiness. But she forced herself to stop and remind herself again how much she actually wanted this. The annoyances, the slowness, the randomness, the frustration was the price for all the positives too. She knew that. But no matter how she cut it, she never seemed to arrive at work at quite the same hour anymore – even compared to the days she actually had bothered going home to sleep.

"What have you been thinking about, Benj?" she asked.

He glanced up at her and swung their arms a bit with his mitted hand.

"You a police officer, right, 'Livia?"

She gave him a small nod and a little smile – as if they hadn't confirmed that bit of information about a thousand times in the short period she'd known him.

"I am."

"But dick-tech-hive's wear normal clothes, right?"

She nodded. "Right."

"Your car is very boring too, right?"

She gave him a small laugh she tried to keep in and shot him another smile. "It's called an unmarked car, Benji. A squad car. It's still a police car – it just isn't painted like one."

He squinted at her with some disbelief – like it couldn't possibly be a police car if it wasn't blue and white with flashing sirens on top. In fact, he'd already expressed great dismay to her that he'd been living with her and been to a police station – but hadn't yet gotten to push any button that sent real sirens wailing. The pleas to get to send the sirens blaring had only increased since they'd added Copper to his playthings.

Benji was pretty convinced that the most important part of getting to be a police officer was the sirens. He made sure to point out whenever they heard sirens, saw a cruiser or walked by a patrol officer – that there was a 'real police officer', like she wasn't a 'real' one. She'd definitely noticed. She'd gone between finding it a little amusing and a little insulting. But he was a little boy – flashing lights, guns, handcuffs and uniforms were likely a lot more interesting than her reality.

Olivia wasn't really sure, though, she wanted him to have any sort of understanding of her reality. She certainly hadn't put any effort into explaining any of it to him beyond she was a police officer – a detective – and she helped people, especially kids and women. She figured that was all he needed to know – hopefully for a long time. She really didn't want to try to explain the rest of it to him. Though, she imagined she might have to the first time she got called-in in the middle of the night or on a weekend, and ended up scrambling to figure out what to do with him and probably leave him traumatized that he was being left alone and in the dark during 'Mommy Fox' time.

She really needed to get a plan together about how she was going to deal with that ASAP. It was overdue – especially now with the parental designation. She'd have to talk to Jack – see if he was ready to be a grown-up in that regard; not that she much liked the idea of him traipsing across town in the middle of the night on his own either to get to her apartment, if she needed him. Though, she was sure he'd likely wandered around the city well after he should be alone on the streets before.

"Maybe you should be a normal police officer so you can have a better car and better uni-for-him," Benji suggested, pulling her away from his babysitter planning again. It was a comment he was clearly gunning at from the get-go of the conversation.

She gave him another smile and rubbed at her eyebrow with her free hand. "I don't know, Benj. I kind of like being a detective."

"But you could have much cooler stuff if you just normal," he informed her.

She had to hold in another bit of a laugh. She'd long wondered how much her and normal ever went together and if they ever would.

"I don't know, sweetheart. I think my 'stuff' is pretty cool just the way it is. And, you know, I do have a uniform? I just don't wear it very much."

"You have uni-for-him?"

"I do. I can show it to you tonight. It's at home – in my closet."

He considered that a bit more and swung her hand in his again – and then looked up at her. "Are firefighters cooler than police officers?"

She looked down at him again with a wider grin spreading across her face. "I don't know, Benj. Are they?"

This was a new train of thought for him – a new comparison. She was interested to see where it went. They'd walked by a firehouse the other day that had its bay doors open and he'd been fascinated by the size and colouring of the truck. He'd informed her that it'd be 'a real good Transformer'.

He'd been happy to stand there and gaze at the truck for far too long for Jack's liking. Jack had gone pacing halfway up the block while Benji continued to look at the truck and chatter at her. They'd actually been standing there long enough that a young probie had come out and chatted with them, which had delighted Benji to no-end, after he'd gotten past his initial instinct to cling to her leg in the presence of a new and unknown man. But as soon as the probie told him he could touch the grill of the truck – it'd pretty much been love. The conservation about if the truck was a robot and what a good Transformer it would make was repeated. The young guy seemed happy to play along – pointing out that the headlights made good eyes and the grill a good mouth and he bet the ladder could swing around and become arms or legs and what a great weapon the hose would be – a lassoe, he suggested.

Benji was fascinated – though a little disappointed they weren't allowed into the bay to get a better look at the truck and to see their 'uni-for-hims'. He really, really wanted to see their helmets and rubber boots – and confirm if they did have a pole in there. Seeing the disappointment paint across his face when the probie had stuttered a bit when the little boy had asked, had prompted her to played the NYPD card – 'we're all on the same team' line. It had worked. The probie had actually lit up on that and disappeared for a few minutes before returning with a superior officer and the two of them had taken them on a short tour of the bay so Benji could check out everything it had to offer.

She'd called at Jack – where he was still standing partway down the block – kicking at the wall of the adjacent building before they'd gone in, but he'd ignored her. When he had eventually joined them, Jack had just glared with his arms crossed for much of the short tour. Considering the probie entertaining them couldn't have been more than a handful of years older than Jack, she thought he was coming off as even more immature than usual. But she made no comment and attempted to ignore his behaviour and focus on the little mini-lesson and life experience that Benji was getting and eating up. He'd been completely enthralled – especially when he got to stand on the back of the truck briefly. Getting to put on the helmet and feel the weight of it had boggled his mind even more. She actually briefly thought he wasn't going to let the probie take the thing back.

The probie had teased her that the FDNY had just stolen him away from the NYPD lineage. He was yet another person who just saw her with Benji and assumed he was hers. She liked that but she thought it was a little silly that when people saw a boy that was a child of a law enforcement, they seemed to assume too that he was destined for some sort of family tradition. But she definitely saw how Benji lit up around police cars and firetrucks. He, however, reserved the same level of excitement for construction sites. She supposed, though, what little boy didn't want to be a police officer or firefighter at some point in their childhood? What little boy wasn't fascinated by big machines and trucks and cars?

Benji was definitely all boy – sometimes jarringly. He was a cuddly mess of affection with her – but his interests, the games he wanted her to play, his sillies – it was definitely all boy.

She'd always thought she'd be a better mom to a little girl – but the more time she spent with Benji, she wondered how true that would be. She'd still be able to do it, she knew. But after a lifetime of working near surrounded by men – even though some of the things that came out of Benji's mouth still made her gape at him momentarily or roll her eyes, just so male even at four – she thought her work, her life, had maybe somewhat prepared her for a boy more than a girl.

Though, taking him from a pre-schooler to a man – that was something else entirely. She wasn't sure she knew how to do that. Still, from a woman's perspective, she sure knew what she thought a man should and shouldn't be. If she could mould him into that – or if that was even the right approach – that was a different story. It wasn't like she had a great success rate with man or the best taste in them. That might be telling, she thought. Ideal and reality were two pretty different things.

The young probie had ended up telling her they should check out the Fire Museum and the Fire Zone exhibit, if Benji wanted to see more and have a bit more of a hands-on experience. There were two more things that she supposed she had known existed but she'd never really thought much about. They were just going onto the ever growing list of places she'd like to take Benji; things she'd like for him to experience, and in a way things she'd like to experience too.

There were so many things in the city that she'd just never done because they were family things or kid things. Some of them were events and activities she would've really liked to do – had wanted to do for years, had had an increased longing to do, especially when she saw the families in the streets or parks clearly headed to them – and there she was alone again. But right now – she had the opportunity to do some of them and she so wanted to take advantage of that as much as possible for both her and Benji's sakes.

She was still trying to find the balance of time and money in all of it too, though. Alex was right – she did need to do some of the fun stuff or she really was going to go crazy. But at the moment, she really did feel like there were so many other time commitments in getting things sorted out with Benji. And financial expenses; those were adding up quickly. December and January – if not February and March were really going to break her budget and put a bit of a blow to her savings. It was a price she had to pay, though. She told herself if she'd tried adoption again – it would've been a huge added expense too. If she'd finally decided to really try with in-vitro – that would've been an even huger expense. She should really be viewing Benji as some sort of economical deal in the grand scheme of things. Between lawyer's fees and court filing fees and realtor fees and moving expenses and getting Benji established expenses and nursery school tuition and just day-to-day care and now Christmas – he was costing her thousands upon thousands, and it'd hardly been more than a month. Reality and priorities can change pretty quickly was about the only thought she had about that, though.

However, she was really feeling under a bit of pressure to find the time to get everything done that needed to get done. She really didn't know how she was supposed to get to work and care for Benji while also managing to get what Mark needed, go to some meetings with him, to do Christmas shopping, to find furniture for Benji, to pack and move, to pack and move Jack, to deal with some of Benji's medical appointments … it just felt like a bit of a never-ending list that was quickly getting longer.

She supposed she might just have to suck up some of it and pay someone else to do some of it – at least in terms of packing and moving and having furniture delivered after she figured out how she was going to deal with furnishing Benji's bedroom. She really only had so many favours she could call in to help with that sort of thing. There weren't many people in her life that would be willing to find the time to help, especially at that time of year – even if it did end up just being moving furniture upstairs. And, she really didn't want to get Jack involved with helping. Beyond not wanting to deal with the attitude, she really wanted him to spend as much of December as possible focused on his schooling and getting through exams. She hoped he felt the same way about it. But his enthusiasm for his schooling seemed somewhat muted at the moment. He seemed rather resigned to his situation and not proactively trying to make things better.

Meanwhile, her whole situation had her having flashbacks even more to when she had Calvin. There had been so much she wanted to do and take advantage of while he was with her too. But work and life and lack of time had gotten in the way then too.

If she'd made better use of the time she had with him, she might've had lawyers in line for when the inevitable happened – or at least had a better understanding of how to deal with it and how to pursue anything. Maybe she would've actually pursued it – rather than just let him slip away and the hurt set in.

But even while Calvin was with her, she wished she had spent more time with him. The stirrings of wanting to try to do some 'normal' family things had really set in while she had him too. They hadn't really diminished since them. They'd really just left the desirer stronger and made her a little sadder about where she was at in her life.

Her and Calvin really hadn't gotten much farther than finding some local basketball courts to walk over to and watching television together. And, of course, playing Monopoly and homework supervision and all the other joys of feeding him and caring for him. She'd hoped to get to do some fun things with him, though – to get out on weekends, to go to a Knicks game, to hit one of the museums or a movie. Time had just gotten away from her, though, and then he was gone.

She didn't want the same thing to happen with Benji. Even if everything went to hell – she didn't want to have to look back at the time she'd had with him and think that she'd spent too much of it at work. She'd already spent too much of her life at work. There were more important things – like debating whether or not firefighters were cooler than police officers.

"They get red trucks, 'Livia. And very cool uni-for-hims with coats and boots and helmets and hoses. AND THEY GET TO PLAY WITH FIRE," he told her.

"I don't think they play with fire, sweetheart. They try to put them out – to help people."

"But they cool," he stressed to her – clearly a little unimpressed with her response.

"Maybe they're hot," she suggested back. But he just looked at her blankly - the possibilities of that statement going straight over his little head. So she just gave him another smile. "I think police officers are pretty cool too."

"But you the fuzz."

She snorted. "That's kind of a rude word, Benji. It's a bit of an insult."

"Why?"

"Because it's a word that bad guys – mobsters - used to say to insult police officers."

"But it just like fuzzy."

She snorted at him again. "I guess," she agreed. There wasn't much point in debating with a four-year-old – especially about the origin of language.

"'Livia, how come I don't have a mama or a daddy?"

She looked down at him at that. "Wow, Benj, that's a pretty big question for a Monday morning on a walk to school."

He gazed at her at that comment some more. She was glad his face had healed so well. Now they just needed to get that cast off him. His black eye and the rest of the facial bruising was long gone at that point and the gashes on his face had healed and faded. One looked like it would be a good scar, though. But she supposed everyone had to come out of childhood with a few of those. Any pain he was in from them had long disappeared from his face too when he so consistently looked at her with his big, questioning pools of blue.

"Well, some people just don't have a daddy around and some people just don't have a mommy around and some people don't have a mommy or a daddy around – and some people just have all different combinations – mommies, daddies, sisters, brothers, two mommies, two daddies, grandparents, aunts, uncles … all different things. All families are different. You've got Jack – and now you've got me. That's pretty good, right?"

"How come you don't call Jee-Peedg Jee-Peedg?" Benji asked, not responding to her question, which she wouldn't have minded getting a bit of assurance from, even if it was just coming from a little boy's mouth.

"Because Jack told me that he only lets his family call him J.P.," she told him.

"But you know mommy things, right, 'Livia?"

She snorted. "That's what you keep telling me, Benj."

"So then you family because you like a mommy, right, 'Livia?"

She gave him another small smile at that. "I don't think Jack thinks I'm much like a mommy, sweetheart."

"But Peedg does not have a mommy," he told her.

She nodded. "You're right. Jack doesn't know his mommy."

"And his daddy dead too," Benji said.

She nodded again. "He is."

"You don't have a daddy," he told her.

Again, she nodded and continued to let him direct the conversation. "That's right, sweetheart."

"Where your mommy?"

"My mommy died too – just like you're mama died."

"So you don't have a mama or a daddy too," Benji said.

She gave him a little nod and a bit of a sad smile. "Right, Benj."

He seemed proud of himself at connecting those dots and again gave her arm a swing.

"Mommies are better than mamas, though, right?" Benji asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know, Benji. I think everyone is different. Mommies and mamas are both good."

"But mommies know more things, right?" he protested.

"Everyone knows different things, sweetheart," she tried.

"You know more things than Mama."

She nodded. "Maybe. But I'm older than your mama."

Benji shook his head. "It becuz you know mommy things and she just knew mama things."

She snorted. She was starting to think defending his mother – even with him – might be a bit of a losing battle. She felt like they were talking in circles most of the time even when it was just talking with a four-year-old and all conversations ended up kind of circular.

"Rah-j's mommy knows lots too," Benji told her.

She gave him a smile at that. "Does she?"

Benji nodded vigourously. "She make Rah-j's san-e-wit-ches shapes."

Another strange thing to add to the list of motherly attributes – but she just looked at him. "What kind of shapes?"

"All kinds. Stars, dinos, h-arts, tra-in."

"That does sound pretty neat," she agreed. She could also see where this was going.

"What shape my san-e-wit-ch?"

She snorted and shook her head. "Your sandwich is on a bun today, sweetheart. So it is shaped like a bun."

He looked at her and did his unimpressed squint. "Why it not a shape?"

"It's a bun shape," she told him. "For other shapes – we'll have to find sandwich cutters or something. I have no idea where you buy those."

"Why?"

"Because that is not something I ever even considered I'd have reason to own," she told him honestly but he just gazed at her more at that comment. "I'll see if I can figure out where to buy them. Maybe on the weekend, we can go and look for them."

"Maybe Santa's workshop make them and you can ask Santa," he suggested.

She smiled at that and gave him a little nod. "That's a good idea, Benj. Think you can wait until after Christmas to have sandwich shapes?"

He swung their arms a few more times at that like he had to consider it. "When Chris-miss?"

"Mmm, three weeks," she said. "Twenty-one days."

Benji looked at her with big eyes. "THAT A LONG TIME!"

She wished she had a four-year-old's sense of time – where three weeks sounded like a millennia. To her – it sounded like it would be gone in a flash and she wouldn't know where the hell the time went.

"It's going to go by really quick, Benj," she assured him.

"When we go see if Santa real like you said?" he asked.

"Mmm," she said again and rubbed at her eyebrow. "Well, I'm pretty sure he's in town for a while. And, we're pretty busy this week – so I think we're going to have to wait until the weekend to go see him."

"When that?"

"Saturday," she said.

"That after Friday," he told her.

She nodded. "You're so smart. What's today?"

He puckered up his mouth in thought. She'd already said it to him multiple times that morning – she'd hoped it had sunk in.

"Monday?"

She nodded. "Good job. Monday. So Saturday is in five days."

"That not very long," he assured her.

She shook her head. "Not long at all."

"You sure he still be in New Y-ork on Sat-ter-day?"

She nodded. "Very sure. Have you decided what you're going to ask Santa for yet?"

"What can I ask for?" he asked again.

"A toy," she told him – again.

"Any toy?" he asked, yet again. He was still really struggling with the concept of Santa and Christmas. They'd had repeated mini discussions on the topic but it seemed pretty baffling to him and the disbelief remained that this whole asking for a toy thing was going to work and something would be there waiting for him on Christmas morning.

"Anything his workshop can make. You should probably ask him for one thing but maybe tell him one or two backups – just in case his workshop doesn't make your first choice this year."

"His workshop don't make tings?"

She shrugged. "Sometimes certain production lines are down or there's a request backlog." He gazed at her at that. So she just gave him a smile. She didn't expect him to get it. "Just think of a couple things you might like, sweetheart, and I'm sure Santa will be able to make one of them."

"Transformers?" he suggested again.

It seemed to be a theme. She really needed a crash course in what was so awesome about Transformers in the eyes of boys – and also just how the hell you made the things transformer. She always felt like she was missing something as he glared at her fumbling attempts.

But she nodded. "I'm pretty sure he'd be able to bring you a Transformer if that's what you want."

He squinted his eyes. "Firetruck?"

She nodded a bit more enthusiastically at that. "Likely. That's a good choice."

"Cars?"

"Like your Hot Wheels?" she asked hopefully.

But he shook his head violently at that. "Like Cars," he corrected.

"Like the movie?"

He nodded.

"I think there are likely Cars toys at the workshop," she conceded, though she thought she could go the rest of her life without having anything more to do with Cars.

They'd had to watch the movie twice while they had it out of the library and Benji had pretty much talked endlessly about the coolness factor Lightning McQueen since then. She really couldn't relate. There was definitely a gender barrier there. Or maybe an age barrier?

Either way, though, she was finding it interesting that now Benji was out from under Jack's wing, his feverish interest in skateboarding was diminishing. They were able to have conversations that didn't include the mention of skateboarding. He still expressed his longing to get to skateboard again and most visits to the playground included at least a short session of 'pretend skateboarding'. But she was getting to see more of Benji's personality and interests too. Or maybe it was really just that she was exposing him to new things and experiences for him to explore.

The mention of Transformers and all things robots had increased exponentially since he got to pair his Transformer with Calvin's Bumblebee and his abandoned Bonicles. She was also hearing a lot more about dragons since Flame came on the scene and the amount of playtime his Hot Wheels and Copper were getting had only risen since watching Cars. There were mentions of police and firefighters – and he came home from nursery school with some craft project every day and stories and ditties from dance and song. He was eating up the picture books she was reading to him and he was charging through the colouring books she'd bought him. He was slowly becoming a much more rounded and interesting little person. Though, she also hoped his initial love of skateboarding didn't die completely. She hoped it would be something he and Jack would be able to share. She was going to put some effort into nurturing that after they got the cast off and she had an idea of what sort of physiotherapy he was going to have to do on his arm, if any.

"Are the toys in Toy Story real toys?" Benji asked her.

She gave him another look and smile. "I'm pretty sure they are real toys," Olivia said.

"So Buzz real?"

"Well, he's a real toy."

"Does Santa make Buzz?"

She nodded. "I think likely."

"And Rex?"

She nodded again. "Probably."

She really needed to brush up on what toys were are weren't in existence before he made some sort of unachievable request from Santa that she'd be looking all over the city for or paying some ridiculous price online with expedited shipping rates through the roof.

"Who cooler Buzz or Light-ting Mah-Keen, 'Livia?"

"Mmm, I'd go with Buzz," she said. She really, really preferred their shared Toy Story experience over Cars so far. But she somehow doubted Benji was on the same wavelength as her based on previous discussions.

"Maybe Light-ting," he said. "He go fast."

"Buzz goes to infinity and beyond," she told him, and then held the door leading into the nursery school drop-off open for him.

"That fast?" Benji asked as he started to clomp up the stairs.

"More like vast," she made in a lame joke, that she again knew he wouldn't get. Maybe some day.

He looked back at her from where he was standing ahead of her on the stairs.

"'Livia don't say silly tings at school," he demanded.

She snorted and started to follow up behind him. "OK."

He clomped up a couple more and then looked back at her again – so she stopped again and gave him a questioning look, momentarily fearing it was going to be another morning battle of the tears to get him to stay at nursery school.

"'Livia," he said, "you have to say goud-bye and then I love you and hug. Becuz that what the mommies do. OK?"

She watched him for a moment and then gazed at the ceiling for a second before meeting his demanding eyes. She'd been feeling it. She knew he'd already taken hold of pieces of her heart. But she hadn't verbalized that to him. She didn't want to confuse him. She didn't want to say it to soon. She didn't want to put it out there and then for him to be taken away – or for her to be taken away from him. She didn't want to do that to him. She didn't want to do that to herself. She was going to be so fucked if this didn't work out. But it was going to work out, right? This time. For once.

She nodded. "OK, Benj. I'll do that."

"YOU NEED TO DO IT RIGHT TODAY," he demanded more seriously. "BECUZ YOU BE' DOING IT WRONG!"

She nodded again. "OK, Benj. I'll do it right today," she reassured. She did love him. She could say it. She could say it – and mean it.

He nodded like he believed her and then continued to tromp up the remaining steps – with her following after him.


	58. Chapter 58

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"So I think you owe me a coffee or something," Olivia heard from behind her as she poured some hot water into the almost clean mug she'd put her teabag in.

She glanced over her shoulder at Alex and then held up the pot of nowhere near freshly brewed coffee out towards her. "Here," Olivia offered.

Alex picked up a cup from the little hot beverage station and examined the inside of it before holding it out. "This isn't exactly what I meant," she said.

Olivia shrugged. "Not talking about it now - or here," she said.

Alex shook her head at that. "Well at least that answers one of my questions," she said as she added a bit of Coffee Mate to the rather strong-smelling brew. "But that's why I meant a leave-the-station kind of coffee," she said, as she stirred in the powder.

"Don't have time today," Olivia allowed. "Probably not this week. It's a busy one. Here and at home."

"Mmm," Alex allowed. "How was the rest of your weekend?"

She rolled her eyes at that. "Very uneventful," she stressed. Her phone vibrated in her pocket and she pulled it out to take a look at the text message that had come in. "Mmm," she offered. "I can take that apartment I went to look at on Saturday, if I want it."

Alex gaped at her. "You aren't going to just take the first apartment you looked at, are you?"

Olivia shrugged. "Yeah. Easy. Done."

Alex shook her head. "Liv, you have to look at more than one place," she protested.

She made a dismissive gesture with her hand and put down her mug so she could text back to her realtor. "Nah. This place will be fine for now. I don't have the time to be looking at places all over the city – or even the neighbourhood."

Alex examined her at that. "Well what's this place like? … before you tell your realtor you're going to take it," she almost demanded.

She shrugged again but did halt texting for the moment. "It's a two bedroom," she offered. She didn't know what more to say. That about summed it up. She didn't have a point of comparison. She went. She looked at it. It had two bedrooms and it was available. That was about all she needed to know at that point. She looked back to the text response she'd already started.

"And?"

She glanced up at her from what she was doing on the phone again. "Ah. The kitchen is nice."

"Because you use your kitchen so much," Alex said with a bit of sarcasm.

"I do now," she said, "and, I always like having a nice kitchen – even if I don't use it. It's like the measure of a good apartment. That and the bathroom."

"So how's the bathroom?"

She nodded. "Good. Two bathrooms. Bonus. Sharing a bathroom with Benji is gross. It's only going to get grosser."

Alex gave her a small smile at that.

"The master suite is pretty nice. Walk-in closet," Olivia added.

"Like you need a walk-in closet," Alex snorted.

"Oh, I need a walk-in closet," Olivia said and gave her a smile.

Alex allowed a small laugh at that. "What about the kid's room?"

"Mmm. It's sort of a weird room. Long and narrow. But it will work."

"What'd he think?"

Olivia cringed a little at that. She'd suspected even before going and looking at the place that moving would be a challenging concept for Benji. Really her apartment was like a refuge where he'd had the most stability he'd seen in months. The reality was it was likely the most stability and security he'd had in his whole life. He didn't want to separate himself from that. She was going to try to make it as easy as possible for him – staying in the same building, the same community, the same nursery school, the same playground. It was just a bigger apartment. But she knew there was still some meltdowns pending before the move as he came to terms with it – and likely after too.

"Mmm. He noted there were a lot of frogs," was only response she offered to Alex, though she suspected the face she'd made had been more telling then that.

"Frogs?"

"The kids room has a rather significant amphibian décor going on right now. Benj was not a fan," she said.

Alex smiled wider at that. "When something's wrong – it's just wrong," she said.

Olivia rolled her eyes.

"The place looked OK, though?" Alex asked. "Well kept?"

"It was hard to tell. It looked like some WASPs exploded in there. Gaudy."

"That's kind of insulting," Alex said and crossed her arms disapprovingly.

Olivia snorted. "I didn't know being a WASP was derogatory – in this city," she commented and finished with her text and retrieved her mug.

"That's our Liv," Munch commented as he dumped his coat over the back of his chair, "always with the derogatory comments. Who you persecuting this time?"

"Alex is feeling persecuted for being a white, anglo-saxon Protestant in New York, apparently. It's a tough gig."

Munch shook his head. "That's right. Us Hebrews and the WASPs need to stick together. Watch each others backs."

Alex rolled her eyes at both of them.

"What are you even doing here?" Olivia commented at him. "Decided to join the world of the living again?"

"Do we really work in the world of the living at any hour on this job?" he shot back at her. "She summoned me," he nodded at Alex.

"He pulled some guys in over the weekend," she admitted.

"Mmm," Olivia allowed over a sip in her tea. "Busy weekend then?" she asked them both.

"You're lucky Amaro offered to pull-up his socks on your behalf," Munch said.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded – pulling her mug away from her mouth and glaring at him. She didn't like his tone or his comment – especially was it was implying, like she was slacking off.

Munch shrugged and went to help himself to his own cup of joe. "Cap said to call him first this weekend if something came in. Caught a bit of a gang bang fiasco up at Hudson – was going to call you too but your partner said you were busy. Big date or something?"

She snorted at him. "That better not have been what Nick said."

"So not a big date?" John teased.

"When's the last time I had a big date, John?"

"Do you really want me to tell you the latest gossip making the rounds?"

She rolled her eyes. "No. I definitely do not."

John slouched back into his chair. "All I'm saying is there may or may not be some whispers about a mystery boy lurking in the squad room with you. It actually sort of sounds like everyone has seen Casper but me. You leaving me out of things, Liv?"

She shook her head again. She was annoyed on multiple levels: Alex bugging her about Elliot and the apartment; Amaro making excuses for her on the weekend (She could've made her own excuses if she needed to); the fact that even her own unit was apparently muttering behind her back (Not that she blamed them. They'd all seen Benji now after all – expect John, and the only person she'd given any direct explanation to was the Captain. She'd told Nick enough – but obviously not enough if he was now sticking his neck out for her and picking up her slack. That wasn't fair to him); and, now, she had John bugging her about what was going on too.

It was just the sort of mess she wanted to avoid – but she suspected it was only going to get messier before it became anything that resembled routine. She wasn't sure she'd be sticking around long enough for it to become routine – but she really hadn't had any time to put much thought into that yet either.

"You're never here, John, how can I leave you out of things?"

"Aww," he lamented, "you used to be my underpaid, undeclared, unapproved OT evening buddy. Now you've just left me alone in the dark."

She rolled her eyes at his split meaning and returned to her desk, offering him no response.

"So do you two need help?" she asked of him and Alex instead.

John shrugged. "No, seeing as you're sooo busy, I think I've got it covered with our ADA here."

Alex raised her eyebrows at that. She'd stayed about as far as possible out of the two detectives' previous exchange. "Lucky me," she said. "You want to get a room to go over this stuff then?"

"Ah. Get a room," John said, as he gathered his files off his desk. "Why do I only ever hear that phrase at work anymore?"

"Must be because you're such a charming guy," Liv commented as he started to leave with Alex following after him.

"BINGO," he said and looked back at her expectantly. But she just looked at him blankly. "What? That's his name, right?"

She snorted at that and rubbed at her eyebrow. She might as well start admitting it publicly – at least to the people she had to work directly with. "Ah. No. Benji," she said.

"Oh, whatever," John said and started to leave again. "They're both dogs."

She laughed at that and looked over his shoulder, finally offering him a smile. "He'd be happy to hear you say that," she called after him.

"Yeah," he said, "well, kids love me."


	59. Chapter 59

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She sat bolt-upright on the couch, startled from her sleep as Benji shrieked, "'LIVIA!"

It was such a bloodcurdling cry that she nearly jogged the few feet to the bedroom. Pushing the door the rest of the way open she immediately saw the source of his dismay. They'd been leaving one of her bedside lights on for him and it cast illumination over him – and he was completely covered in blood.

She gaped at him for a split second and then hurried to the bed – grabbing at his arms to look at them and pulling back the covers to try to discern the source of the blood.

"Where are you bleeding from?" she demanded from him, likely a bit too harshly – but the amount of blood all over his face and down his chest, soaking into his pajamas and the linens had caught her completely off guard. Blood wasn't one of her strong points – and she really doubted it ever would be, no matter how often she had to deal with it. Seeing the red all over him sent her into a momentary panic. What the hell happened to him?

But her tone just caused Benji's tears to stream harder and he sputtered and began coughing. Then he started gagging and then proceeded to vomit up a bile mix of blood, mucus and it looked like the glass of milk and some pretty undigested Clementine oranges slices from the small snack she'd given him before bed. It was at that point in his heaving, and his head tipped over with an accompanying gush of more blood, she realized that it was a nasty nosebleed.

She sighed. "Oh Benj," she said and smoothed her hand from his forehead, through his hair and cupped the back of his head. He just cried and gulped more. "You're alright," she assured him. "It's just a nosebleed."

She scooped him up and out of the mess of vomit and blood he was now sitting in and brought him to her chest – pressing the remnants of the mess more firmly against her, but she was going to have to clean them both up anyway. She rubbed his back as she carried him to the bathroom.

"You're alright," she assured him again, as he continued to sputter. "Keep your head tilted forward like that," she told him, as he took his usual, curled on her chin position. "It will keep you from choking on the blood."

"Mommmmmeeeeeeee," he whined harder and rubbed his bloody face all over her shoulder.

She looked at him for a moment – almost waiting for him to add 'fox' to the end of his cry, but it didn't come. She'd been so waiting for the 'Mommy' moment that this almost seemed out of place. In her mind, she'd made it more of an event – and one she'd expected was still at least a few weeks away, even though she saw him working towards it. Still, she'd seen it coming in one of his gushy-cuddly moments or him just testing it with her one day to see how she reacted. She was hoping to get some sort of warm-and-fuzzy feeling – a moment that would reaffirm everything she was feeling about him. A moment that would make it all feel even more right – something that would've made all the waiting and all the disappointment and heartbreak she'd experiencing about if she'd ever get a family to feel more like it'd been worth it. To feel like she finally had him and that she was finally a 'Mommy' – she wasn't just 'playing Mom' anymore.

But none of that washed over her. She wasn't even sure if he meant it – or rather, if he even knew he said it. Maybe she should've known that the title was more likely to come in one of his moments of need than it would in some sort of special moment. Life wasn't a Hollywood movie. She wasn't going to get some sort of choreographed perfection of being an adoptive parent with the perfect kid and the suddenly wonderful and happy life. Life just didn't work like that. She knew that. She was firmly planted in reality with daily, if not hourly, reminders of just how real reality actually was. And, really, this was what being a mom was about anyway. It was about the day-to-day care of the child and them knowing they could depend on you for that. So maybe it was appropriate that she finally got to be called 'Mommy' in an actual 'Mom moment'.

She rubbed his back again before she set him on the floor in the bathroom and gave him a small smile. "You're OK, baby," she told him, connecting with his scared eyes. "It's just a nosebleed. We're going to get you cleaned up – get it to stop."

"Mommmmmeee," he cried again and wiped at his teary eyes with the back of his hand that already had blood on it too – smearing things even more all over himself.

"It's OK, Benj," she smiled at him and pulled his hand down and wiped at the tears for him with her thumbs and then pushed his hands above his head so she could pull the soiled pajama top up and off him.

He sniffled some more – and then started coughing at the move. She shook her head at him.

"Breath through your mouth, sweetie," she told him – and reached out for his little nose to find the soft spot just below the cartilage and pinched there. He jerked away from her a bit and she shuffled a bit closer to him on her knees. "It's OK, Benj. We need to pinch your nose to get the bleeding to stop. Am I squeezing too tight?" He nodded with her hand still attached to his face. She gave him another small smile and took his hand and guided it up to where hers was. "OK, sweetie, you squeeze yourself right here. I'm going to get a washcloth and clean you up – then I'll take over again – gentler." After he reluctantly replaced her pressure with his own, she moved her hand away. "Keep your head tilted forward," she instructed him again and tapped the back of his head. "Breath through your mouth, not your nose, Benji."

"Mommy," he whined.

She nodded. Three in a row. "I know, sweetheart, nosebleeds are no fun. It will stop soon. Let's get some of this blood off you."

She shifted on her knees and grabbed a washcloth from the rack and wet it under the warm water at the sink. She'd definitely been noticing since Benji had been in her place that she had way too much stuff that was white or beige – both in linens and furniture and décor, in general. That'd been great in creating the illusion of more space in her small one-bedroom as a single woman – but it just wasn't doing the job with a little boy on the scene now. The same thing had occurred to her while Calvin had been with her – boys are hard on whites. But Calvin hadn't been anywhere near as sloppy and messy as Benji – and if things worked out with the little boy, she could be looking at years more or wear and tear and stains on everything she owned. It actually made her wonder what the hell she was thinking when she started accumulating stuff in the plain-Jane colour scheme. It so wasn't practical. The white washcloth she was about to use to mop up the blood off his body – she knew it'd likely be near garbage by the end of the clean up. She wondered what the sheets on the bed were going to look like.

She turned back to the little boy and started with wiping off under his nose and down on his chin. Benji's lip quivered a bit as she did it – so she gave him another reassuring smile and stroked his head again with her free hand.

"You're doing so well, Benj," she told him. "So brave."

Some more tears slipped out and she again reached out and swiped them away with her thumbs.

"Why it bleeding, 'Livia?" he sputtered out.

She looked at him carefully in his switch back to her name rather than the title he'd just ascribed to her. She wondered if 'Mommy' really had just been a slip in his panic and would be gone again until his next fear factor. She knew that was likely best for now – but she also felt a twinge of regret at that too.

She gave him a small shrug. "Some times nosebleeds just happen in winter. Going in and out from the cold to the warm. Too much dry air inside."

She leaned back over to the sink and rinsed out the cloth before returning it to wipe off the rest of his face and then down the front of his chest where some of the blood had managed to smear down his neck and seep through the pjs. She wiped off his arms too and carefully examined them – just to make sure she really hadn't missed some open wound and it was only a nosebleed they were dealing with. He'd managed to get some of the blood on his cast, only further adding to the gross-out factor of the thing. She really hoped they got good news about when the thing was coming off when they saw the doctor.

She thought she'd managed to get him cleaned up as best she could for the moment – so she rinsed the cloth out one more time. Then she ran it across her chest and shoulder – cleaning up what he'd smeared all over her too. She was going to need to change her sleep top as well.

She grabbed one of the bath towels and engulfed him in it, pulling him closer to her again and sat herself down on the cold, tiled floor, bringing him into her lap. She moved her hand back to his nose and squeezed just above his pinching fingers.

"Good job, Benji," she told him. "I can takeover again."

He dropped his hand but as he moved it – before she got hers repositioned - another small gush of blood trickled out and Benji made a noise.

"It's OK," she told him. "It just hasn't stopped yet. We just have to wait a bit longer."

She pulled him tighter to her and he settled against her, again returning his head to rest under her chin. She was just as happy to rest her chin on top of his little head and rock him slightly as they waited for the bleeding to stop.

"How longer?" Benji squeaked quietly at her after a couple minutes of pinching.

"Mmm," she titled her head and rested her cheek against the top of his, "I think we should wait a few more minutes, sweetheart."

"You get nosebleeds?"

She rubbed at his back a bit more. "I have. But not for a long time. Lots of people get them when they are kids, though. It's part of growing up."

"I growing up?"

She smiled against the top of his head. "You are – getting bigger and stronger and more handsome each day."

"I am?"

She nodded. "You are."

"You sure 'Livia?"

That just made her smile even more. "I'm sure."

"Why?"

She snorted. "Because we all grow up, Little Fox. And – I see how big and strong and handsome your uncle is. And, I knew your grandpa and he was big and strong and handsome too."

"You know Pops?"

She rocked him a bit more. "I did. I was very good friends with him – a long time ago."

"He Peedg's Daddy," Benji mumbled.

"He is."

"He dead," he told her.

"He is," she agreed.

"You know Pops?" he asked again.

She nodded. "I did," she confirmed again.

"Why you know Pops?"

"Because we went to school together."

"Nur-suri school?"

She let out a little laugh at that. "No, sweetheart, college. Big kid school – like Jack is at." She put a small kiss on the top of his head. "Don't talk for a couple minutes, sweetie. It will help the bleeding stop."

She rocked him a bit more as he sat quietly against her. He was actually being so still and quiet, she started to wonder if he'd settled enough to start drifting back to sleep. But when she moved her head to take a peak at him, he shifted his forehead up a bit and looked up at her. She gave him a small smile and pushed his bit of hair away from his forehead with her free hand.

"Let's take a look," she said and released her grip on his little nose. He made a sniffing noise as she did. She shook her head at him again. "Don't do that Benj. It might get it going again."

But it had seemed to stop for the moment. So she put another little kiss on his temple.

"OK. I think we've got it under control," she told him. She rubbed his little bicep and then gave him a small nudge. "Get up please – so Mommy Fox can get up."

He complied and she got back to her feet – grabbing the washcloth again to give his face one last wipe from the previous little gush of blood. She took the towel from him and hung it back up and then grabbed his hand and led him back to the bedroom.

"It smelly in here, 'Livia," he informed her and wrinkled his nose. She hoped that movement didn't aggravate the nosebleed again either.

"I know, sweetheart. But let's just get you changed and then I'll change the sheets for you."

She grabbed a clean pair of pjs for him and helped him get his casted hand through the arm and then pulled it over his head.

She examined him for a moment. He'd managed to avoid getting blood on the bottoms but there was some soaking from his spewing vomit.

"Lets switch the pants too, Benj," she suggested and held out the clean pair for him. "I want to put those ones in the wash."

She went over to the bed while he worked at stamping the pant legs off his feet – apparently pulling them off at the feet was too much work. He always looked like he was doing a dance or crushing grapes for wine or something while he got out of his pjs. She started to pull the soiled sheets off the bed. She wasn't sure what she was going to do with them. She really couldn't take them down to the laundry room at that hour. She supposed she'd just have to rinse them out in the tub and then deal with it in the morning – or when she got home from work. Thankfully, though, it didn't look like the sheets had taken the bulk of the mess. But the one pillowcase did appear as though it might be a write-off. She pulled the pillow out of it and took a look at it – the blood hadn't had much of a chance to soak through yet. It was salvageable too.

"It tink-key 'Livia. I sleep with you," Benji informed her.

She glanced at him and thought about that. "You want to sleep in the living room?" she clarified. Not that she thought she'd get much sleep with him trying to share the couch with her. But she also didn't really think she'd be getting back into much of a deep sleep at that point anyway – and him volunteering to sleep out there would save her from having to do the bulk of the clean-up right then. And, it might just save her from what she suspected was going to be an up-and-down night as the little boy struggled with tears-and-fears until he managed to pass out – if he did. Maybe if he was with her – they could jump right to sleeping.

He nodded in agreement about wanting to move out to the living, so she nodded back at him.

"OK, sweetheart. You go wait out there for a minute," she told him, as she opened the window a crack. He was right. The room did smell like vomit – particularly badly seeing as she'd given him a glass of milk with his snack.

He gazed at her for a moment – and it was clear he wasn't going anywhere without her.

"I'm just going to rinse out some of the sheets in the bathroom and then we'll go back to sleep," she told him.

She took the sheets she'd gathered and walked passed him but he followed and stood in the bathroom as she rinsed the worst of the vomit down the tub and scrubbed at some of the blood stains. She then rinsed out the tub. Now that room definitely had a puked in odour to it too. And she was once again leaving a sloppy mess in the tub to deal with later, which just wasn't going to help with the general odour of the whole apartment.

She sighed a bit but got back up and scooped up the little boy again. That seemed to be just what he was waiting for and he again cuddled into her. She rubbed his back.

"OK, Little Fox, time to go to sleep," she told him, as she wandered back to the living room. She thought that after he passed out, she likely could manage to get back up and finish up the clean up, if she was still awake too.

She stood above the couch for a moment and examined it deciding the best way to position them on the thing. But she decided not to put too much thought into it. Benji was always passing out on top of her and draping himself all over her at that point anyway. She didn't really think there was a right or wrong way to lay down with him anymore. So she just lay down and settled him so he was partial wedged against the back of the couch and partially still on top of her. He patted her cheek at that and she gave him a small smile.

"Close your eyes, sweetheart," she told him.

He rested his head against her shoulder but still continued to play with where some strands of her hair was resting on her opposite shoulder. She put a kiss on the top of his head.

"It's late. Try to go back to sleep," she said.

He kicked her a little as he shifted against her, apparently seeking a more comfortable position for sleeping. But he flopped his head back against her and draped his arm over her – cuddling down even more. She tucked the blanket tighter around him and watched him. She could see his eyes still open, though he was still and quiet for the moment.

It was so strange to have him with her sometimes. The whole experience was strange – but there were moments where it felt even more surreal. He so wanted a mommy and someone to care for him. She could see it and feel it – she was hearing it come from him more and more in his four-year-old way. But there were these moments when he was pressed up against her that she almost couldn't remember not having him – and couldn't imagine going back to not having him. Him being there with her just felt too natural sometimes – carrying him around, cuddling with him, taking care of him. There was something almost primal about it – instinctual. There were really moments where he just felt like hers. She did feel like a mommy – even though it wasn't a moment. It as an accumulation of tasks reshaping her reality – and she liked that.

"I love you, Benj," she assured him. "You're safe. You can go to sleep."


	60. Chapter 60

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She'd been pleasantly surprised with how professional and clean Mark and his associates' office had seemed. At least until they actually stepped into his office and it looked like a tornado had hit it and it reeked of pizza.

She saw Jack glancing at the small conference table off in the corner that still had likely the remnants of an office meeting lunch sitting on it – pizza boxes still open and a salad starting to wilt. Mark must've noticed too.

"Sorry, we had a meeting in here just before you guys got here. Help yourself if you want," he nodded at it.

But Jack just turned back to him and shook his head. But she could nearly hear his stomach growling.

"Take some, Jack," she encouraged.

He glanced at the food again but again shook his head. "Isn't that like a bribe or something?" he suggested.

She snorted at that but Mark just looked at him from where he'd moved behind his desk. "If I was going to bribe you, I'd come up with something a lot more enticing than lukewarm leftover pizza," he responded.

Jack allowed a small smile at that.

"Eat," Mark said again. "It will likely end up in the trash if it's still sitting here at the end of the day."

Jack gave him a look. "You toss leftover pizza? What's wrong with you? It's better cold."

Mark let out a small laugh at that. "Guess you better save it from its destiny then."

Jack shrugged at that point and went back over to the table to help himself to a couple slices while Olivia settled herself into one of the chairs in front of Mark's desk. She allowed him a small nod of thanks for convincing Jack to get some food into himself, as unhealthy of option as it was. Mark just returned a thin smile, though, and shuffled around with some paperwork on his desk until Jack came and took the second seat, a slice already hanging out of his mouth. He had two more sitting on the paper plate he'd claimed.

"So Olivia tells me you've got some questions about what's going on," Mark said, while Jack worked on chewing.

She glanced at him and watched him slowly chew and swallow. She wasn't sure if it was just table manners or if he was taking time to organize his thoughts. He'd been really quiet in the car on the drive over. She'd tried to make a little bit of small talk with him as well as ask him about school and give him an update on how Benji was doing so far that week. But he'd been near mute. He'd only come out of it to tell her that Funky's was having a holiday party.

"Gecko rented out this indoor skate park for next Saturday morning for his daughter's birthday and for the staff holiday party," he'd ventured quietly.

She glanced at him from the road. Initially the only thing she took from the statement was that Gecko had a child – and a daughter. The guy was full of surprises.

"Gecko has a daughter?" she'd commented.

Jack nodded. "Ah, yeah, Taylor. She's turning six. 'Jamin kind of knows her – and some of the other kids that will be there. I was sort of … hoping … you'd let me take him. … You can come too, if you want, I guess."

She glanced at him again. He was being so quiet about it – like he was again sure she was instantly going to say no. Or completely deny him access to his nephew. But instead she rubbed at her eyebrow for a moment and considered it.

"It's at a skate park?" she asked. She saw Jack give a nod out of the corner of her eye. "I'm not sure Benji skateboarding yet is the best idea, Jack."

He let out a bit of a sigh at that and she saw him look out the window – clearly in a bit of a funk.

"You know lots of people skate with casts," Jack said without looking at her – clearly being passive aggressive. "I've known people who have even skated with leg breaks."

"Four-year-olds?" she commented.

He let out another louder sigh at that. "I could put him on a scooter instead – and with all the padding. And, if you still aren't cool with that I could just let him jump around in the foam pit or slide down the ramps on his ass. Or there's a video game room."

She glanced at him and he turned and caught her eyes.

"I really want to take him," Jack said and she actually thought his voice cracked the tiniest bit. "I don't want to go alone. It's a kid thing."

She sighed. She could understand where he was coming from with that – but she turned her eyes back to the traffic. "Let me think about it a bit, Jack. His doctor's appointment is tomorrow. I'll see what the doctor says about the idea – and where his healing is at."

In truth, even with a parental designation, with Jack still being Benji's guardian, she only had so much say. Jack could take Benji to whatever he wanted – and cut her off and out of the little boy's life however and whenever he wanted. But he didn't seem to really know that – and she wasn't about to let him in on that tidbit.

Jack hadn't argued with her at all. Maybe he thought it was a bit of a losing battle. So he just made a noise again and had turned back to looking out the passenger window and then hadn't said anything else for the rest of the drive over to Mark's Queens office. She wondered now if he was still in a bit of a shutdown mode because of her not giving him the answer he wanted. But he eventually shrugged after he swallowed his food.

"Yeah. What's going on?" Jack asked.

Mark gave him a small smile at that and folded his hands on the desk. "Olivia is seeking permanent custody of Benji," Mark said simply.

Jack looked down at the plate in his lap at that. "Yeah. But what does that all mean?"

Mark nodded. "Well, Jack, what it means will really depend on how much you want to work with us on this – and then also what a judge has to say about the matter."

"But she'd … be his … parent?" he managed to get out slowly.

Mark allowed a small nod. "That's the general gist of it."

Jack pushed the one piece of pizza around on the plate at that and offered no further comment. Olivia watched him for a moment but then turned back to Mark.

"Ah, I think one of Jack's main concerns is what his involvement in his nephew's life would look like after all of this," she offered on his behalf and Jack glanced up slightly at that – first at her and then over to Mark.

He nodded and fingered some of the pages in the file he had sitting in front of him. "OK. Well – technically, that would be up to Olivia. But – if we were to do this as an adoption, we could write up almost a contract that would provide a bit of a legal agreement about what your involvement would be – at least in terms of the type of contact you'd have with Benji. But, Jack, this basically means you'd be giving up your decision-making power in your nephew's life. You wouldn't be his guardian anymore – you wouldn't have those responsibilities or powers in terms of his life – Olivia would."

"So this is an adoption?" Jack said really quietly.

Olivia looked at him. "I haven't decided that yet, Jack. I've been waiting to see what you decided about how … co-operative you were going to be."

"What do you mean?" he asked giving her a questioning look.

Mark tapped on his paper pad, drawing Jack's attention back over to him.

"We can do this a few different ways, Jack," he offered. "One of them is adoption – another is something literally called 'permanent guardianship', which is the process you would've gone through. So we'd basically be switching the guardianship from you to Olivia."

He looked back at her. "So you're going to adopt him if don't agree to all of this?"

She shook her head. "No, Jack."

"It'd actually be easier for her to adopt him, if you are on-board with this idea," Mark told him – and Jack gazed at him at that. Jack broke his eye contact and went back to examining his food or maybe the floor. "Can I ask where you are at with all of this, Jack?"

He just shrugged. So Mark nodded and looked at Olivia. He raised his one eyebrow at her – and then flipped around on his notepad, getting to a clear page.

"Well, Jack, how about you tell me a bit about how you ended up in this situation," Mark said.

Jack looked up at him. "Huh?"

Mark met his eyes again. "It seems a little unusual to me that a judge would've assigned permanent guardianship to a college kid. I'd kind of like to know how that came to be."

Jack shrugged again – but then after a several beat pause said, "Wouldn't my lawyer tell me not to just tell you that kind of stuff?"

Mark let out a bit of a snort at that and glanced at Olivia again. "So did you go out and get yourself a lawyer there, Jack?"

He shrugged again, though – and Mark tapped his pen on the notepad.

"How about you start talking then – and if you get uncomfortable with it – we can stop," Mark suggested.

"It's like I'm giving you ammunition then," Jack said. "Don't I have a right to remain silent?"

Olivia let out a small laugh at that. "Jack – you aren't under arrest. You haven't done anything wrong. This isn't an interrogation."

"But you'll use what I say to make a case that you should get guardianship," Jack spat back at her.

She nodded. "Yeah, Jack, I will."

Jack sighed.

"You're still going to be a part of his life, Jack," she said. "With or without paperwork – you're going to be a part of his life. I promise. I wouldn't take that away from either of you. Family is important – it's everything. And, we're really trying to help you here. You need to help us, help you."

He glanced at her and shuffled his feet around the floor.

"Greg said he wasn't going to be stuck raising more of my Dad's problems. He said he was going to let children's aid come and take Benji away – to a home or orphanage or whatever."

Olivia felt her eyes get hot at that comment. It explained why Jack had been so terrified that someone was coming to get Benji. But the concept of the little boy being put in a home not because he didn't have family that could care for him – but because his great-uncle was angry or just unwilling to take on that responsibility hurt her too. Benji deserved so much more then that. He was such a sweet little boy. He really deserved to be loved and cared for – to have a chance to develop and grow and reach his full potential with the proper encouragement. He didn't deserve to be dumped into a home. She didn't understand how his great-uncle could look at a seemingly perfect, healthy little boy and decide to just give him away, to let him go – without a second thought. And why? Because he seemed to have some sort of people with decisions Jay had made in his life – or maybe more so the fact that he'd moved home and raised his children there without the help of his wife. Punishing the children for someone else's mistake – which she didn't really think she'd ever get to know if it was Jay's or his wife's – just didn't make sense to her. But Greg had clearly done his best to punish Jack (and likely Izzy in some ways as well, she assumed) – and now Benji.

"I couldn't let that happen," Jack mumbled so softly that she thought he was nearing tears. "So I went to the court and they gave me the paperwork to fill in to be able to take care of him instead."

Mark had taken some sort of note at that and then examined Jack. "And a judge agreed that you bringing him into the city while you were still a college student was in the best interests of Benji? As opposed to him going into foster care?"

Jack shrugged. "He might not have known I was coming back to the city."

Mark looked at him. "Did you lie to the court, Jack?"

Jack shrugged. "No. I was home for the summer. I said I was staying at the house and working on the family farm."

"And the judge didn't ask you if you were planning on going back to school in the fall?"

Jack shrugged again. "I guess I didn't really know then. I thought maybe I should just stay there. But I couldn't stay there," he said quietly.

"Why couldn't you stay there?"

"Greg said we couldn't stay there anymore. He said it was Nan's house and he had power-of-attorney and he didn't want us there anymore."

"And so coming back into the city was the next best option?"

"I didn't want to be a dairy farmer," Jack said even more quietly.

Mark watched the top of his head for a few moments and then turned back to scribble some things onto his notepad. He sighed when he looked back up at the teen.

"OK, Jack, I just want you to know – that had the judge known you were an 18-year-old kid who intended to move back to New York City and continue college – with barely a part-time income … there's not many judges I know who would've granted you guardianship," Mark said.

Jack looked a little angry at that. "I was taking care of him," he spat out.

Mark nodded. "I've heard – and that commendable. But the whole situation wouldn't likely have been deemed to be in what us in the legal system like to label as the 'best interests of the child'."

He glanced at Olivia still somewhat angrily. "What? And living with her is?"

She just shook her head at him and rubbed at her eyebrow. She didn't know how many times they could have this conversation. But at least it was giving Mark the opportunity to see what she was up against.

"In a lot of ways, I do think it is probably a better arrangement than living with you, Jack. If the court agrees with me – that's another story. Genetics does play a role. It's part of the reason we'd really like you to admit to the judge here that you're out of your depth," Mark told him.

Jack glared at him more. "I'm not out of my depth," he said purposefully.

Mark snorted. "Jack – I've got two kids – and I'm a hell of a lot older than you, and I'm out of my depth half-the-time. You're 18. You're supposed to be out partying and chasing girls – finishing your degree. You still get a couple years where it's socially acceptable for you to act like a kid. Do you really want to be raising a kid during them? Especially when he's not yours?"

"He's my nephew. He's not hers," he gestured at Olivia. "He's not her anything."

Mark nodded. "Well – we're trying to change that."

Jack shook his head and glared down again. "So what happens if I don't co-operate?" he asked.

Mark glanced at Olivia at that but she just shrugged. She thought he was likely just testing the waters.

"Well – we'd be arguing in court that having your permanent guardianship terminated is in the best interests of Benji, and we'd be simultaneously arguing that it should be reassigned to Olivia," he told him. "So, we'd basically we saying what we've discussed here – that you're an 18-year-old college kid with little-to-no income. We'd present that you contacted Olivia for help barely a month into you having him back into the city on your own."

Jack sighed at that.

"Jack," she said, "there is nothing wrong with asking for help."

"He's going to make it wrong," he spat at her and met her eyes. "He's going to make it like I'm unfit."

She shook her head. "I know it was hard for you to admit you needed help – and it took a lot of effort for you to locate me. Doing what you did took a lot of strength – standing up to your uncle and standing up for Benji, appearing before court and offering to take on guardianship, making the decision to come back into the city, admitting you were struggling with caring for Benji here. It shows what a strong person you are. Don't turn this into an argument about whether or not you're fit – you know you're struggling. Make it easy on all of us – and agree to work with us. Be strong again – stand in front of a judge, admit you're struggling and ask for your guardianship to be reassigned, or agree to put Benji up for adoption. Nothing will happen to him. We'll be filing all the other paperwork at the same time. We'll be standing right in the courtroom with you."

"That's what happens if I co-operate?"

Mark nodded. "Basically. You'll help us get some paperwork in order. You'll sign a few things. We'll get a court date – and we'll all head over there and have a bit of a chat with a judge."

"And I have to tell him I can't handle it?"

Mark shrugged. "We can come up with a better way to phrase it that will make you more comfortable. I'll be able to do a lot of the talking on your behalf. The judge will likely just ask you some questions to make sure you understand what you're doing and the ramifications of the decision."

"And then what happens to me?"

"You get to go back to being a regular college kid," Mark said.

Jack nodded. "What about … the guardianship thing she mentioned?"

Mark watched him again for a moment. "You mean for you?"

He allowed another really small nod at that. It was the second time he'd brought it up. He was clearly thinking about that a lot. Olivia was taking it as a positive sign – though the concept of being the guardian to someone who was technically an adult – and who was Jack was still a little jarring to her. But she'd do it. If it meant she could be in Benji's life – she'd do it. Beyond that – she really felt worry for Jack too. Even for the law defining him as an adult – he was still a kid, and he was clearly damaged.

Mark nodded. "OK. Well, that's something Olivia has indicated to me she's willing to do – if you're willing to work with us on this."

"So that's a bribe," Jack said.

Mark snorted. "I guess it's more of a bribe than the pizza," he said.

Olivia shook her head. "Jack – me taking on your guardianship would be part of the arrangement. I'm not going to file for that one without the other."

"Technically, a judge wouldn't likely grant your guardianship while you're acting as a guardian anyway," Mark told him.

Jack seemed to consider that – but examined the ground then. "She wouldn't be able to like … dig into my life?"

Mark shook his head. "You'd still be legally an adult. It's more like you'd have a back-up plan. You could list her as an emergency contact. It's likely if you ever did have an emergency – as your guardian, she'd be the person they'd contact."

"Like if I was in the hospital?"

He nodded. "Or if you were arrested – or stuck overseas. All sorts of different scenarios. She'd the person that the authorities would track down on your behalf."

"And I'd get her health benefits?"

Mark nodded again. "Yeah, until you're 22nd birthday – or you graduate from university – she'd be able to sign you up as a dependent on her benefits. She'd also be able to make decisions on your behalf in the hospital – if you were unconscious or something. The doctors would be able to legally talk to her in those kinds of situations."

He glanced at her. "Do your benefits cover wisdom teeth?"

She snorted at that and shook her head at him. "Do you need your wisdom teeth out, Jack?"

He shrugged.

She almost wanted to laugh. Maybe he was just considering all of it because he was in pain and couldn't afford to go and deal with it on his own. But she just examined him for a beat more. "Yeah, I've got dental that we could get you on, Jack," she told him. "I'll be able to get Benji on my plan too. I've got pretty good benefits through work."

"Wisdom teeth are a bitch," Mark added to the comment. "Don't wait until they're impacted to deal with that. Make the unpleasantness more unpleasant. When's you're birthday, Jack?"

"The twenty-third," he said.

Mark looked at him at that. "This month?" Jack nodded and the lawyer made another note. "Almost a Christmas baby. OK. Well – I'd feel better about getting the paperwork in for that before you turn 19 there Big Guy. So – you're going to have to tell us what we're doing here pretty soon. And, I mean, really soon. Getting things in ordered and filed will take a bit. Your birthday is coming up pretty quick."

"I'm not telling you now!" Jack protested and shot Olivia another look. It was pretty clear to her at that point that he'd already made his decisions. He just wasn't ready to verbalize them to her yet. But the game of back-and-forth and resistance was getting a little old. She wanted to get things going.

"You don't to have to tell us today – but I'd really like an answer by Monday," Mark answered before she could put in any more comments. "If you aren't on-board, Jack, it'd be nice for me to stop charging Olivia just for my time and start charging her for some work I'm actually doing. I want to start getting her paperwork in order too."

Jack glanced at her. "You're paying him?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "He's a lawyer, Jack. I'm paying him."

"But you're friends with lawyers."

"Jack – having my friends work on this case would be a bit of a conflict of interest. Beyond that – I don't spend a lot of time with lawyers who work in the family court system."

Jack considered that. "So you don't know her?" he directed at Mark.

He shook his head. "Not until a couple weeks ago, no."

Jack again glanced at her – like this new information was somehow important in his thought process.

"Did you bring Benji's birth certificate like I asked?" Mark asked.

Jack glared at him for a moment but then flipped up his messenger bag and pulled out a duo-tang and riffled through some papers before handing Mark one. He looked at it and gave a small smile – and then handed it across to Olivia. She examined it and smiled too. It felt really nice to see this documentation of Benji's existence – of the day he was born, apparently at 3:50 a.m. in the morning. But more importantly, she knew what Mark had been smiling about was that the father field was blank.

"What's so interesting about it?" Jack asked after a silence had continued for some time.

"I just needed to confirm there was no father listed on it," Mark told him.

Jack made a face and looked over at her, where she was still looking at the simple piece of paper and probably smiling a little too much about getting to see and hold it.

"I told you that Izzy didn't know who his dad is," he barked at her.

She glanced at him – a little startled, she'd been so set at looking at the certificate itself. "Ah, I know, Jack."

"You didn't believe me?"

"I believed you, Jack," she assured him.

"Legally the process just would've been different if your sister had put the name of a father on the certificate," Mark said. "I just needed to know for sure what we were dealing with here. Is it OK if I make a copy of that?"

Jack shrugged. "I guess."

Mark nodded. "What else have you got in that folder, Jack?"

"Just 'Jamin's stuff and stuff," he said quietly and seemed to grip it a bit tighter.

"Can I take a look?" Mark asked.

He very reluctantly handed it across the desk and Mark started paging through it. "He's got his sister's death certificate here," he commented at Olivia, "and his deed of guardianship. Dad's death certificate. A bunch of other documents." He looked at Jack. "Can I make a copy of all of this for my files? We need some of this paperwork for our filing."

She could see Jack's face contorting a bit while he tried to think about that and process it. "OK," he finally said.

Mark nodded. "Really, Jack, Olivia should have this folder, I think. I can have my sectary make up a copy for you to take home with you as well. But I think while your nephew is in her custody – it would make sense for her to have access to this."

"Why can't she have the copies?" he spat across the desk.

Mark shrugged. "She can. But it might be nice for her to have the originals."

Jack glanced at her. She shook her head at him. "It's OK, Jack," she said. "I'm fine with just having copies – for now. But having access to some of that information might be useful."

He seemed to think about that some more but quietly offered, "OK."

She gave him a thin smile and a little nod at that.

"Jack, I've got to tell you, that based on the information in here – I'm really going to again recommend to Olivia that she push for adoption and not just permanent guardianship."

Jack's eyes got big at that. "Why?"

"It's more permanent. It's more stable. Neither parent is in the boy's life. There's a good case to be made for it."

He gaped at her – and she gaped at Mark. She hadn't even decided if she wanted to pursue adoption yet – if she wanted to go through another home study. It seemed more risk. It seemed to open up the potential for heartbreak even more. She wasn't ready to deal with that. She just wanted her Little Fox. She didn't want the rest of the complications right now. It all was complicated enough. Not to mention, she knew that that wouldn't sit well with Jack and they'd seemed to be making progress up until that point.

"But … just … NO," Jack blurted.

She shook her head. "Jack, if you don't want to talk about adoption, right now – then we aren't going to. We'll file for guardianship. It's fine."

"NO," Jack said.

"Jack – I'm not going to file for adoption until you're comfortable with that idea too. I'll take permanent guardianship. I'd have a two-year waiting period before adoption would even be on the table then."

"I'll be done school then. You won't need to be his guardian anymore then," Jack spat.

"That's actually not how it works, Jack," Mark interjected. "Permanent guardianship is permanent. If you wanted Benji back in your custody after you're done school then you'd have to take Olivia to court."

Jack gazed at him and then shot a look at her. "No," he said.

She sighed. "Jack, after you're done school you're going to be starting your life – finding a job. You've said before you'd like to move out West. You don't want to be trying to do all of that with a little boy in tow. You're still going to have a lot on your plate as you get established."

He shook his head at her. "No," he said again, like he was really struggling with the concept of everything now.

"We don't have to talk about that now, Jack," she assured him. "We can talk about that in two years – when you're done school. A lot can change in two years. Please, let's just try to focus on making the right decisions for right now."

"Why do you even want to do this?" he spat at her. "Why do you want to adopt him?"

She sighed and glanced at Mark. She was a little upset with him for putting adoption back on the table in front of Jack. And, she wasn't sure how much she wanted to have a conversation around the particulars of her maternal instincts in over-drive in front of him.

But she sighed. "I want a child, Jack," she admitted and shook her head. She thought the concept of losing out on this might bring her to tears. "Badly. I want a family. Please – let me be a part of your family – of your and Benji's lives. Help me get permanent guardianship. We'll talk about adoption in a couple years. Let's just talk about permanent guardianship now. You know what it's like to not have parents – to feel alone. I'm really sick of feeling that way. Don't make Benji feel that way. Don't take this away from me. Don't take this away from him."


	61. Chapter 61

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Hey El," she said into his voicemail box. Though, she kind of suspected he'd seen her caller ID and had decided not to answer, which she further suspected likely meant he still didn't much want to talk to her. But she was going to try again anyway. She didn't want to be pathetic about it – she didn't want to force him to be her friend or to interact with her. But, she could also use his help. And not just for moral support in all of this. If he really wasn't working yet – she could use some of his brute strength to help out with some of the move.

"I'm going to be over on your side of the river one afternoon this weekend. I guess there's a discount kids furniture place there in Queens that I want to check out. I got that apartment I was going to look at last weekend. I need to get some stuff for Benji's room."

God, she thought she was starting to sound pathetic. Longest message ever. Before her messages would've been along the lines of, 'El, it's Liv. Call me back.' They'd gotten longer while he pulled his disappearing act after the shooting. She started phone-stalking him and leaving almost epic novels on his machine. She was sure he stopped listening to most of them. But she'd been so worried about him. Now she just wanted to make sure he knew she wasn't that upset with him and that she did still want to try, if he was willing to return the effort.

"Ah, I don't think you have Eli this weekend. But if you do, and you want to meet up with the kids in a park or something – that'd be nice. It'd be great to get a chance to see him."

It'd been so long since she'd seen him – since she'd even seen a picture of him. She couldn't imagine how much he'd grown. Or what his mess of Kathy's curly blond locks would look like on him now. What his interests would be? She'd really love to see him. She'd love for him and Benji to play together.

Her and Elliot had kids (sort of) in a similar age range. Previously she would've never imagined that would happen. But had they still been partners – the concept of their kids being able to play together and grow-up together, even if it was just at some of the various work events over the course of the year … that would've made her happy. There would've been something just nice about that – an added connection to their relationship. Maybe something more like family, though she imagined Kathy might have something to say about that.

She'd heard the mutterings of 'your office wife' while the phone had been passed over to Elliot in the past. There'd been the handful of uncomfortable conversations the last time they were separated. The awkward times they'd been in the hospital at the same time for Elliot. The answering of Elliot's phone and it being her calling – and her tone clearly unimpressed it wasn't her husband that answered. The looks over the years. She would've hoped it improved after she helped deliver Eli. She would've hoped that … their relationship could've been different. But Kathy didn't seem that open to that and Olivia really only wanted to have so much of a relationship with her partner's wife. She didn't think Elliot wanted her to have much of a relationship with her either. That actually might've been part of the problem for everyone. She didn't think he would've been like that if he'd had a male partner for all those years.

Partners getting together outside of work – for barbeques and holiday parties and various family events … weddings, baptisms, Confirmations, First Communions, Bar Mitzvahs, funerals, Sweet Sixteens, Super Bowl Sundays – it wasn't uncommon. But she'd never been invited to any of that with Elliot's family. She wasn't sure if it was because she didn't have a family – so why would they invite a single woman over to their house? Or if it was specifically because she was a single woman and Kathy didn't want that in her house. It'd been a source of a bit of hurt over the years. Some times she got to hear about El's kids' various milestones – or their Sunday dinner or summer barbeque or … just whatever … but still being part of that outside of work just never seemed to be an option. She'd kind of wished it had been, especially as the years wore on and their partnership continued. It wasn't a one or two year thing. They'd been together for 14 years. She'd watched the twins grow up and she'd watched the girls grow from teenagers into young women. She'd tried to help and to be there for Elliot and his kids as much as she could. But she'd never really gotten much out of it – and there was so much she would've liked to have gotten out of it.

Maybe now was a second chance, though. Things were different now. He wasn't her partner. They were both going through challenging things in their lives – and maybe Kathy didn't have as much say and pull in his decisions as before. They both had little boys. Spending time together could be fun. It could be sanity saving. It could be something really normal. People got together for play-dates with kids, right? She could get some advice from him periodically – about parenting and about raising boys … and boy things. They could go to some sports games together. Take the kids out to the playground or skating or … something. It could be nice – if he'd let it be. But they were talking about Elliot. He didn't excel at letting her in – even after years of partnership. She was allowed to hear about his personal life in passing – but she wasn't allowed to participate in it. She didn't think she was even supposed to want to.

She shook her head at herself and glanced over at where Benji was playing. Her thoughts were letting her ramble into the phone. Badly. She thought about deleting the message and calling back and trying again. Or just calling again later and hoping he'd pick up his phone that time. She doubted that would happen, though.

"And, even if you don't have Eli, it'd be nice to see you too. Grab a coffee or lunch or … whatever you're up for. I'm thinking Sunday. Call me."

She sighed when she hung up the phone. That felt like the most uncomfortable message ever. She felt ridiculous leaving it. But she'd hardly taken the phone down from her ear when it started to ring. Initially relief had washed over her – maybe he wasn't screening his calls and avoiding her ID. Maybe he really just hadn't been able to get to the phone before it went to voicemail. But as she looked at the ID on her phone that initial reaction was replaced with some trepidation. It wasn't Elliot returning her call. Calvin was calling her.

She'd been thinking about Calvin so much lately – and she'd been wanting to call him. But finding the time with Benji right now had been hard. Especially, finding a time when she could talk to Calvin without Benji interrupting her and her having to tell the other boy about the new little boy in her life. She really wasn't sure how Calvin would react to that information but she didn't necessarily think it would be positive. She suspected it would be more hurt and angry.

She hadn't heard from Calvin in a while, though. At least not by phone. She'd received a couple scattered emails from him lately. She'd responded but he never really responded back. All his notes were basically the start of a new thread of information. He never answered any of her questions or reacted to anything she put in hers. She found it frustrating but not entirely unexpected. Talking to him on the phone was always better, though, he didn't really seem to excel at it.

She'd seen the studies that said kids these days didn't know how to hold normal conversations anymore. They were so used to communicating in texts and emails and all sorts of other forms of instant messaging, that the concept of talking about anything in a back-and-forth verbal conversation when the person wasn't there right in front of you had apparently started to become a lost art and a bit of a foreign concept for them. That actually scared her a bit. Some days it seemed like people were becoming less human. And if people were less human – how could they treat each other humanely?

She wondered if in the next generation, there'd be even more crimes coming into her unit with excuses about social awkwardness and not-knowing better being cried even louder by the lawyers and that there would be even more studies to prove just how much computers and the internet and smartphones and iPods and videogames and everything else had just screwed up people beyond repair. They didn't know any better – they only know how to deal with people virtually – not in reality.

"Hey Calvin," she said into the phone, trying to sound as cheery as possible.

She really did like hearing from him. Before she actually would've been so happy and excited to get a random phone call from him on a weeknight. But the randomness of this one – after not getting a call from him for almost four months and having not had an email from him for at least three weeks – had her suspicious. She suspected the only reason he was calling was because something was up.

"Guess what?" he said into her ear, without even a 'hello'.

She shrugged and shook her head – again glancing at Benji and nearly praying that he was so absorbed in what he was doing that she'd get through what was usually a pretty brief chat with Calvin, without him making his presence known. He seemed OK at the moment. She'd converted his Transformers into robots for him at the dinner table and now he had them lined up with the Bionicles. She wasn't entirely sure what they were doing. But it looked like he was almost conducting a robot fashion show for the enjoyment of Flame and Mommy Fox to her. She thought he'd likely be gravely insulted if she suggested that was the game he was playing, though. At least after he figured out what a fashion show was and that it was clearly a girl's game.

"I have no idea, Calvin. What?"

"Grampa is taking me to a Jets game!" he told her with a significant amount of enthusiasm. She liked that. She didn't hear that from him enough and she really wished she did more often.

"Wow," she tried to return the same level of excitement. "Is that part of your Christmas present?"

"Yeah!" he agreed loudly into her ear. "Awesome, right?"

She gave a small nod. "Pretty awesome, Calvin," she agreed.

"So Grampa says we can hang out before the game on Sunday or the next day before we come back," Calvin told her – revealing the real purpose of the call.

She managed to hold back a sigh as she considered that statement. Normally, she wouldn't give up the opportunity to see Calvin, for a variety of reasons: because she wanted to – but also because he wanted to. She used to look forward to his very infrequent and supervised visits. She found the supervision of the visits a little insulting – like his grandparents still expected that she might run off with the boy. Even more insulting was that she suspected it was something that the family's lawyers had recommended – that she not be left alone with him … desperate woman and all, right?

But getting together with Calvin now … it was more complicated. It'd been so long since she'd seen him. But there was the Benji situation now. What did she do with him? How did she tell Calvin about him? Should she even tell Calvin about him at this point – or just leave it. Really, for how much interaction they had, it likely wasn't worth presenting him with that kind of stress and potential anger. But she also didn't want to be lying to him. She hated lying to people who'd already experienced so much disappointment and had been so badly hurt by the people they cared about most.

"The game's this Sunday?" she asked.

"No. It's the twenty-third. But Grampa said we should tell you now since it's like Christmas Eve and most people do stuff on Christmas Eve. But I told him you wouldn't be doing anything. But isn't it cool that we'll get to hang out on Christmas Eve or the day before? If we hang out on Christmas Eve we have to hang out early he says because we need to get back here to Gramma so she's not alone. But we could have breakfast. Or we could get together the day before – before the game. Or whatever."

She snorted a little at his extended explanation of the options. But her head was again going on overdrive. The twenty-third that was Jack's birthday. She'd be inviting him over that day – and trying to take him out for dinner and making (or more likely buying) a cake or something. And, Christmas Eve. She had no idea what she'd be doing during the day – she assumed going to work. But she definitely had plans that night. She was playing Santa – for the first-time ever. She would be hanging out with the little boy already planted in her apartment – and hopefully Jack too. She'd actually be having a Christmas.

Could she fit Calvin in? The game was likely in the evening? She could meet him before it and still be able to have Jack over for his birthday, if he wanted, right? Or could she drop Benji off at daycare on the Monday and then go and meet up with Calvin and his grandpa for breakfast? She didn't even know if the daycare was open that day. She'd have to check. Would Jack be staying at the apartment at that point for Christmas? Maybe he could watch Benji for the day? Or maybe she should just book it off work? She didn't know.

"I'm sure we can work something out," she told Calvin, though. At least it gave her some time to think about if and how she wanted to explain Benji to him.

Did he need to know? She thought so. The longer she had him – the more she hated hiding it from people. She didn't have anything to be ashamed off. People should be happy for her, as far as she was concerned. Or at least be trying to be supportive in some capacity. And, really, as it slowly became more public – people were being supportive. At least the ones who mattered. But Calvin would be a different story. It was a lot for a 13-year-old to wrap his head around. And, she could already see the questions spinning through his mind: why Benji and not him? The short answer was because of his mother. His mother hadn't let it be him. Vivian had taken that away from both of them. Still, she was sure the questions would remain in the boy and she knew Calvin – there'd be anger and there'd likely be some bitterness. If she didn't approach it properly, it could damage their relationship, such as it was. She didn't want that. But, on a selfish level, she also didn't want to add in complications that might ruin the Christmas she was so looking forward to.

"Awesome," he said. "OK. Text me when you know."

She did snort at that. "That's it? You don't have anything else you want to talk about?"

There was a pause. "No. Not really," he told her.

She shook her head and looked at Benji again. There were definitely moments already where she wanted him to stay a little boy forever – so she wouldn't have a Jack or even a Calvin on her hands. Though, one or the other or a combination thereof, all of Benji's own, was inevitable eventually, she knew. Hopefully she'd be around to see it – as annoying and frustrating as it would likely be. She was pretty sure she liked robot fashion shows better than dealing with teenagers – whether they were 13 or 18.

"How's school?" she asked.

"OK," Calvin said.

She rolled her eyes at the phone. "And how's everything going there?"

"OK," he allowed again.

"How are you?" she asked, even though she knew the answer she'd get.

"OK," he replied again.

She nodded. "OK," she agreed, "I'll text you – in a week or so, to figure out the details."

"OK!" Calvin aid a bit more enthusiastically.

"Respond to this one," she said. "And, my emails."

She heard him groan. "Whatever," Calvin told her.

Maybe she wasn't so upset to not have Calvin still with her after-all. Dealing with a teenager … that didn't sound like much fun to her. Years of attitude without having gotten the joy of them being little first.

"We'll talk soon," she told him.

"Text," Calvin corrected her – apparently talking was off the table.

"Or I'll talk to your grandpa."

"Whatever," he said again. "Later."

"Ah, later," she allowed but he'd already hung up.


	62. Chapter 62

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She crouched down again and pulled Benji's vest down into place and then worked at fixing his hair a bit for him again.

She was starting to feel a bit like a mother gorilla with how much she was fidgeting at him and grooming him but she wanted him to look neat and tidy. She knew it was probably a shot-in-hell that Benji would survive the encounter without some fear and that the chances of him wanting to get close enough to Santa to allow a decent picture were going to be slim-to-none. But if he did decide to be the ham he usual was in front of, at least her camera, she was going to have him ready. She was pretty determined to get a picture of him with Santa, if she got the opportunity.

Benji had expressed some displeasure at having to get dressed up to see Santa. But she'd strung along some line about needing to look your best for Santa when you're asking for a present. That had held up fairly well until they got to Macy's and there were kids in their jogging pants waiting in line – something Benji had noted almost as quickly as her. Thankfully he'd filled in the blanks himself and decided they wouldn't get as good of present – if Santa was, in fact real. She'd had to hush him a bit at both observations, though, and not before some of the parents around her had given her a bit of a dirty look.

She was glad she'd put him in an outfit, though. Now he looked too cute to not have a picture of the moment, so she really hoped he did co-operate. She definitely wouldn't force it on him. The concept of telling a child they should go and sit on some strange man's lap was a little scary and confusing – even for kids who hadn't been through as much as Benji. She actually thought in was sort of strange she was excited to be encouraging this activity in the little boy, considering her line of work. The whole thing was really kind of a strange tradition and a bit of a creepy concept when you stopped to think about it, she thought.

But, no matter how she cut it – he looked adorable. She'd put him in the vest Alex had bought him and had paired it up with a red plaid shirt she'd picked up for him herself. He was oozing Christmas.

She hadn't had the opportunity to shop for little kids before – beyond a few baby shower presents over the years. But she was quickly learning it was a dangerous expedition. She wouldn't have thought that for little boys' clothing. But there was way too much cute stuff and it was easy to over spend on impulse buying based simply on the cuteness factor.

Benji gazed at her while she adjusted his faux hawk so she gave him a small smile.

"Why those kids taking so long?" he asked with a heavy seriousness to his voice.

She smiled a bit more at him. Why things were taking so long had been a bit of a theme that morning.

She'd tried to get him to the store right at opening in the hopes of avoiding a giant line. But as usual Benji had taken his sweet-time prepping to leave the apartment and doodled even more on the mile walk to the store. Not to mention the window displays had caught his attention and she'd had to convince him they'd look after they came back out. That had taken some convincing – like he thought they might be gone by the time they emerged from the building.

Finding the line in the mega-store was a challenge in itself when she did finally convince him to follow her inside. Of course, they'd had to traipse across the entire store with lots of things for Benji to see that he thought he wanted to look at and the thrill of getting to ride the escalators up and up and up to the eighth floor. She actually thought he was potentially more impressed with the escalators than anything else they'd seen that day.

Needless-to-say, by the time they did reach the lineup, they weren't exactly anywhere near being in the position that they'd be walking right in. One of Santa's elves actually told her as they got into the queue that they were looking at about an hour's wait. Olivia had been concerned that the entire thing might turn into a write-off. She wasn't sure Benji was going to be able to handle queuing for an hour. But he'd surprised her – and had managed to keep his behaviour in check as he looked around and made observations about all the other people in line and the toy displays within sight. Unfortunately there was also a café in sight and he'd been sure suggest that maybe they'd have hot chocolate – his latest obsession, that she'd been foolish enough to introduce him to. So she figured they'd be stopping at it on the way out too to get him a drink and likely a snack. She'd actually briefly feared that he'd demand to leave the line to go and get a hot chocolate for the queue – and she thought depending on his mental state it might be the start of a meltdown if he did and she played the parent and told him 'no'.

Still, she'd managed to hold him off with more promises of something to do after Santa too – and the importance of being good for Santa, seeing as he 'knows if you've been bad or good, so be good for goodness sakes.' He'd looked at her like she was a crazy person when she recited that to him. It just reaffirmed the fact that she needed to get caught up on Christmas preparations.

She thought a good place to start would likely be to check to see if their library branch hadn't been completely ravaged of its Christmas books and music supply. Otherwise, she thought she might be dropping some money on that too to get him more educated on the intricacies of Santa and Christmas – seeing as the biggest connection he'd seemed to have made so far in his life to Christmas was that it was when trees were brought in the house for dogs to pee on. She needed to revise that. She also needed to get some idea from Jack how much the religious aspect of Christmas was a part of Benji's previous life – and she kind of wanted to get him out to at least one or two Christmas craft activities in the city. She felt like the opportunity to do everything was quickly ticking down at that point – and she still needed to get shopping too – and a tree and some sort of decorations. And there was just over two weeks until Christmas. It was crazy.

But despite the visual over-stimulation going on in the area and the length of the line, really the only adverse behaviour Benji had shown was some minor whining about why things were taking soooooooooo long.

"Because lots all the children in the city need to come and see Santa before he leaves – so they can tell him what they'd like for Christmas," she'd told him. "That's a lot of kids to get through."

"They all asking for presents?" he'd inquired.

She nodded. "Yep. They're all asking for presents."

"He will bring them all presents?"

She nodded again. "Yes, Benj. He's going to bring them all a present."

"What they asking for?"

She smiled. "I don't know. They'll all be asking for different things. Toys, dolls, books. Lots of things."

"Dolls!" he said with some disgust.

She just snorted. She didn't bother pointing on to him that most of the toys he liked were, in fact, dolls too. "Girls like dolls," she said.

"Bleck!" he'd stated and made a face like that was about the most disgusting thing ever and possibly the most absurd thing to ask for Christmas.

It'd been a bit of a repeated conversation. About every five to ten minutes, Benji would ask again why the line was moving so slowly and why it was taking soooooo long to see Santa. She'd again stress that they had to be patient and wait their turn – that soon he'd get to see Santa and ask for his present – and then they'd get a snack and look at the window displays and stop by the library on the way home. He just needed to be a good boy in the interim.

She'd tried to use the time in the line to again prepare him for what would happen too. She'd been working at it all week. He seemed OK with the concept of the process in abstract but she was interested to see how he would actually react when he got in there. Benji was so cautious with unknown men. Still, she'd told him that Santa would be sitting in a chair and some of his elves would be there. She'd told him that lots of kids sit on Santa's knee to tell him what they'd like for Christmas – and Benji could do that too, if he wanted. Then the elves would take a picture and likely give him a treat. He'd been more concerned with what his treat would be then the sitting on the knee part of the conversation. She doubted that would be what he was concerned about when they got in there, though.

Most of his restlessness about the long wait diminished when the line actually entered Santaland, though. Benji had become wide-eyed as the animatronic magic of the display took a hold of him. He'd gazed and pointed at the talking trees and the dancing bears, the chilly penguins and the train set. He'd been so enthralled at it all - gaping in amazement - that she'd actually had to let some families pass them by, because the little boy just wasn't ready to move on. Though, his gawking and their pausing had drawn the ire of some of the elves who'd encouraged them to not leave gaps and to keep moving along. She'd been a little disappointed with that because she'd been so enjoying getting to watch Benji's face light up at each newly spotted enchanted toy. He was glowing and just smiling from ear-to-ear in a way she hadn't seen before – and that was making her smile so much her face was almost aching from it.

"They must be telling Santa lots of toys they want," she told him to his question of why the family ahead of them where taking so long in with Santa. There was one more family to go – and then they'd be on deck.

"Why's that taking so long?!" he demanded again.

She smiled and spiked at his hair a little bit more. "They must want lots of things," she suggested.

He leaned into her at that. "But 'Livia you said not to be greedy."

She gave him a half hug and rubbed at his back a bit. "That's right, Benj, you shouldn't be greedy when you ask Santa for your present. You tell him the toy you most want – and then you can give him a back-up idea."

"But they being greedy?" he asked.

She smiled. "I don't know, sweetheart. Maybe Santa just has lots to talk to them about. He hasn't seen them for a whole year likely. And even if they are being greedy – that doesn't mean you need to be greedy, right?"

He shook his head at that.

She smiled some more and put at little kiss against his temple. "That's my good boy."

The last family ahead of them moved into Santa's throne room, so Olivia stood back up and took a hold of Benji's hand.

"Com'on," she said with the tiniest tug on his arm, "let's take a peak so you can see how it works."

"See Santa?" he asked while they took the few steps forward, finally bringing the Jolly Old Elf into the little boy's line of sight.

"See Santa," she agreed and looked down to watch Benji's face while he took in the scene.

She'd watched some of the little boy's skepticism that any of this could actually be real – that a mystery man would really bring him a present for Christmas morning while also visiting other children all over the city and the world – melt while they walked through the Santaland section of the line. But looking at his little face now, it was clear that his last reservations were disappearing. Benji was literally gazing into the room slack jawed at the big, bearded old man sitting a top a giant throne and laughingly ho-ho-ho-ing and talking kindly to the brother and sister who'd headed in ahead of them.

She had wondered if taking him to Herald Square was going to be the best idea. She'd looked into other options in the city that she had thought might be a bit less of an event and maybe a bit less intimidating for Benji. But looking at his face in that moment – she'd known she'd made the right choice going with the classic stop that was pretty much a staple of a city childhood. And, she really couldn't blame him for being taken up by the magic of the possibility of Christmas at that point. The display in the throne room might even convince her that that St. Nick might just be the real deal.

The Santa's white beard was clearly real and the costume was so intricate and brightly coloured in the red velvet, contrasted against his white gloves and the jingling bells adorning his beautifully embroidered and decorated sleeve cuffs, belt and suspenders. If the costume wasn't enough to make a child gape at the realness of the character, his throne sealed the deal. The giant engraved wooden structure almost dwarfed the man while still making him seem larger than life.

"He real," Benji whispered and her smile just grew.

"I told you, Benj," she said back and gave his hand a little squeeze.

He gazed up at her with a mix of disbelief and joy painting across his face and then snapped his head back to watch the other children in the room and wait his turn.

"Nice Christmas outfit, buddy," the elf standing at the door chimed at him but Benji was so engaged in taking in Santa that he didn't even acknowledge the woman had spoken.

"Are you going to be having his picture taken with Santa?" the woman asked Olivia instead.

She gave a small nod. "We're going to try. I'm not sure he's going to want to get that close to him."

The elf gave a nod. "First time?"

Olivia returned the nod.

"Are you from New York?"

Olivia nodded again and took half a step closer to the woman and hushed her voice a bit, glancing at Benji. "He's actually kind of a foster kid – so Santa's missed his house up until this point. So it's all kind of new to him. He's a little nervous. I'm not sure how co-operative he's going to be."

The elf gave her a small smile at that. "What's his name?"

"Benji," Olivia told her.

"Benji?" the woman confirmed and Olivia gave her a nod. She smiled down at the little boy. "I think Santa's going to be really happy to see you, Benji," she told him.

Benji gave her the smallest glance at that and then again looked back into the room where the family was leaving. The elf hurried in and whispered something into Santa's ear and then came back to the door.

"OK, Santa's ready to see you now," she declared with a jolly enthusiasm.

Olivia had to give another little tug to Benji's hand to get him to follow into the throne room. His nervousness about the whole situation seemed to be taking over at that point. But the Jolly Old Elf smiled broadly and tapped his nose and then pointed at the little boy.

"Benji," he chortled jovially. "I've been waiting for you."

Benji looked up at Olivia. "He know my name," he said to her so quietly and clutched closer to her leg.

She stroked the side of his head, rubbing his ear a bit. "Of course he does. Santa knows all children's names," she told him. "Com'on, sweetheart. Let's go a bit closer so you can talk to Santa."

Benji clutched at her more, finding her waist with his casted hand and grabbing at her belt. But she managed to shuffle him a few more feet so he was nearer the man.

"I'm soooo glad you've come for a visit, Benji," Santa chimed at him again.

Olivia crouched down next to the little boy and he immediately leaned against her chest. So she wrapped her arm around him, resting it just below his rear and turned him slightly so he was at least facing Santa.

"Santa, Benji's mama forgot to tell you when he was a baby to add his name to your list so we think you missed his house the last few years," Olivia told the man, who'd leaned forward in his chair a bit to try to keep up the connection with the little boy.

"Oh dear," Santa said and shook his head. "I'm so very sorry, Benji."

Benji gazed at him at that. "'Livia send you letter to get on list. It say I live with her now," Benji returned quietly, "in New Y-Ork City."

Santa nodded. "Oh yes, she did," he smiled and let out a "Ho, ho, ho. I got it! And, you're on my list now, Benji. I've been checking if you've been naughty or nice this year – and my elves tell me you've been a very good boy."

Benji nodded vigourously at that. "I good," he assured.

Santa smiled and sat up straight. "I knew it!" he declared. "Then Santa will have a very special present under the tree for you on Christmas morning. What would you like for Christmas, Benji?"

Benji gazed at him and then looked at Olivia with wide eyes – almost like he was in disbelief that this was actually happening.

"Tell Santa what you'd like for Christmas, sweetheart," she encouraged him. "What toy do you want?"

"Transformer," he said at beyond a whisper. It was so quiet that Olivia hardly heard it.

She gave him the smallest kiss on his temple. "It's OK, baby. You need to say it louder so Santa can hear you."

"I'm very old, Benji. Do you want to come over here and tell Santa what'd you like? So I can hear better," the old man suggested.

Benji looked to Olivia again, a little startled at the proposition.

"You want to?" she asked. "It's alright – and I think Santa would be able to hear you better - and you can double-check to make sure he's really real."

Benji scrunched his face in thought at that but then gave a small nod so she straightened up and guided him the last few feet to the man in the throne. Santa tapped on his knee.

"How about you sit here on my knee?" he suggested, clearly working towards getting the little boy into position for the photographic cash-cow that the Santa encounter was for the families passing through. "'Livia can sit right here with you on the bench while we talk."

Benji again considered that for a moment but stepped up onto the little stool wrapped like a present and then leaned against Santa's one knee. Olivia set herself on the bench next to Santa, preparing to deal with any fall-out but also looking for an opportune moment to step out of the shot to hopefully get a picture of just the little boy with the red-suited man.

Benji examined the intricate holly buttons on Santa's jacket and rubbed his hands along the soft fabric.

"You real," Benji said quietly.

"Ho, ho, ho," Santa chortled out, being sure to jiggle his belly with the maneuver. "Of course I'm real, Benji! Would you like to check my beard? Lots of children like to check my beard to make sure it's real too."

Olivia was feeling so much relief – and near joy too – that they were being so accommodating and understanding of them. They weren't being made to feel rushed or like it was just a photo-op moment and to get moving. She'd noticed in the several families ahead of them – as the entrance to the throne room came into view – that it was clear the staff was giving each group and each situation the necessary time for the children to have their chat with Santa and for the family to get however many shots and poses of the moment as they'd like. She so appreciated that. She feared if they were being rushed through, that Benji's apprehensions would've manifested themselves in tears at this point. Instead, he was cautiously participating in the experience – and the Santa they had was being fantastic.

The man leaned forward and Benji reached up and touched the beard. He turned towards Olivia with a big, open mouth smile. "It real too!" he told her. She smiled back at him.

"So Benji why don't you tell me again what you'd like for Christmas?"

"Transformer," he stated a bit louder than before and with a bit more confidence.

"A Transformer?" Santa asked. "Is there a special Transformer you'd like, Benji?"

Benji thought about that a moment and played with one of the button's on Santa's coat some more. "A police car or fire truck Transformer," he said quietly.

Olivia rubbed his back a little bit at that. "But Santa, if your workshop doesn't make police cruiser or fire truck Transformers, just a normal fire truck is OK too, right Benj?"

Benji glanced at her and then gazed up at Santa and nodded hard.

Santa chortled some more. "Do you like fire trucks?"

Benji nodded some more. "They cool. They red like you."

Santa laughed some more at that and then tapped on his nose again. "I bet you want to be a firefighter when you grow up?"

Benji nodded harder. "Or I be a police officer like 'Livia. 'Livia a police officer. Police officers and firefighters help people."

Santa smiled down at Benji. "Oh Santa knows 'Livia is a police office. Santa follows what all his children do when they are grown-ups. He is so proud of all the children's accomplishments – especially when they are helping people! Now – Benji, a Transformer or a firetruck – that's the most important thing this Christmas?"

Benji nodded vehemently at that.

"I think Benji wanted to ask that you bring his Uncle Jack something this year too. He's almost a grown-up now but when the reindeer went over the farm and missed Benji – they missed Jack too!" Olivia told him.

"That Rudolph," Santa shook his head. "I'm going to have to have a talk to him about all of this. We can't be missing houses! What would Jack like Christmas, Benji?"

Benji thought about that a moment and looked at Olivia. "Jack really likes skateboarding, doesn't he?"

Benji's head snapped back to Santa. "Peedg want sakte stuff."

"Jack's studying to be an architect now, Santa – urban planning. So I bet he liked like some drawing supplies too," Olivia added.

"And blocks," Benji said. "Peedg like my blocks to make Tech Deck. But now my blocks at home. So Peedg have no blocks!"

Santa "Ho, ho, ho"-ed some more. "Skateboard toys, drawing supplies and blocks for Jack! OK, Benji, Santa can't make any promises. My workshop gets very busy just before Christmas. But I will try very hard to bring you a Transformer or fire truck. But no matter what, there's going to be a special surprise for you and for Jack under the tree on Christmas morning!"

Benji gazed up at him at that and then shot Olivia a big smile.

"Santa – we in a part-ment. So there no chimney but 'Livia say it OK for you to use your magic key to come in!" Benji declared a bit more enthusiastically.

Santa nodded. "Oh, good! Santa visits lots of children in apartments in New York. I hope you'll leave a special treat for me and the reindeer?"

Benji looked at him questioningly at that and then back to Olivia.

"We'll make some cookies for you Santa," she assured, "and we'll leave a carrot for the reindeer to share."

Benji gazed back at Santa to see if that met his approval. He shook his belly at that and gave it a small rub. "I can't wait! Thank you for coming to visit me Benji!"

Benji glanced back at Olivia. "Benj – you just sit with Santa for one more minute, OK? One of Santa's elves is going to take a picture for us – and Mommy Fox wants to take one on her phone too."

Santa grabbed at her elbow. "Oh 'Livia, you just stay put for a second too. Santa wants to get a picture with the whole family before Benji and I take a photo."

She hesitated for a moment. She hadn't considered participating in the photo. And a family photo? That even seemed like a stranger concept for some reason – even though a family is what she was working for hard to have. But the photo idea had only been in her head for a second before she realized that was something she really wanted. She settled back onto the bench beside Santa and he wrapped his arm around her – and pointed over to the camera.

"Let's all smile for Dandy over there," he said.

After a couple flashes the elf behind the camera said, "OK, let's get a picture of Benji and Santa now."

"Ho, ho, ho," Santa laughed again. "Thank you, 'Livia."

She gave him a small smile and stood, moving over to where the camera was and quickly fishing her phone out of her pocket to snap a couple photos too. Benji didn't look entirely relaxed but he did look happy and that was making her smile so much.

"Benji," she called at him, "can you sit right on Santa's knee for one? Not just lean?"

Benji looked incredulous to that but Santa didn't give him too much time to protest it – gently pulling the boy up onto his knee and wrapping his arm around his one armpit to hold in him place.

"Now, remember, Benji," Santa said before the boy could start with a fit, "Santa needs you to be a good boy all year. So you listen to 'Livia and you help with chores and go to bed on time. OK?"

Benji looked up at him as the camera finished flashing and gave him a nod. Dandy apparently saw another photographic moment and flashed the camera again.

"Such a good boy," Santa declared and set him back on top of the present foot-step. "Well thank you for visiting, Benji," he said. "I am so looking forward to seeing your tree all decorated on Christmas Eve and I hope you like your present! Will you come back and visit me again next year?"

Benji nodded as Olivia came back over and took the little boy's hand again. "Thank you, Santa," she said. "What do you say to Santa, Benj?"

"Tank you," he said quietly.

He laughed harder and again gripped at his bowl-full-of-jelly belly. "Oh, you're welcome, Benji. MERRY CHRISTMAS!"

"Merry Chris-miss," Benji returned in a tiny little voice.

"Merry Christmas," Olivia agreed and tugged Benji's arm a little again. For all his trepidation before, it didn't seem like he was ready to leave now but he followed after her – one of the elves handing him a candycane as they exited the throne room.

He held it up at her excitedly. "Candy!" he declared and promptly started to try to open it.

She took it from him as he fumbled around. "Mommy Fox will open it for you in a few minutes, sweetheart. You can have it with snack in the café."

He made a sound but quieted – maybe Santa's words about being a good boy and listening still sitting with him for at least the moment. He swung her arm. "Santa going to bring a Transformer or fire truck!" he declared happily.

She smiled widely at him. "He is. That's pretty exciting, right?"

Benji nodded vigourously as they came into the area displaying and selling the photos. She hoisted him up on her hip so he could look too. She tapped on his.

"There's you and Santa," she told him. The photos had turned out nicely. In fact, she thought she liked the one that Dandy had snapped at the last second with Benji gazing up at the Jolly Old Elf. There was a wonderment and admiration painted across the little boy's face as the old man was looking down at him so affectionately.

Benji pointed at one with the three of them, though. "There you too 'Livia," he said with a pride in his observational skills apparent.

She looked at it. She was smiling so much in the picture she almost didn't recognize herself. Even stranger was to see a photo of herself with a little boy seated next to her.

"What do you think, Benj? Should we get a couple to take home?" she asked.

"Dat one," he said and smacked his finger on one of the pictures that had the three of them in it.

She smiled. "You like that one?"

He pointed at each person. "Mommy Fox, Little Fox, Santa," he declared.

She nodded. "I think I like that a lot too."


	63. Chapter 63

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Benson," she nearly barked into her phone. She'd grabbed it a little too quickly as it started to ring. She'd forgotten to set it to vibrate after getting home that evening – and even though Benji seemed to sleep through just about anything, she didn't want to risk the ringing rousing him.

The little boy had nearly hit the bed as soon as they got in the door, exhausted from the day's activities apparently. Though, his caretakers had told her that he hadn't participated in nap that day very well and she was picking him up later in the evening after getting held up at work. So it had been a long day for him.

"Detective Benson," she heard in her ear and had an initial apprehension that the UNKNOWN number label listed was actually someone from some desk at the precinct calling her in. But the men's voice added, "It's your amazing lawyer."

She sighed. He'd had her concerned for a minute that she was going to be scrambling to find someone to come over and watch Benji. "Hey," she said.

"Have you talked to Mr. Lewis today?"

She made a face at that phone at that. "Ah, no," she said.

Jack had actually called her phone the day before. But it had been while she was out in Queens with Benji - and had been in the midst of a visit with Elliot that was actually going reasonably well. She hadn't wanted to disrupt any of that to deal with Jack so she'd hit the ignore button, expecting him to leave a message if it was something important. Even when he hadn't, she'd expected she'd hear about it that night when Benji called him to say 'good night'. But Jack had hung up after his conversation with the little boy and hadn't asked to talk to her. So she'd assumed it was really unimportant, whatever it was. She hadn't really thought about it much since.

"Well I have," Mark told her.

She thought about that a moment. Mark had technically imposed a Monday deadline on Jack to make a decision about if he was going to be working with them or not. She hadn't really expected Jack to honour that, though. She'd figured Jack would be waiting as long as he could – until she forced his hand to act in some capacity. She'd been undecided on how much longer she was going to play his game and be patient with him before pushing forward.

"And?" she asked.

"We've got him on-board," Mark told her with some level of happiness. "At least partially."

She rubbed her eyebrow at that. She wasn't ready to jump for joy at that since Mark had quickly added the 'partially' aspect of it.

"Partially?" she enquired.

"He's willing to proceed and work with us – if we only go for permanent guardianship right now and if you file to take him on as a ward for the next few years."

Olivia let that sink in for a moment. She didn't understand the 'partially' aspect of it. That sounded OK to her.

"So what's partial about that?" she asked.

"Well he's not going to be co-operative if you want to fight to adopt him right now," Mark told her.

"That's fine," she said quickly. "Permanent guardianship is fine."

Fuck, she thought, this could really be happening. IT COULD REALLY BE HAPPENING. It felt overwhelming for a moment. The little boy sleeping in her bedroom could soon really be hers. It wouldn't be temporary. He wouldn't be going anywhere. He was going to be a part of her life for the next 14 years – at least. The rest of his life, really. The rest of her life. IT COULD REALLY BE HAPPENING.

"You're sure?" Mark said. "Remember that you won't likely be able to adopt him for a couple years, if you get guardianship – and you'll just have all the expenses then, on top of the fees you're taking on now."

"That's fine," she said again. "We'll talk about adoption in a couple years. Permanent guardianship … it's legally the same?"

"Since his mother is dead and he doesn't have an identified father – technically, yes. Adoption would make you more legally comfortable," Mark stressed again. "It really would make it that much more permanent."

She sighed. "I don't want to get into a pissing match about it, though."

"Olivia – it's family court – a child custody case. It's always a pissing match."

"Jack's been through enough," she said.

She heard Mark exhale into the phone. "It's up to you. But, as your lawyer, I am advising you that adoption is likely a better option. It's not the easier option – but it's the better option."

"If the court doesn't approve permanent guardianship – can I file for adoption?"

"Yes," he said.

"Then why would I have to wait two years to switch to adoption?"

"Because the court likes to have seen a 'significant change in circumstances' before considering that sort of change in status. A two-year waiting period is just a general timeframe – a precedent – but it's not set in stone."

She tapped on her desk where she'd been sitting when the call had come in. She'd been doing some online research about Benji's requested Christmas presents. The sheer number of Transformer toys available was intimidating actually. The number of toys and sales and incentives to spend, spend, spend was actually a little overwhelming.

She was trying to set up some sort of budget and idea of how she wanted to do Santa and gifts from her and his stocking – and everything for Jack too. It wasn't anything she'd really thought about before. It seemed like it involved a little too much organization and thought. There was way too many options. She could see how some people went overboard and ended up paying off their Christmas debt for the rest of the year.

She actually found herself wondering how Elliot and Kathy managed to pay for it with four kids – especially as they reached their teen years. She was quickly discovering that $100 on Benji could potentially buy him a boatload while the same on Jack would likely barely get him a gift or two, at least based on the recognizance she'd done with Gecko and one of his professors at his school. She knew he'd likely be pissed at her having called and emailed them respectively to get some insight on things he wanted or needed. But she'd rather spend money on things he needed then just randomly guessing. She was telling herself too that she could spend a bit more on him since technically it was his birthday too. Really, though, unless she upped the budget she was considering – Jack wasn't going to get much in terms of number of gifts to open. She wondered if that mattered to a teen? Or if it would bother him when he was watching Benji getting to open more things than him? She didn't think it should. But she was still gauging how teenagers worked – at least how they worked when you were having to interact with them in daily-normal life and not in the midst of trauma or interrogation.

As she looked she was having to remind herself too that Benji was likely going to be intimidated by the whole experience and a little overwhelmed. She wasn't sure how enthusiastic versus timid he'd be about opening presents. So she didn't think it was a good idea to have more than a few under the tree for him. Not to mention, she wasn't really sure how many toys he actually needed in one go? Really, he couldn't play with more than one toy at a time. She didn't think it really made sense to try to fill a whole toy box for him in one go – as tempting as some of the BOGO sales made doing that – buying things he didn't really want or need just so she could get something for 50 per cent off or free. She'd already clicked into some of those traps and realized her budget was quickly drying up as she added random crap to her virtual cart just because it was a good deal on something that she thought might be intriguing to the little boy. It wasn't anything he'd asked for or needed – or that she needed or wanted cluttering her small space.

Besides – if this was really happening, she'd have lots of other opportunities … other Christmases, birthdays, Easter, just-because … to buy him treats and toys. She didn't need to break the bank. She was anyways with getting his bedroom ready. She'd dropped a bunch of money on ordering a storage bed and a futon the day before. But Benji had seemed thrilled with the display bed – and she was just happy to be starting to get some things in order. It was making everything feel a little less overwhelming. And, she had actually managed to get a reluctant Elliot to at least offer his car for her getting some of the stuff back to the apartment when she needed it. He hadn't right out offered – but she suspected that it would evolve into him coming along and helping with some of the heavy lifting and hopefully the putting-together of Benji's bed, which even in the showroom looked like it would be an ordeal for just one person.

"I'm OK with waiting," she said finally. "It will give Jack time to get more comfortable with the idea."

"Or time for him to take you back to court," Mark offered.

She sighed at that. "Would the court really grant him custody again after he gives it up?"

"Depends," Mark told her. "Biology."

She rubbed at her eyebrow and took another deep breath. She supposed that was what kind of happened with Vivian. But Vivian had only granted her temporary custody in an emergency order. It wasn't that dissimilar from the parental designation she currently had with Benji. But if she had permanent custody of Benji – Jack just snatching him away, or anyone else from the family doing that – it'd be different. More complicated. Still, she hated risking it – but she also didn't really want to turn it all into a court battle with Jack – and she was still intimidated about the concept of dealing with a social worker and doing a home study again. That had gone so badly last time. It had been heartbreaking. This time when she already had the child in her home – in her life, in her heart – she knew it would be devastating, if the home study didn't come back with an approval. She thought she could make a better case for it in a couple years – after she'd had Benji in her life, after she'd established a home for him, after she'd clearly been a parent.

"It's a risk I'm willing to take," she told Mark.

There was a pause on the end of the line that seemed to hang too long. Olivia wondered if Mark was about to tell her, he wasn't willing to continue to have her as a client since she wasn't following his advice. But then he finally said, "OK. I'm going to start on the paperwork then.

"We're going to have three filings going in. We'll have one that's a request by Jack to have his guardianship revised – or in this case revoked. Then we'll have yours to take on permanent guardianship of the child, and finally, we'll have the one to assign Jack to you as a dependent. Sound good?"

It was all so strange to hear verbalized. But just talking about it in legal terms still didn't make it sound that real. It was an abstract concept. She still felt somewhat distanced from it when they discussed it all that way. Maybe it was a bit of a self-preservation mechanism she was implementing, though, in case the judge didn't agree that this was in the best interests of Benji. In case the court was just another entity that told her she wasn't fit to be a parent and this ended up just being another little blip of some happiness in her life that ended in crushing heartbreak.

"Sounds good," she allowed though.

"We going to file a fourth?" Mark asked.

"A fourth what?" she asked a little confused. There were moments where she really wondered if Mark was as stellar of lawyer as he thought. She had yet to really see him in action – but sometimes the things he said to her came across as far too vague and random for her liking, especially in a lawyer.

"We going to put in for a name change? Benji Benson?" Mark suggested.

She paused again at that. It must've been longer than she thought, because Mark had eventually said, "Hello? Olivia? You still there?" into her ear.

But it had just smacked her like a train hearing that. Benji Benson. She remembered when Calvin had signed his name on his poster of her – Calvin Benson. That had stayed with her. That had hit her in a way she hadn't expected or ever imagined – but not quite like this. This was different. She was hearing it in the context of what could really be a reality. Benjamin Benson. She wasn't sure if she thought the articulation was something she liked or if she thought it sounded a little silly. But either way she liked it in another way. Though, she suspected that she might like it less when Benji became just Ben … Ben Benson. She wasn't sure he'd much like that either as a teen or adult. But the more she went through versions of it in her head – the more and more she liked the sounds of it. Benjamin Benson, she thought again.

"Ah, is that something I can even do?" she asked unsurely.

"I wouldn't be asking you about it, if it wasn't," Mark told her. "The judge will consider it. There's a good chance you'd be granted a name change since his parents aren't on the scene."

She sighed as she thought about it again for a second. "That's likely something I should talk to Jack about," she said. If he didn't like the idea of adoption, she was fairly sure he'd hate the idea of her changing his nephew's surname.

"Olivia," Mark said with some clear annoyance in his voice, "don't let that kid dictate how you approach this. Here's the deal – right now, Benji likely doesn't even have the concept of having a surname. In a few years, as he's growing up, he will. It's going to become part of his identity. You're going to be raising him. If you want your name there – we're going to get it there. Let's give you some credit for all the work you've got ahead of you."

She sighed again at that. "This isn't the kind of thing I need to decide, right now, though?" she asked. "A name change of a minor – can't that be filed any time?"

"Yes," Mark said, "but if we're putting a package into the court now – why not throw it all in at once? Save yourself some time and money."

Benji Benson, she thought again. But she let out a breath. "I want to talk with Jack about that before I decide."

"Olivia – sometimes it's easier to apologize than it is to ask. Don't give him ammunition to play more games," Mark told her. She didn't respond. "Tell you want, I'm going to get that form filled out for you too. It's a simple one. You think about it. You don't have to sign it if you don't want to."

"OK," she agreed – probably a little too softly and timidly considering her usual personality.

"So … I can likely have most of this ready by the end of the week. When can I get you and Jack in to look it over and to sign off on this stuff?"

"Ah …" she considered that. She'd been skipping out of work here-and-there so much lately – and she already was going to have to jump out at least one more day that week for another of Benji's medical appointments. She knew it was wearing thin on Cragen's patience – and she felt bad about it too. She felt like she was letting a little too much fall onto the shoulders of the rest of the squad, which just ended up making her feel like she wasn't doing her job. Then, she was pretty sure Jack started exams at some point that week. She wasn't sure what days he actually had any of them. Getting over to Queens just made the whole thing that much longer and more complicated affair. "I'm not sure…"

Mark snorted at that. "OK. Well, my wife always loves when I combine work with family activities. But we'll be over in Manhattan on Friday night for dinner and a show. If this isn't going to be an ordeal, I can meet up with you for a coffee to get this all signed off on. But if the kid's going to be giving attitude again – or you're going to have more questions you want to discuss, we should likely schedule an appointment in my office for early next week. I can email you some PDFs of the petitions as we get them completed this week, so you can look them over before we meet up – in case you want any of the declarations changed or have any concerns. But with that folder was confiscated from Jack – we've got most of the supporting documentation we need – and, we've already discussed your responses for some of the statements we're going to fill in. It should all be straight forward."

"OK," she agreed. "Friday night sounds fine. But I don't know Jack's schedule and I'll have to bring Benji with me."

"Sure. I'll have my wife and kids off in a corner too. Good to get to meet the tyke we're fighting for here."

"How soon will all this get in front of a judge, Mark?" she asked.

"Mmm, to be honest, there's always going to be a couple week turnaround, at least. With it being into the holiday season, we're probably going to be looking at into January. I can put it in as a priority-type case given the circumstances. We don't really meet the criteria for an emergency hearing anymore at this point, though."

She thought about that for a moment. January. That wasn't far away. She could live with that. Hell … it could mean she'd officially be a parent within about a month. Three months ago she wouldn't have imagined that that was a title, a job, a responsibility she'd be getting in her life. It was a little surreal.

"How likely is the judge to approve all of this?" she asked cautiously. "Honestly …"

"You've got a lot of positives going in this case," Mark told her with a seriousness to his voice that she'd only heard a handful of times so far, but it was a tone that always increased her confidence in his abilities. "The fact Jack is going to co-operate is really going to help. We've got some little tricks going on that will make this a nice package, that I think will be very approvable – and in the best interests of all parties. The honest truth, though, is that your biggest obstacle now is going to be the time span you've known Benji and how long he's been in your care. Six months would be better. But having the parental designation signed for the six-month period is going to likely work in your favour. And, by the time we get before the judge … you'll have had him a couple months and there's lots of mitigating circumstances going on that we'll be able to argue. I think you've got a really good chance. I'm not worried."

She thought that over. It wasn't as firm as she'd like – but it didn't sound like a shot-in-hell either. "OK," she said.

"So I'll email you the details as the week goes on then? Get in touch if anything comes up."

She tapped the desk again and nodded, even though she knew he couldn't see it. "OK, thanks, Mark."

"See you Friday, Mommy Benson," he said and hung up before she could give any sort of reaction.

It struck her – and sat with her. She'd really be a mommy – legally. She wouldn't be 'playing Mom'. It wouldn't just be some abstract role. It'd be very, completely real. Still, she didn't want to get ahead of herself. Until she had Jack's signature on all the paperwork and until the judge heard the case and gave his approval – she wasn't going to get her hopes too high. They really were already too high.

She thought about it for a moment, gazing at her phone and then picked it back up and hit Jack's number. It rang several times but he finally picked up.

"Hey 'Jamin," he greeted, clearly having seen her ID show up on his phone.

She smiled softly at that. "It's Olivia, Jack."

"Oh, hey," he offered. "Benji ready for his good-night chat?"

"Sorry Jack but he passed right out when we got home tonight. He had a busy day."

"Oh," Jack said, possibly with a touch of regret at that in his voice. "That's OK."

"Sorry I didn't return your call yesterday," she said, trying to open up the conversation for him to tell her what he had wanted and about the call to Mark he'd made that day. "Is everything alright?"

"Yeah, sure," Jack said, "you know, I was just going to talk to 'Jamin for a bit or whatever."

She smiled again at that and scrolled down through more of the toys on her computer screen. "That all? How's everything going with you?"

"Meh, you know, I'm just finishing up my last assignment of the term. Term ends Wednesday. Exams start on Friday. Kind of stressed."

"Exams are stressful," she agreed. "Do you have one on Friday?"

"Ah, no, I don't have any until Monday."

"That's nice that you'll have the weekend to study," she said.

"Yea, but I got the Christmas party on Saturday and I'm working on Sunday."

She sighed a bit at that. "Make sure you put your studies first, Jack," she offered. But she could almost feel him rolling his eyes at her through the phone. "We missed you this weekend," she tried, dropping the topic and not mothering him, since he clearly didn't appreciate that at all. Or at least he tried to pretend he didn't. Sometimes she wondered.

There was some quiet at that from him. But there was some truth to the statement. She was starting to get used to seeing Jack for part of the weekend – but he hadn't made an appearance. Both her – and definitely Benji – had noticed.

"Yeah, ah, well, I'm just trying to get my project done, you know," he offered.

"That's good," she said. "That still the park structure design?"

"Nah. It's this thing for my digital media lab. I needed to go spend some time in the lab on campus for it."

She rubbed her eyebrow. He was being fairly chatty with her – at least for Jack. But wasn't offering up anything about his talk with Mark. She didn't want to push it and make him tell her about it. Maybe he still wasn't ready to admit to her that he'd made a decision. Even if it wasn't really something he wanted (which she didn't entirely believe – she thought he did want it, he just didn't like admitting it), he'd at least agreed to it. That was an important step. But he clearly didn't really want to talk to her about it. He likely didn't want her to make a bit deal about it.

"Sounds like that would be an interesting course," she tried. She actually didn't really have a concept of what a digital media lab would involve in terms of architecture and urban planning – but she suspected that technology involved would be fun to play with. One of the things she'd really enjoyed about her brief time in Computer Crimes had been getting to play with all the software and databases and just seeing how vast and penetrative they actually were in collecting information and regulating crime.

"I guess," Jack mumbled.

"OK," she said, sensing he was nearing the end of the conversation from his end. "I just wanted to make sure everything was going OK with you."

"Yeah, I guess," he said again. "Oh …" he said after a moment. "Ah … I was sort of wondering if … for Christmas you wanted to exchange stockings … like I could do yours, if you did mine or something."

She smiled momentarily at that. Jack putting out that request was a big step too. He was offering to do something nice for her – and he was admitting with significant lead-time that he did intend to be around on Christmas. That was more progress for him.

"I mean, Dad made me and Izzy do each other's stockings when we got older. So I sort of know how to do a girl's stocking," he offered at her pause.

She smiled a bit wider at that – and almost wanted to laugh but she held it in. She really doubt that her and a teenaged girl – especially a depressive Goth teenaged girl by the looks of it – had much in common in terms of things they might like to receive in a stocking. But she wasn't about to point that out to Jack. And, really, the concept of having anyone do a stocking for her was nice – no matter what Jack ended up putting in there. She hadn't had a stocking since she was about 13 years old and really, her mother hadn't ever done the most bang-up job anyway. It was almost sad that it was now an 18-year-old kid who was offering to at least try for her. She thought that counted for a lot – really, in a lot of ways.

"That sounds like fun," she agreed. She was planning on doing a stocking for Jack anyway. And, she'd thought she'd end up buying a few things for herself to keep up the illusion for Benji that Santa had brought everyone something. "We should probably put a spending limit on it. I don't want you spending a lot of money on things. You've got other things to worry about."

"Yeah. Sure," Jack agreed.

"Twenty-five dollars?" she suggested, thinking that was a reasonable amount – for him anyway. She hoped she'd be able to fill his in about that range, though, she wasn't entirely sure. She had to think more about what exactly you put in a teenagers stocking? She hoped she could do a more interesting job than toothpaste, shampoo and underwear that her mother seemed to think made exciting Christmas gifts for her. Practical maybe – but not exactly thrilling to open on Christmas. She didn't think she could get away with stuffing boxers into Jack's stocking anyway. He'd likely be mortified that she even acknowledged he wore underwear – probably forgetting that she'd already washed his while he'd been staying with her.

"How about thirty?" Jack said back.

She snorted. She wasn't sure how much of difference $5 would make unless he was going most of his shopping at the Dollar Tree, which actually wouldn't surprise her. She actually thought she'd likely be looking for stocking stuffers in a similar location too.

"OK," she agreed. "You don't have to worry about candy, if you don't want. I've already picked up a couple treats for everyone's stockings."

Jack was quiet for a moment like he was surprised she'd thought of that – or that she'd already included him in her planning. "'Kay," he said finally.

There was another long pause. She rubbed at her eyebrow again. She wished she could see his face to gauge better what he was thinking, but really, her interactions with Jack, at least in terms of him being verbally communicative, seemed to go better over the phone.

"Listen, Jack, I've been playing with the idea of taking Benji to a Christmas show. I can't decide if he's too young to be worth it. But if I were to get tickets, would you be interested in coming?"

Jack was quiet again for a moment. "What do you mean? A Christmas show?"

She shrugged and fiddled around more on her laptop. She'd been looking at the show sites earlier and reading the theatre policies and reviews about what age ranges were recommended. It sounded like some of the shows people started taking kids to at three and four. Though, some of the theatres didn't let kids under five or six in – and some patrons and parents seemed to suggest it wasn't worth spending the money before the kid was at least six and better able to sit still, shut up, and actually remember the experience.

She wasn't so concerned about Benji sitting still. She knew he could sit still in a theatre – at least for a movie, both at the cinema and on the couch. He especially quieted if he got to cuddle on her lap. She wasn't sure about him shutting up. He did like asking questions and making observations – perhaps a little too loudly sometimes. She could see how that would piss people off near them, if they didn't have kids of their own in tow to be understanding. But really what she was more concerned about was if Benji would deal with being in the dark.

He hadn't really recovered from being left in the dark yet. He was still sleeping with a light on every night. Though, she wasn't sure a theatre would count as dark. The stage would be lit – and if he was scared, she could always hold him in her lap. She figured there was a good chance he'd end up there anyway so he could see and so she could shush him and calm him, if she did end up taking him.

"I don't know. I was looking at the Christmas Spectacular. I thought he might like the music and stuff in that."

"The Rockettes?" Jack said rather sarcastically. "That's kind of gay."

She snorted. "Yes, Jack. I'm sure watching women kicking their legs above their heads would really compromise your sexuality."

"Whatever," he mumbled at her.

"There's other shows in town. Elf," she suggested. "A Christmas Story. I was thinking Christmas-y – but there's always the Lion King too. Is there anything you're interested in?"

He was quiet again. "Isn't that sort of stuff really expensive?"

It was, he was right. Even with living in the city for all her life – and having been to Broadway shows in the past – she was still a little shocked about the price of some of the tickets when she'd been looking. But she thought maybe that was more in terms of taking a four-year-old who may not sit through it and may not remember ever actually going. She wasn't entirely sure that was true, though. She really thought the spectacle of it all would really resonate with Benji. He seemed so fascinated with movies and had been so well behaved when they'd gone to a show. And the animatronics at Macy's – both in Santaland and in the window displays – had really entranced him. Not-to-mention, he seemed to adore the music and singing classes at nursery school. He was near daily spitting back some little ditty he'd learned there and wanting to show her his new moves. She thought if he could sit still and keep quiet – he'd likely take a lot away from a Broadway experience.

"Well, it'd be sort of part of everyone's Christmas present," she offered. "It's something I've never done before – the Christmas shows in the city. It might be kind of fun."

She really doubted Jack had ever had the opportunity to do any of it either. He didn't much strike her as the Broadway-type or even overly artsy. But even if it was something he'd been interested in experiencing, just for the sake of having the New York experience while he was going through college, it wouldn't have ever been something he could afford.

"OK," he said quietly after a long minute or so of silence.

She smiled a little at that. "Do you have a preference on which one you might like to see? Or which one you think Benji might like the most?"

"Elf and Christmas Story are like the movies?" he asked.

"Yeah," she offered.

"Those sound kind of cool," he said. "They're funny movies."

"I haven't seen Elf," she told him. "Is it a little kids movie?"

"I guess," Jack said. "It's an elf who goes to New York to find his family. Basically."

She thought that might be kind of appropriate given both Jack and Benji's situation. "You think it's something Benji would be able to grasp?"

"Does he grasp anything?" Jack said with some more sarcasm.

She shook her head at that. She hated when she was able to have decent enough conversations with Jack only for his attitude to start to show. It annoyed her.

"I think he grasps a lot more than you give him credit for," she told him. "But, part of the reason I was considering the Christmas Spectacular is because it doesn't really have a plot. It's just music and dancing."

"And leg kicking," Jack offered.

She shook her head some more. She was starting to feel better about the fact she was just dealing with him over the phone and she didn't have to look at him. He was beginning to piss her off – as usual.

"So there isn't one you'd prefer?" she tried again.

"Isn't Spiderman on Broadway?"

She snorted at that. "That's not very Christmas-y, Jack," she told him.

"Neither is Lion King," he pointed out, "which is also gay, by the way."

She rolled her eyes at that. She didn't have a clue what was gay about the Lion King – and she didn't much like how much he was using the word or how he seemed to feel it was derogatory. She thought it might be showing a bit what a rural and isolated community he'd grown-up in, though. Still, she really doubted Jay would've raised his son to be a homophobe, even if they had been in a religious-tilted household.

"Benji might enjoy the Lion King," she offered. "I think Spiderman might be a little scary for a four-year-old. And, I'm leaning towards one of the Christmas shows anyway – if I decide he's old enough to even handle this. So do you have some more constructive input or not?"

"Not the Rockettes," Jack said bluntly.

She snorted and shook her head at that. She at least had a concept of what the Christmas Spectacular was. She wasn't too sure about the other two options – or three if she decided to forego Christmas and just go with the Lion King. She really wanted to expose Benji to some Christmas music and some sort of Christmas-y story, though.

"OK. I'll think about it some more," she said. "When are your exams done?"

"Twenty-first," he said.

"You have one on the twenty-first?"

"Yeah."

"How many exams do you have?" she asked.

"Four."

"That's going to be a busy week," she said.

"It's going to suck," he offered.

She didn't doubt it would be. She remembered all-too-well the agony of cramming for exams. She didn't think that was something you ever really forget – and it certainly wasn't something you missed about the college experience.

"How'd you feel about doing something like that on your birthday?" she asked. "We could go to a show and out for lunch or dinner or something."

Jack was quiet again at that offer. She doubted he'd considered that she'd even acknowledge his birthday – let alone offer to do something for him. She'd have to schedule Calvin around it. But she was leaning toward scheduling breakfast on the twenty-fourth with the other boy anyway. She thought that might be easier for everyone involved.

"You could stay here from that point on, if you wanted," she offered. "It's up to you. Oh – I got a futon for you in the new apartment," she added. "But we won't be moving in until the first week of January."

Jack was still quiet at that. Too quiet actually – and she again started to wish she had him in front of her to judge his facial expressions and body language.

"Jack?" she asked after listening to his quiet breathing in her ear for a while.

"Ah, yeah," he mumbled quietly. "Whatever you want."

She could tell her was uncomfortable. She suspected it was because he wasn't used to people trying to do anything for him – let alone something nice for him – at least not since his Dad had died.

"OK," she said. "I'll look into it a bit more and let you know what I decide."

"Sure," he said. "Anyway … I've got shit to do."

"Jack … " she sighed. "I talked to Mark tonight."

Jack didn't respond – and she wasn't going to make him talk about it.

"He's going to need to see us again," was all she said instead, "to look over and sign a few things. He suggested Friday. In the early evening. Is that doable? You could stay with us that night – take Benji to the holiday party in the morning."

The silence hung again. "You're going to let me take him?" Jack finally said – not commenting on the rest.

"Yeah," she said. "He's going to get his cast off this week. He's still going to be in a brace for a couple weeks. I don't really want him skateboarding – but I think he'd still have fun doing some of the other things you said. Foam pit, sliding, video games, pizza."

"You coming?" Jack asked.

From his tone it was clear she wasn't really wanted there – and he thought if she did come, she'd only be coming to make sure he wasn't letting Benji do the things she didn't want him doing. But she had no plans of entering the Twilight Zone of the skateboarder world just yet. And, she'd already gotten assurances from Gecko that he'd watch out for the 'Little Dude' and make sure Jack wasn't letting him do anything stupid. Her trust factor in Gecko had gone up a bit as she researched a bit about his store's community involvement and youth programs and classes. Him having a small daughter, who apparently hadn't been too damaged being raised by a skater dad had helped a bit too.

"No," she told him. "I think I'd like to use the time you two are out to get some Christmas shopping and other errands done. I haven't had much time to myself lately for that kind of thing."

Jack was quiet again for several moments. "Yeah, OK," he said then. "Friday."

She smiled a bit at that. "OK. I'll get back to you with the details when I hear more from Mark."

"Fine. Can I get off the phone now?" he asked.

She snorted. "OK. Talk to you tomorrow?"

She could almost hear the shrug in his voice. "Whatever."

She shook her head at that. "Night," she offered.

"Yeah. Night. Say night or hi or whatever to 'Jamin for me."

"I will," she promised.

"Later," he said and cut-out the phone.

She looked at it for a moment before setting it back on the desk. That had gone better than she expected. Maybe things were finally going to start to go a bit smoother between the two of them. Maybe he was finally going to start letting her in a bit more?


	64. Chapter 64

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Just do the five-gift rule or some variation of it," Nick told her as they got out of the sedan in the parking garage near Warner's office. "It will make it less of a headache – especially if you're just going to be hitting the stores for the first time this weekend. It's going to be crazy out."

She glanced at him as she pulled on her gloves for the walk up the block to the medical examiner's office. She'd expressed to him in the car on the way over that she didn't know where to start with buying some Christmas gifts for Benji. There was just too much out there. She was also actually dreading exactly what he was suggesting: that it was going to be an absolute zoo out when she did get rid of Benji for the morning on Saturday and she finally had the chance to spend a few hours actually dealing with Christmas.

She was seriously considering ordering everything online – so she could just deal with it at home in the evenings. But since she really wasn't familiar with any of the products she was kind of reluctant to do that. She imagined some of the stuff she'd end up getting wouldn't be entirely what she was picturing, if she didn't get out to some of the stores and into the Christmas chaos and take a look at them.

"What's the five-gift rule?" she asked.

She really had no idea. She was actually finding it a little strange that she was turning to the younger man for occasional advice on parenting. But he at least had experience – and with a kid in the similar age range and with dealing with it all on his own. It was actually kind of giving them a bit of a common ground and something to talk about and fill in the gaps when they didn't have a case to talk about – or needed a break from mauling over the reality of their daily grind. In some ways it was working out as a positive for them. They'd definitely struggled with filling the gaps before and having anything to say to each other. There had been a lot of silences – and most of them weren't exactly comfortable, they were just quiet.

He looked at her – almost like he was surprised he'd never heard of the five-gift rule. But she doubted she would've had reason to have heard of it before.

"Something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to learn, something to read," he recited at her. "Some people do something handmade instead of something to learn – and some people drop that one entirely and do it as a four-gift rule."

She considered that for several steps. It mustn't have been enough of a reaction for him, though.

"Trust me, it works," he told her. "It will really focus your buying and keep you from going crazy."

She nodded as she considered that some more. It actually sounded like it made sense. Five gifts under the tree sounded like a pretty good number to her – more than she ever got. But not enough that she'd feel like she was going a little too crazy – spoiling him silly. And hopefully in a range that wouldn't be entirely overwhelming for him. It also sounded like it avoided the buying too many toys that he wouldn't play with or be interested in. It'd be an OK variety of gifts. She might try it. At least it gave her something to think about. And, he was right, an idea like that might help focus her thoughts on what to get him a bit more – rather than the overwhelment at the share volume of options and possibilities that she'd been swimming in the past few nights.

"Something they want is the Santa gift?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I'm sure that's how some families do it. We always have done Zara's Santa present separate from the five gifts from us."

She nodded some more at that. "What do you generally do with something to learn?"

"Ah, the last couple years craft and colouring kit things. I think I'm getting her Lego this year. You know they do girls Lego now? Very pink."

Olivia snorted at that. "I thought Lego was a pretty gender neutral toy."

Nick shook his head. "No way. Zara wouldn't touch it before – total boy's toy. I'm hoping the pink packaging will save me from having to play with princesses all the time, though."

She smiled at him at that.

"It's still pretty girly," he conceded. "Building ponies and flower shops and crap. But it has to be an improvement over what Santa's bringing."

"What's Santa bringing?" she asked.

"Teacup Piggies," he said flatly.

She let out a small laugh. She actually had no idea what exactly a Teacup Piggy was, but she figured the name was pretty self-explanatory and it definitely didn't sound like something she could envision Nick being enthused about having to participate in at playtime. Probably similar to her and robots. Though, she thought even she might be able to stomach playing robots a bit more than playing with a piglet.

"What'd Ben ask for?" he asked. "Wait. Maybe I don't want to know. You're likely going to get to play with something cool on Christmas morning. Just remember that I'm having to pretend to be a purple pig in a pink teacup with her piglets when you're opening presents with him."

She allowed him a small smile. "I don't know. I might be bashing my head against a wall. He wants another Transformer. He can't transform them. So I get to do that for him. It's not my definition of fun. Then it's only in the robot or car position for all of maybe five minutes and he wants it switched back to the other one."

Nick shot her a look. "At least you're getting to play with something cool."

"I'll trade you," she offered.

"I'd take you up on that if I thought you were being anywhere near serious," Nick said.

"So you're done your shopping?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Nah. My Mom's taken care of some of it for me. But I'll be out there in the warzone this weekend too."

"Where are the best places to hit up?"

He glanced at her at that. "I'm going across to Jersey – hit up some of the power centres. Prices are better. If there will be anything left in them – that's another story."

She nodded. "I think I'm just going to stick to the city. Hopefully won't have to hit more than one or two places - and hopefully the shelves won't be bare."

"You can ride along, if you want to slum it at the Target and Walmart with me," he offered.

She gave him a small smile. "I appreciate that, Nick. But I've got a pretty narrow window of time, so I should likely stick close to home."

He nodded. "Still haven't got a sitter sorted yet?"

She shrugged. "I've got his uncle in a lurch. But he's in the midst of exams right now – so I can't really be dumping the kid on him for the whole day. He's going to have him for the morning."

"Didn't he dump a kid on you for the rest of your life?"

She snorted and gave a rub to her eyebrow. "Technically. But it was my choice to participate in the arrangement."

"It's all going OK still?" he asked clearly a little cautiously.

But she allowed him a small nod. "It's going. It's hectic. Gives me a greater appreciation for what you've been dealing with."

Nick shrugged at her. "I've got my mom to help out, though. Not sure I could be doing the job, if she wasn't around and able to help."

She glanced at him at that. She was pretty sure it was just a passing comment. But it struck her – almost like he was suggesting that she couldn't do the job and be raising a kid on her own. She didn't think that was entirely true. She thought it was more a question of if she wanted to be doing the job while she had a little boy in her life. She'd spent the better part of a year questioning how much she wanted to do the job anymore anyway. Benji was likely going to be the impetuous for her to finally make a decision about that.

She didn't respond to Nick, though. She didn't really want to get into it – and she didn't think in that particular incident he meant anything by it. Nick was usually pretty transparent when something was bothering him and didn't beat around the bushes when he had something to say. If he was pissed at her attendance or hours lately – or he felt like he was having to pick up too much of her slack or cover her ass more than he should be – he'd say so. And, he likely wouldn't be pleasant when it did reach that point. She didn't plan on it reaching that point. She wanted to have her and Benji's life more in order by into January – or at least have a bit more of a routine and stability established. She thought they were getting there. She was working at getting things to fall into place – it was just taking some time … and a lot of effort.

"It's good you've got your mom," she allowed – and left the rest.

He just nodded. "It's good you've got his uncle," he said.

She snorted. She wasn't sure how good that was. She thought her and Jack were making some progress. She was starting to see more glimpses of the young man she'd first met and not the defiant kid she'd spent most of the past three months dealing with. But no matter how she cut it – Jack was pretty much still a kid, and it was likely going to take a couple years for him to get caught up with adulthood, if not longer.

"I've got to get something for him too – and do his stocking. Any idea what teenaged boys want?"

Nick shot her a look. "Nothing you want to be getting him," he said with a sly grin.

She rolled her eyes.

"I'd actually be here," he said, as he was ever the gentlemen and held the door to the morgue open for her, "dealing with dead people, then having to deal with buying Christmas presents for a teenager."

She snorted, as she stepped instead. "Thanks for that positivity."

He smiled. "No problem. Enjoy your Nightmare Before Christmas," he teased.

She shook her head at him. But the reality was she was doing her best to enjoy all of it – even the annoying, stressful and overwhelming parts. It was a first for her – and she wanted to make sure she took advantage of. She knew that her life often seemed to have other plans – and just before it was a first, didn't mean it would be the first of many.

"I'll take a Nightmare Before Christmas, if it means I'm not stuck Home Alone," she teased back and pushed his shoulder a bit to get him to head inside to look at the body of their vic. From talking about gift-buying for their kids to viewing a corpse … maybe it really was time to think about getting behind a desk.


	65. Chapter 65

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Rollins looked up from her work and gave Olivia a thin smile as she walked back into the squad room – Benji completely flaked out on her shoulder and handing slacked arm off her.

"He alright?" Rollins asked.

Rollins had been rather quiet about the appearance of Benji in Olivia's life. She obviously knew what was going on – she'd met Benji and she'd seen him in the squad room before. But she'd asked or said very little in the one-on-one time they did have. Really the closest thing that had come to a comment was a few mentioned from Rollins that she missed getting to have a decompression hour of a drink and billiards with her in the evening anymore. Olivia almost appreciated that. But the quietness seemed kind of off for Rollins too. She'd wondered a bit if it was a form of disapproval, or if the other woman was just allowing her the space that she might want if she was dealing with a similar situation.

Still, her asking something now – acknowledging the little boy was there with her, might be some sort of progress in getting this all to become more normal and commonplace for her colleagues. So Olivia nodded as she got over to her desk and set Benji down on the ground.

"No more cast," she told Amanda as sat in her chair and started to work at getting Benji's winter gear off him. He just stood there passively as she snatched his hat and pulled his mitts off his hands, before unzipping his jacket and shucking it down his arms. "Still a brace – and I think he's feeling a little poked and prodded. So we're being a bit of a suck, aren't we?" she directed at Benji.

He just looked at her wide eyed and then crashed into her chest. He rubbed his face against her – keeping up the tired and sore and sucky act.

The trip into the hospital to have his cast removed had ended up taking A LOT longer than she expected. They'd gotten sent for another round of x-rays before the doctor came in to cut away the cast, which she hadn't expected and it ended up eating up a bunch of time as they waited their turn. When the doctor did finally come and see them after checking the x-rays there'd then been a minor panic from Benji as he prepared to cut the cast off. Nothing could calm him even though the doctor showed both on his own hand and her arm, that the saw – even though it was really, really noisy – wouldn't cut his skin. Benji hadn't really believed that proposition. She'd had to tell him multiple times that it only tickled and then ended up having to hold him while he was in tears as the doctor cut the disgustingly, smelly thing off him. The little muscles on his arm looked so slack and faded after the cast was removed – not to mention his skin was pale and filmy looking – and smelt just as disgusting as the cast, if not more so.

The doctor had left them – saying a nurse would be in to clean him up and then he'd be back with the orthopedic brace for him. But they'd sat there for nearly 45 minutes before the nurse appeared and worked at wiping down and disinfecting his arm. Benji had been pretty restless and ready to get out of the hospital at that point and was being even less co-operative. He kept jerking away from the nurse nearly every time she sponged at his arm. She had looked rather unimpressed with his behaviour when she'd clearly been trying to be gentle with his barely mended arm. When she'd finally finished – it'd been another about 20 minutes before the doctor reappeared with a bright fluorescent green brace. He'd joked that he'd picked a Christmas-y one for the little boy, which seemed to excite Benji. But Olivia wasn't sure the blinding green looked that Christmas-y to her – nor was she too excited about getting to have something that glaring in any of her pictures on Christmas morning. She supposed, though, it would be just part of the memories of the season and their first Christmas together – no matter how ugly it was.

The doctor had gotten it put on Benji and adjusted the way he wanted. And, then showed her how to take it off and talked her through putting it back on him properly. Benji was still going to have to wear the brace about 95 per cent of the time for the next three weeks. But at least it was anti-bacterial and not supposed to stink the way the cast had and she could take it off him at bath time.

By the time they'd gotten out of there, though, it'd been about a three-hour affair that had eaten up most of the afternoon – when she'd gone in expecting the visit to only be about an hour. She'd thought about dropping Benji off at daycare again and going back to the squad for a couple hours until the mandatory latest pick-up time. But Benji had been acting so tired and sucky on the way back across town, that she'd decided to just take him into work. It was late enough in the day that he really wouldn't be disrupting anyone. And, if he was being co-operative, she might be able to get in a bit longer at the office than she would if she had to go and get him from the daycare before it closed.

"Congratulations on getting you cast off, Ben," Amanda called out at him. But he just ignored her – his face still buried against Olivia.

She rubbed his back a bit. "Did I miss much?" she asked.

"Mmm," Rollins sounded, with a noise that clearly indicated that something had happened. Olivia hoped that it wasn't Cragen in a fit about her being only available by phone for most of the afternoon. He was likely going to have her ass about that. She gave the other detective a questioning look. "Your partner's ex called. From the side of the telephone conversation we got to hear – sounded like she's decided she gets the kid on Christmas Day. There was a lot of yelling into the phone and some throwing of things around the squad. Cragen sent him home for the rest of the day to calm down."

Olivia examined her at that. That definitely wouldn't go over well with Nick – at all. He'd made enough small comments that it was clear he was struggling with dealing with the first Christmas in their separation and Zara's questions around that. Him potentially not having his daughter on Christmas was going to sting. He spent enough time angry at Maria about the status of their relationship. Her wanting Zara wasn't going to win her any points in getting them back to at least cordial grounds.

Olivia didn't say anything, though. She just gave a small sigh and shook her head at Rollins.

"Yeah. You and Nick earned the rest of us some brownie points with the Cap today," Rollins joked.

Olivia just shook her head again at that. It was enough of a comment for her to know that the Captain would have more than a few words for her the next time he saw her. She hoped he was gone for the evening – it looked like it. Still, even if he wasn't, she didn't expect he'd rip into her when she had Benji sitting there.

"You just picking something up? Or you here?" Rollins asked, instead of dwelling on the topic.

Olivia glanced at her again. "Here for a bit. Got a couple Fives from this morning that I want to get wrapped – and a report came in from Warner's team while I was out that I want to take a closer look at."

Rollins just nodded at that and turned back to her own work. So Olivia looked down at Benji.

"OK, Benj, you need to let me do work for a little bit. You want to go lay on the couch? Or sit at the desk and draw and play with your toys?"

He rubbed his face against her more. "Toys," he said quietly.

Olivia nodded and pulled open his little sling-pack for him and held it out for him to look in. "There's your toys," she said. "You going to sit across from Mommy Fox?"

He gazed into the bag where Flame, his Transformers and some of his various army men, Hot Wheels and Tech Decks were – and then he snatched it from her. But rather than moving to sit at the desk across from her, he flopped onto the floor and crawled into the knee cubby under hers. She looked down at him, considering that, as he got settled and began to pull his toys out of the bag. She gave a little snort about it. It wasn't the ideal place to have him playing – it meant she'd have her knees pressed against her drawers and be sitting at an awkward angle to use her computer. But she supposed if he was content there and was going to be quiet enough to let her get her work done, she wasn't going to argue with him about it.

So she started to work on what she wanted to get done the day while he played at her feet. He seemed happy enough to just keep to himself. He looked up at her a couple times to tell her that the little space was like a 'den' or to hold out one of his toys at her and babble something about them and whatever storyline he'd imagined up for them that evening. But he hadn't been demanding she play with him at all. There reached a point where she hadn't heard any sounds from him for a while, nor had he popped his head out to gaze up at her. So she looked under the desk and he was slumped against the backside of it, fast asleep. It made her smile a bit. It didn't look like the most comfortable position but she had been able to tell even at the hospital he needed a nap.

She was glad he had passed out without having a meltdown. Though, with it after six at that point, she briefly contemplated rousing him, concerned that he might not sleep through the night if she let him drowse too much. She decided to leave it, though. The doctor had given her a couple painkillers to help manage any pain Benji experienced from all the manhandling he'd gone through that afternoon. She knew the one that he'd been given at the hospital had likely contributed to his sleepiness and crankiness. But it'd likely be wearing off around the time she was getting him into bed and she could always pop him another one to help keep the pain in check and his eyes shut for the evening. So she just let him continue to sleep.

He must've snoozed for his usual about 45 minutes before she started to hear little whooshes and beeps and babble coming from him again. She'd looked down and given him a smile. He'd been too absorbed in his game to much care, though. It was almost like he hadn't even realized he'd slept and just picked up where he'd left off.

She was actually was almost done what she wanted to accomplish for the evening and starting to contemplate what she was going to feed to Benji – if she should pick up something on the way home or if it was getting late enough that she should just be making him toast or warming up some soup – when she noticed Rollins looking up and beyond her.

"Hey," the other woman had said with a tone that indicated she recognized whoever she was speaking to - and that it wasn't likely a vic from one of the cases she was working.

"John around?" a male voice had replied – that Olivia recognized all too quickly, and almost felt her body tense with the dread of the pending awkwardness.

"He's working days this week," Rollins had said. "Hanukkah."

"He does that?" the guy had said with an edge of disbelief to his voice.

"Guess he thinks it might be one of his mom's last," Rollins allowed at that comment.

"Oh," there was a pause. "He told me to stop by some night. Bring some food. The Captain around?"

Rollins shook her head. "He went down to One P.P. for a meeting. Not sure he's coming back."

"Just the ladies then, eh? Maybe I'll wait a bit. See if he comes back. Want any of this food?"

Olivia started to gather up her things at that. She was hoping that he'd leave and they could manage to avoid any sort of encounter beyond acknowledging they were both in the same room. But she hadn't even looked at him yet. She wasn't sure she wanted to – and she really wasn't sure how the hell she was going to get out of there quickly or unnoticed with Benji in tow.

"I'm good," Rollins replied.

"Liv?" he asked and she finally glanced over her shoulder at that. Cassidy held up a plastic bag clearly stuffed with take-out. "Thai?" he offered.

She rubbed at her eyebrow while she looked at him. He looked a lot better than the last time she'd seen him. Not as pale and not in as much pain. It looked like he'd lost some weight too. Though, with how he was holding himself, she wasn't sure it had been a healthy weight-loss, or more likely, a stress induced one. Still, it looked like he might've bulked some muscle mass since his shooting – that was apparent even under his heavy leather jacket. So maybe the physical therapy they would've been putting him through during his recovery and D.L. had offset any sudden weight drop.

"Ah, no thanks," she said.

It was strange to see him – especially with how things had been left between them. She seemed to be making a habit of poor life choices when it came to Brian Cassidy. OK – really, she seemed to excel at that, in general, when it came to men. But at least most of the others she didn't have to ever really face at work. That really changed the dynamic.

But it had just been … a moment. That's what she'd told herself – and him – thirteen years ago – and she was telling herself it again. It didn't do much for her argument to him that she'd changed – she wasn't the same person she was. She knew that was true – at least on some levels. Enough had happened in her life, that she wasn't the person she was 13 years ago. How could she be anymore? She'd seen too much. Experienced too much. And she just wasn't 31 anymore. Not that she'd really done much to demonstrate that to him.

And, really, it had been a moment. There was so much happening those six months ago. Cragen in jail. Information about her and David's relationship leaking out. The fact that she'd let herself get involved in an even more unhealthy relationship with David long after they'd agreed to end things, just so she could have something in her life, as fake as it was and as shitty it made her feel most of the time. Finding out that even in the midst of it all David was showing up as one of the people calling the escort service, only served to make her feel even more strongly that she'd let herself become a booty call for him – and, that made her hate herself and what she was doing with the man a little bit more. It wasn't a real relationship and it never could be. Though, David had clearly smacked most of the blame for that one her. If she'd been more willing to be open about their relationship sooner – they wouldn't have gotten into a conflict-of-interest mess. But it'd just all been so new and had been happening so fast. It was there and done before she had much of an opportunity to process it all – yet it had still stung and stuck with her for months and months after – not helped by the fact they were still fucking in the process.

Then there was just the whole nature of the case when her and Cassidy had suddenly been thrust back together. The fall out with the NYPD and the attorney general's office. It had just been so all encompassing at the time. Cassidy getting shot in front of her – nearly dying - had just made everything feel that much more overflowing. Still, kissing him at the hospital hadn't been the best plan. It wasn't really a plan, though. It just kind of happened. It just felt like the thing to do in the moment. She wanted it in that moment.

She'd thought about it a bit since then – mostly because she'd felt bad about not visiting him much after that, beyond a couple work-related visits. And, then she just stopped going. She hadn't much wanted to think about what she'd done or what he might think about the matter. He'd clearly changed over the past 13 years too. He wasn't the 30-year-old green detective with puppy-dog enthusiasm anymore. He was a toughened cop who'd seen his share. And, really when she hadn't heard anything from him – she assumed that that was all the answer she needed about where he was at with what had happened.

Cassidy hadn't been shy about pursuing her before – to the point she'd had to be rude to him. He hadn't even bothered this time. So none of it had been worth spending too much time dwelling on. She already had enough things that kept her awake at night.

She didn't get a chance to organize her thoughts about the current interaction, though, or plan her escape. Benji heard the offer of food and he crawled out from under the desk and looked up at her.

"Food?" he asked with big eyes.

She shook her head at him – but she could feel Cassidy's gaze having shifted to there. She didn't want to explain herself to him of all people. He may have had a right to press her about why she'd ignored him again. But he definitely didn't have a right to get into this with her. She hoped he wouldn't. She supposed it depended on how much he'd really changed over the years. Thirty-year-old Cassidy would've been at her – however, inappropriate the timing or the moment might've been.

"We'll eat when we get home," she told Benji. "We're leaving now. Com'on. Put your toys back in the backpack. Get out from under there."

But he just gazed at her some more and then put his hands up on her knee and rested his head on her lap, giving her even bigger puppy dog eyes. "I hungry now," he whined.

Cassidy had moved more into her line of sight at that – moving from standing behind her to basically standing next to her desk.

"You sure you don't want some spring rolls for the road or something?" he asked, giving her a bit of a questioning look.

She shook her head. "We're fine," she said again. "We'll eat when we get home," she directed at both of them – but looked down at Benji with a bit of sternness as she said it.

"Aw com'on," Cassidy said. "I brought enough to feed a squad room. You might as well take some of it … or all of it."

He set the bag on the corner of her desk and watched her again. But she just shook her head at him. "Put it in the fridge. I'm sure people will eat through it tomorrow."

Cassidy gave a bit of a sigh at her but apparently decided better than to test her and lifted the bag back up off her space.

"Get your toys," she said to Benji again, having cleared that hurdle.

He gave her a small dragon growl but disappeared back under her desk and she finished gathering her own things and stuffing a couple files into her bag, while tossing some of her other items into her drawers and out of sight. She was very aware that Cassidy was still standing there watching her – his brow creased as he did. She wasn't sure if it was in questioning, confusion or concern. She glanced at him once and briefly made eye contact but neither of them said anything.

Benji finally crawled back from under the desk and stood up next to her, holding out the sling-pack in one hand and Bumblebee in the other.

"Mommy Fox, Transform Bumblebee," he demanded.

She took it from him but just set it on her desk. "Bumblebee is going in the backpack for the walk home," she told him and took the pack from him as well.

"Bumblebee want to be car for walk," he informed her. "It faster."

She snorted at him and shook her head. "Put on your coat, please," she said, handing him his things off the back of her chair and getting up to start pulling on her own.

Benji made a shrieking noise and she glanced at him as she got her own arms into her jacket's sleeves. He was looking in horror beyond her and she glanced back at Cassidy. He'd picked up the robot.

She glared at him. "What are you doing?" she demanded a little harshly and stuck out her hand to get the toy back.

Cassidy ignored her. "I'm transforming it for him," he said.

He couldn't have had it in his hands for more than about 15 seconds and it already looked like he was halfway there in getting the thing to go from a robot to a car. It usually took her about five minutes to get all the pieces to flip into the right places – and she'd done it hundreds of times now, it felt like. He held it back out to her as he finished.

"There," he said.

She glared at him some more. "Thanks," she said a little annoyed and gave it to Benji, as she got his braced arm through the one sleeve. Benji examined the toy while she did that. "Bumblebee is staying that way until we get home," she stressed to him.

Benji squinted at her at that and then glanced at Cassidy, tilting his head slightly to look beyond her at the man. "He fix Megatron too?" Benji asked her quietly.

She sighed. She never got his other Transformer transformed properly as far as she could tell. She could get it into a robot but not its vehicle. She thought it was because the thing didn't look like any vehicle in actual existence. Benji claimed the thing was a plane. She thought it was more likely some sort of spaceship. She'd even gone online to watch some tutorials on how to get the thing transformed properly. It really hadn't helped. When she finished with it – it still looked like nothing to her. She'd seen what it was supposed to look like a couple times when Jack had been over and manipulated the thing into place. But Benji seemed to prefer to keep it as a robot and it was rarely in its vehicle form long enough for her to take a real look at and to try to figure out what steps she might be missing to get the transformation right.

She pulled the other toy out of the sling-pack and held it over to Cassidy. "Can you do this one too?" she asked, a little embarrassed.

He nodded, though, and started working on the figure.

"You can't have both out for the walk," she told Benji as she pulled his hat down over his ears and then held out his mitten. "You have to pick."

"Mommy Foooooooooooox!" he whined again, giving her a look of disgust.

She shook her head at him. "One out for the walk. You don't want to drop or lose them."

He stomped his foot at that and glared at her some more. She ignored it and wrapped her scarf around her neck, slinging her now ever-giant purse over her shoulder and looked back to seeing how Cassidy was doing. It looked like he was struggling with that one a bit more too. But he was making progress.

He glanced up at her. It was clear they were ready to go at that point. "Just give me a second," he mumbled. He looked past her and down at Benji. "These Decepticons – they don't make things easy, Big Man."

Benji shuffled more behind her at that and gazed around her while the man worked at getting his toy in shape.

Cassidy finally handed it back to her. "I think that's as good as it's going to get," he said. It still didn't look like anything to her but she held It down to Benji.

"There. Which one is staying out for the walk?" she asked the little boy and he examined the two toys with deep concentration.

"My vote is for Bumblebee,' Cassidy contributed. "He's the coolest, right? Unless you've got Optimus Prime in that backpack too."

Benji looked up at him cautiously and gave a small shake of his head. "Optimus Prime a truck," he near whispered but Olivia still looked down at him.

She didn't think it was a comment necessarily directed at Cassidy – or anyone in particular. But it was the first time she'd heard Benji actually have some sort of communication with a man he'd just met. Even in the hospital, he barely looked at the doctors interacting with him. He hardly said anything to Elliot on the weekend – and he'd met him several times now. He had kept his face buried against her arm when he'd asked Benji anything. The couple answers he did provide had been given by telling her at whisper levels – like in a game of telephone where she was then responsible for relaying the response. Really, the only man that she saw him interact with any level of comfort with was Jack. Though, Nick had seemed to have built a minor rapport with him. But she thought that was mostly because the little boy related him to Zara and had granted him some leeway.

"Santa bringin' a fire truck or police car Transformer. But not a regular truck," Benji said quietly again.

"A fire truck or police car Transformer?" Cassidy said with a bit of enthusiasm. "I wonder which one it will be?" he asked and shot her a look with a small smile.

She returned a thin one but looked back down at Benji. "Com'on Little Fox. Pick. It's hot in here – let's get home."

He held up Megatron to her. "Bumblebee," he said.

She took the other robot and stuffed it into her purse and then stuck out her hand for him. She gave a small nod to Cassidy. "See you tomorrow, Amanda," she said and started to head for the door.

"Have a good night," the other woman responded.

"I'll walk you out," Cassidy said and followed after them.

She glanced at him – gaping for a moment and then giving him a look. "I thought you were waiting for Cragen," she said.

He shrugged. "It's after seven. He's likely not coming back."

She rolled her eyes a bit and shook her head at him. They got to the elevator bay and she could again feel him examining her as they waited for the car to come.

"How old is he?" Cassidy asked.

She just looked up at the ceiling and let out a breath. She didn't want to chat about it with Cassidy. But Benji again took it upon himself to hold up a mitted hand with his thumb tucked across his palm. Brian examined that for a moment and then gave the little boy a smile – apparently having gauged the message.

"Four?" he asked and got a nod from Benji. "Wow. Big Man," he said.

They got into the car and Olivia shuffled the little boy in front of her so he could push the button. She pointed at the starred lobby one and he eagerly pressed it, his tongue hanging out of his mouth in concentration as he did.

Cassidy was leaning against the back of the car for the short ride down and he continued to examine them. She glanced at him.

"Bri, please stop it," she said sternly.

He shook his head and looked down. "Sorry. I'm having one of those moments where I feel like I was U.C. for a lot longer than I thought – and like I haven't assimilated back to this life as well as I thought."

She gave him another look at that.

"I just hadn't heard," he said and gave a small nod towards Benji as the doors dinged and opened.

She tugged on Benji's arm and pulled him out and into the lobby – stopping to sign out with the desk sergeant.

She looked at Cassidy again – there was something about the way he said it that she got the impression that he didn't mean whatever was going around on the current rumour mill. She suspected he was almost suggesting that he'd somehow missed she'd been pregnant and had a child. But maybe she was just reading into the statement.

Really, Cassidy knew her. She could understand random people on the street seeing her and Benji together and assuming he was hers biologically. But with people she knew?

Benji didn't look much of anything like her, as far as she was concerned. He had no reason to. But really, he was about as far from her as he could get in terms of physical traits. For there even to be an assumption that he could possibly be biologically hers – she would've had to contribute just about every recessive gene imaginable. That must've been some pretty aggressive sperm.

She thought about correcting – or at least clarifying – for Cassidy for a moment. But then thought better of it. She really didn't want to get into any of it with him. It really wasn't any of his business.

"You could've mentioned," he said as she started to move towards the door, Benji still in tow.

She looked at the ceiling and let out a small sigh before she pushed open the door and stepped outside. She hoped getting out of the station house, she could now escape this conversation.

"It's complicated, Brian," she said with a look at him and then gestured down the street. "Now I really need to get him home. It's late. I'll see you later."

But Cassidy trailed after her – and she snapped her head around.

"Brian," she snapped, "Don't follow me. You're going to piss me off."

He shook his head at her. "Are you going to the subway?"

"No," she said. "We're walking."

He nodded. "Well, I'm going to the subway – and it's this way too."

She sighed and stayed in place until he closed the several feet gap between them and started to walk next to her.

"Mentioning it would've helped explain why I never heard from you," he said after a brief silence.

She glanced at him and shook her head. "You knew how to get a hold of me too," she said. "I never heard from you either."

He shrugged. "Left the ball in your court. Learned from previous experiences that was best."

She sighed again. She just wanted to get through the couple blocks to the subway – and be done with this.

"It would've helped your argument that you've changed too," he said when she hadn't offered a verbal reaction to his comment. "That you aren't the person you were? Because, gotta say, that I'd kind of been under the impression that some of that was BS."

She glanced at him again but still said nothing. She didn't much like the comment – but she wasn't going to get into it with him. She was tired. She just wanted to get home. She had a lot of other things that needed her focus and energy right now – arguing with Brian Cassidy wasn't one of them. And, she especially wasn't going to have any sort of discussion with him in front of Benji.

"'Cass, just wanted to let you know, I've got a kid'," he in-toned at her. "Give it a try?"

She rolled her eyes at him harder and shook her head. "Brian, I've got a kid," she spat at him – with a touch of anger in her voice.

He made a face and nodded. "That wasn't so hard, right?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow and glanced down at Benji. He seemed fairly oblivious to their talk. He actually seemed more fascinated with flying Bumblebee along through the air as they walked.

"Cassidy, I've just … got a lot of things on the go right now. I don't have time for this."

He gave her a small nod. "Yeah. I can see that. Now. … I'm good with kids. You remember that about me?"

She snorted and looked at him at that comment. "Not specifically, no. But I'm not sure you're very child-friendly now. Three years at an escort service – sleeping with the pros."

He glared her at that. "One."

"One that your hand was forced into admitting," she clarified. She wasn't sure how much she believed that he'd just been with Carissa.

He looked at her harder. "You know me better than that," he said sternly. "And I owned up to it – and I got my wrist more than a little slapped for it."

She glanced at him again for a moment. He seemed genuinely hurt by her comment. She wasn't necessarily judging him. Lots of men used escort services, even though she thought it was a little slimy. But Cassidy had been on the job. Still, she supposed they all had lapses in judgment.

"Why were you looking for Cragen?" she asked, trying to change the topic.

He glanced up at her from where he'd been examining his feet while he walked. "I heard you guys still have an empty desk that they haven't been able to fill up for like a year now. There's odd man out on your squad these days?"

She momentarily thought – 'It might not just be one vacant desk for much longer'. But as it sunk in what he was saying, she looked at him hard and that and then shook her head. "Brian, don't do that to yourself. You don't want to come back."

He shrugged. "They've had me on D.L. forever," he said. "I think part of it at this point is because they're still trying to figure out what to do with me. I'm going to get shuffled into a corner, if I'm not proactive about it. I can't do that. Go and sit and push paper around on ridiculous cases. It'd still be a bullet to the chest, Liv. It'd just take me longer to bleed out."

She sighed. "Cass, you weren't right for SVU."

He shrugged again. "I'm not that kid anymore. I'm not the person I was anymore either, Olivia."

She glanced at him again as he made that statement. She believed it. Who's really the same person they are when they are 30 by the time they reach middle age? She knew he would've had a lot of life – and professional – experiences between then and now. That would've changed him. She didn't know how much. She liked to think most people were the same at their core, even if parts of them shift and grow over the years.

She'd like the core Brian. He'd just been a little rough around the edges, a little immature. The sex had been good. Really good. But she hadn't been interested at the time. Not in a relationship – and that's what he'd wanted.

It was actually starting to seem like timing was likely just bad for them. She didn't think she had the ability to be interested now either – even if she wanted to be. She had different priorities.

"I've had a lot of time to kind of think and reflect while on D.L.," he added when she'd looked at him sideways. "My life's become the job. It's hard to come out of U.C. when you don't have anything to come out of it for. What have I got to give me the stability to assimilate back into regular life? To even want to get back to normal life? Nothing. It's been pretty pathetic. It's likely a good thing you didn't call. Missed the train wreck."

She sighed at that. She felt bad for him. "I'm sorry that it's been difficult for you, Bri."

He shrugged. "Is what it is. Maybe I don't like what it is so much, though."

She gave him a small smile at that – but turned her head as Benji tugged on her arm, bending down to pick up a bottle cap off the ground. He held it up at her proudly.

"Wow," she said and gave him a smile. "We'll have to add it to your collection."

"It red," he declared, "like Christmas."

She smiled a bit wider. "Like Rudolph's nose."

Benji looked at the cap a little more gleefully at that and she stroked his capped head, as they started to walk again.

"You have changed," Cassidy commented.

She glanced his direction again and shrugged. "I don't think I said I had changed. I said I wasn't the person I was 13 years ago. I'm not."

He allowed a thin smile at that. "Well, you aren't that either, I guess. You didn't say what his name is …"

"Benjamin," she allowed. "Benji."

He gave a bit of a grin at that. "Good name," he said. "Hey Benji," he greeted looking down at the boy. "I'm Brian. I used to work with your mom."

Benji squinted at him at that and gripped her hand a bit tighter and shuffled his body so more of it was pressing against her with his strides. But he examined the man.

"You fuzz?" he asked quietly.

"Didn't we talk about that word?" Olivia chastised him softly.

He looked at her with big eyes. "It a bad word," the little boy informed her from one of their previous lessons.

She nodded at him. "It's rude. It's a rude word to call a police officer."

Benji rubbed his cheek against her sleeve at that. She was learning that often those reactions from the little boy happened when he felt he'd done something wrong and was almost a form of apology. So she reached down and stroked his head again, letting him know it was OK.

"You a police officer?" Benji asked again.

Brian had watched her interaction with the little boy but gave him a small smile. "I am," he agreed. "A benched one," he added and gave Olivia a look.

"You a dick-tech-hive? Because you don't have uni-for-him."

Cassidy smiled a bit wider at that again. "I am a detective."

Benji nodded proudly at his assessment and Olivia snorted at him. He seemed to think he was become quite the expert at identifying different types of people in law enforcement.

Brian glanced at her again from watching the little boy for a minute. "So since I clearly haven't got a clue what's been going on in your life for the past 13 years – are you actually single? Or was I really being an idiot again thinking what happened might've been something?"

She sighed at that and looked at him. She didn't really want to think about it. It was six months ago. She'd thought about it – and thought about it – and then decided to stop thinking about it. She'd made a conscious decision to just leave it. To deal with all the other things on their plate at SVU – holding things together while Cragen was gone, dealing with the fallout with Nick from that case and in his personal life, and just dealing with the workload. Then there was her personal life – or lack thereof to deal with too: the real end of her and David, the emotional minefield that that proved to be, still working through Elliot being gone, questioning her job and her life. There were too many things going on for her to be emotionally ready to try a Round Two with Cassidy at the time. She thought there was even more going on now.

"I'm not seeing anyone, Cass," she allowed. "But I'm not really available right now."

He met her eyes at that but gave a small nod. But then he shook his head and shrugged. "I get it. But just so you know … this …" he jutted his chin down a bit towards Benji, "…doesn't scare me."

They stood quietly for a moment. She thought about that for a second. She'd had some thoughts before that adding a kid to her life as a single woman likely took her off the relationship market. She might never find a man to love her – even though, as far as she was concerned, people should start to expect that kids would be in the picture in some capacity as people got older. Still, she recognized that if at that point in their lives man hadn't married and had children, there was a high probability that they didn't want a family. She'd struggled with that a bit before. She had felt like it was making a choice – potentially maybe finding love at some point in her life or having a child. Eventually she'd kind of accepted that if a man really loved her – he'd want to be a part of her family, whether or not that involved a child. And, really, at that point, she didn't think there was a choice. Benji was tangible. He was something real – a family, a child, she could have now rather than a man that she may or may not ever find. She'd wanted a child for so long and so badly. She wasn't going to miss that opportunity for a possibility that may never happen. But Cassidy's comment – even though she wasn't about to pursue it at the moment – if almost gave her some mild hope, that off in the dreamland that she knew didn't really exist – she could still have it all at some point in her life. Maybe. There were man out there who weren't scared away by kids – or at least ones that provided lip service to say so.

Cassidy held out the plastic bag of food again to her. "Take it," he said, "no one wants to be cooking at this time of night."

She let out a small sigh at that. "That's more than we could eat, Bri, and we've got lots of food in the fridge."

He riffled through it for a second and pulled out two containers. "There. I'll take the spicy noodles and the hot and sour soup. You take the rest."

She examined him for a moment but then took the bag with her free hand. She really didn't want to cook. Though toast counted as a meal at about any time of day to Benji, the aroma coming from the bag sure smelled a lot more appetizing to her.

"Thanks," she said quietly.

He just nodded and gave a small smile and gestured up the block to where the subway was. "I take it you aren't slumming it anymore, if you're walking home," he said.

She rolled her eyes. "My apartment was not a slum."

He let out a small laugh and raised his eyebrows. "It wasn't great, Liv."

She shook her head. "Whatever. You weren't there long enough to notice or care. I live in Murray Hill now."

He raised his eyebrows higher at that. "And you're going to drag him across town?"

"Well, I usually end up carrying him part of the way at this time of night," she allowed. "But it's still faster than waiting for the cross-town bus."

He snorted in a way that clearly acknowledged he knew there was some truth to that statement.

"OK. Good to see you, Liv … and Benji. Call me or something some time … if you need help with Transformers."

She gave him a small laugh at that. "Yeah. Maybe. I might need a tutorial after Santa brings a police car or a fire truck one."

Cassidy allowed a thin smile at that and held out a high-five hand out at Benji. "Good to meet you, Big Man." Benji examined him for a moment but then reached out and slapped Cassidy's hand. "Good one!" He nodded at her. "See you around then …"

She nodded back. "Yeah …"

He gave her another thin smile and started to head north up the street. She watched him for a moment – and wondered if their timing wasn't so bad and if she didn't consistently seem to put-in only to pull-out with Cassidy, if it was something that might actually work. He wasn't a bad guy. But did she really even know him? She didn't have time to get to know him now, though.


	66. Chapter 66

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Jack was crawling around on the floor at her TV stand when she emerged from her bedroom – having finished giving Benji his bath and having assigned him the task of changing into his pajamas for the evening.

She looked at the teen questioningly for a moment. She really couldn't tell what he was doing. He had wires pulled out from somewhere. She actually probably didn't want to know what he was doing. But she wasn't sure how she felt about him rearranging her electronic equipment, as unsophisticated as he felt her set-up was.

"What are you doing?" she asked, moving closer to the back of the couch to take a better look at what he was up to.

He glanced up at her and then turned back to his efforts. "Hooking up my Xbox," he mumbled at her.

She rubbed her eyebrow at that. She didn't really want to chastise him. But she also didn't really want his videogame system attached to her television. And, she didn't really think that he should be playing videogames anyway when he was supposed to be in the midst of studying for exams. She wasn't sure he'd appreciate her pointing that out, though.

Jack had clearly had a rough evening so far and she didn't want to add to it be nagging at him. He'd been co-operative about showing up for the meeting with Mark – and even on time. And, he'd signed on the dotted lines that required his signature without a fuss or even much comment.

He'd actually been surprisingly quiet – especially for Jack. There hadn't been any of his usual verbal sparing. There weren't any back-and-forth games. Even when Mark had asked him if he had any questions before putting his name down on the paperwork – or if he had any questions about the rest of the process they'd be going through over the coming weeks – Jack had just shaken his head in silence.

She appreciated his co-operation – especially when he'd made every step up to that point such a process. But she was concerned by his quietness and she'd noted the sadness that had radiated off him while he signed the couple documents. She'd squeezed his shoulder and tried to give him a small smile but he'd barely looked at her. And then he'd barely spoken on the way back to the apartment. Even when she asked his input on what he'd like for dinner he'd just shrugged at her. When she did put food on the table he ate in silence – hardly even reacting to anything Benji said to him either beyond a few thin smiles.

"You planning on playing some videogames?" she asked rather than suggest his evening would be better spent with his nose in his books.

He didn't respond right away, though. Instead he finished what he was doing and shoved the white-box console up on its side and flush against her TV stand. He picked up a controller and went and sat on the couch.

"I set up a trial month of Netflix for you," he said without looking at her.

She watched the back of his head. "Why?"

He glanced at her briefly. "You said on the phone the other day that you wanted to get some Christmas movies for him but that the library was cleared out."

He looked back at her again and she gave him a questioning look. He turned back to the screen and started flipping around between menus and keying something in on the screen – before a giant red logo for the streaming service popped up. She looked at it as it loaded into some other menu system showing the covers of what looked like dozens of movies.

She knew what the service was. She'd heard of it. She just never had reason to use it – and she'd always envisioned it was watching movies on her computer, which didn't sound appealing to her. But Jack looked perfectly comfortable with the technology – that he'd managed to clearly effortlessly attach to her television. He flipped around some more to what looked like a search screen and she watched as he typed in 'Christmas' and a long list of movies popped up.

He held the controller at her over the back of the couch. "There's lots of Christmas movies on here," he said. "You've got a month free. I'll leave my console here until after the holidays."

She looked at him for a moment and then moved around to the front of the couch and took a seat down from him. He held out the controller at her again and she reluctantly took it. It wasn't that the controller looked in any way complicated – she just had never used one before. But it was fairly self-explanatory and she started to scroll through the list herself.

"All of these are available to watch? On demand?"

He nodded and stood up from the couch. "Yeah," he said. "The old Transformer cartoons are on there too. There's lots of stuff … kid shows and movies and educational crap. You can log in just so its Netflix Kids too so he doesn't have access to all the other stuff. But you can watch it too if you want."

She watched him as he wandered over to where he'd left his bulking backpack by the door. She knew he intended to stay the night and take Benji to the holiday party in the morning. But with how full his pack looked she wondered if he was intending to stay the whole weekend. She didn't think that was the best idea either. She thought he'd get more studying done away from Benji's distractions.

Again, though, she kept her thoughts on the matter to herself for the moment and turned back to looking through the list of available Christmas movies and shows. Some of the things she'd had in mind to show Benji weren't on the list … The Grinch Who Stole Christmas, A Charlie Brown Christmas, Frosty the Snowman, The Santa Clause … weren't on the list. But there still was a good variety. And, perhaps more impressive than that was that Jack had clearly been listening to her when she'd been chatting at him the other night (which really, a lot of times on the phone she wondered if he was at all. Hell, she wondered sometimes when she was in the same room with him). But not only had he heard her, he'd thought of a solution – and was again doing something nice for her. Or at least for Benji via her. It all counted as progress, she hoped. Baby steps.

"Do you have this at home?" she called at him from where he was still rooting in his bag.

He looked at her and just picked it up and brought it back over to the couch. "No. Can't afford it. And, don't have Internet at the apartment anyway."

She gazed at him for a moment. But before she could say anything more he pulled a small pile of books out of his bag and held them out to her. She examined him and then put the controller down and took the pile looking at each one. It was a couple children's Christmas treasuries that looked well-read – one clearly with a religious slant to it while the other looked more like it was caught up in the Santa to-do, and then a copy of Twas the Night Before Christmas and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.

"Twas the Night is fragile," he said. "It's Nan's. It's like a total old school pop-up."

She gave him a small smile at that and shuffled that book to the top and opened it. She could see the age in the pages – and how some of the pop-ups were clearly more well-loved, by what must've been generations of children, than others. But she had an appreciation of books – something her mother had managed to pass on to her that she didn't entirely mind – and this was a beautiful book. A classic in some many ways. The value of it, as something passed down in the family, was likely as tremendous as the book itself, which looked like it was likely from about the 1940s. Jack was right – it was an old school pop-up, probably among a wave of them when the art-form had become popular in storytelling in the United States in the 1930s and 40s – before it died out again until the 60s. That in itself would make the book priceless in a far different way than the familial value that was attached to it. It was almost too precious for her to imagine letting Benji touch it. But slowly flipping through the pages, it was clear that children had been allowed to touch it and play with the moving parts and the pop-up displays. There was yellowing tape stuck here and there keeping the ragged and fading bits-and-pieces in place.

"I sort of took some things from the house before Greg made us leave," Jack said a bit more quietly and looking more at the open bag between his feet than her. He pulled out a plastic grocery bag and put it on the couch cushion between them. "I thought you might want that for him too," he said. It sounded like his voice was cracking a little bit.

She looked at him again – but he quickly looked away. So she opened the bag and took a look inside. It contained a plush nativity set that was clearly handmade. The intricacy of the little felt sewn figures was impressive. The set even included some of the stable animals and a felt, collapsible stable.

"It's beautiful," she told Jack, as she looked at the workmanship on some of the figures.

Jack gave a small nod at that and she saw him swipe at his eyes.

"Ah, yeah," he said. "Nan made that for us when we were kids." His voice cracked again and he looked back down.

She reached out and gave his back a small rub but he pulled away. So she dropped her hand and went back to looking at the set. "Your Nan sounds like a pretty neat lady," she offered instead. "You can tell she cares about you a lot." She purposely didn't use the past tense. The woman wasn't technically gone. Though she was fairly sure that Jack felt like she was.

Jack nodded, though. "Yeah," he said. "Ah, the sheep is kind of gross. It's not supposed to be grey like that. But me and Izzy used to fight over who got to play with the sheep for some reason. Who got to take it to bed each night. Kind of fucked up when you think about it now. The farm kids fighting over who got to bed the sheep. Dad made us take turns. It was a really dumb thing to fight about."

She smiled a little at that and picked up the sheep to look at. It definitely did look more well-loved than some of the other figures in the set. "You didn't fight over the Baby Jesus?" she teased a bit.

He allowed a small snort at that and shot her a look. He had a small smile on his face at her comment but she could see that his eyes looked watery. "Nah. We fought over the donkey sometimes too, though."

She gave him a smile. "Well I'm glad you're sharing with Benji now. All of this – the books too – that's really special."

He give a little nod – and was quiet for a minute, looking back at the floor. "I was thinking that maybe when your lawyer gets all your stuff through, that we could go up to the farm? I had to leave a lot of stuff there and if Greg hasn't gotten rid of it, I kind of want some of it back. Some of my stuff … and Dad's … and Izzy's and Nan's. I thought maybe he wouldn't just say I couldn't be on the property if I had you with me since you're a cop … ?"

She watched him at that question. It was the first time he'd ever directly asked something of her. He'd clearly come to expect things from her and depend on her – but to directly state that he needed something … he hadn't done that. He'd found little back doors into getting the help he wanted every other time without asking or admitting it.

For him to ask this now - it was clearly something he'd been thinking about and wanted badly. She couldn't say she blamed him. Even though the belongings weren't in a location that he necessarily had any right to anymore – some of the things would clearly be his. And having seen his apartment, it was clear to her how little he'd managed to bring down into the city when he and Benji had left. It hadn't been much and as little as Benji had – it was still clear that the emphasis had been placed on bringing things for the little boy.

She rubbed her eyebrow as she processed his request for a moment but then allowed a little nod. "That's doable, Jack," she told him. "I'll need to think about how the best way to approach it would be, though. If your uncle doesn't want you to be there, I guess it could technically be trespassing whether I'm with you or not. We might have to get someone from up there to escort us to the property and to supervise your removal of belongings. Depending on how co-operative your uncle is being, you might not be able to take much of your Nan's. But I don't think there should be a big problem with you having a right to your Dad's or sister's belongings … or yours."

He nodded. "OK. It's not a big deal."

She gave a little snort and a thin smile at that. She suspected it pretty was a big deal for him to have worked himself up to broaching the topic. "I'll ask some questions and we'll figure it out," she said. "Get it done."

"Yeah. I just don't want to do it until after your lawyer does the stuff – because I don't want Greg to give you any trouble."

She gave him a small nod again. She didn't think Greg could cause a huge amount of trouble for her – given the circumstances. But, then again, biology did sometimes play a considerable role in the eyes of the court and if his uncle kicked up a fuss, it might rock the boat enough to derail what she was getting so close to achieving. They didn't legally need to inform him of anything that was going on – but if he got wind of it, he could potentially make things difficult. So she again appreciated that Jack seemed to be thinking – and it seemed he was thinking more about everything that was going on far more than he was admitting.

"OK," she agreed. "We'll try to go up as soon as we can after the paperwork gets through. We can visit your Nan while we're up there too, if you want."

He shrugged. "Yeah. Maybe," was the only response he provided to that.

Benji came charging into the living room, though, and smacked into her. So she didn't have a chance to press the topic any further with him – at least for the moment.

"What took you so long?" she teased him and gave him some tickles sending him into shrieks.

"'Top 'Livia," he demanded and squirmed away from her.

She ruffled at his still damp hair. "Look what your uncle brought you," she said. "Christmas toys and Christmas books and he set up Christmas movies for us too."

Benji riffled through the plastic bag a bit – and perhaps like the Lewis children before him selected the sheep and the donkey to hold up and show her.

"Stuffies!" he declared.

She gave him a smile. "It's a nativity set, sweetheart. Your Nanny made it for Uncle Jack and your Mama when they were little."

Benji gazed at Jack at that comment and the teen allowed him a small smile but had fallen silent again. So Olivia pulled out the three figures of the Holy Family.

"So here's Mary and Joseph and who's this?" she asked and tapped on the Baby Jesus complete with a manger lined with yellow hay for him to lie in.

Benji looked at that and considered it – scrunching up his face. "Jez-us?"

She nodded. "Right. And who's born on Christmas Day?"

He examined her at that and she tapped on the baby in the manager again. She really didn't think she was the right person to be giving catechism lessons – even simple ones like the Christmas story. But when she'd asked Jack about the extent religion played in his family's celebration of Christmas, there'd been a long pause on the phone before he'd said, 'Well, it's kind of a religious holiday, isn't it?'

That had told her about as much as she needed to know. Christ in Christmas was something she would be including in Benji's life. She thought him at least having an understanding of that – and not just all the commercialism and materialism around the holiday anymore was likely for the best anyway. She'd kind of already determined that she'd likely be including the 'real meaning of the season' lessons for the little boy. She knew that Jay's family was religious and one of the only tangible memories Benji had of his previous Christmases was going to church with his uncle and great-grandma. She imagined that was about the only thing included in the family's celebrations the last several years – beyond the pee-tree.

At her tapping finger, though, Benji again shifted his gaze to the playset. "Jez-us?" he asked again.

She gave him a smile. "Good boy."

He glowed at the praise but then turned his attention to making the sheep and donkey press their faces together. He looked at Jack.

"You want to play Peedg?" he asked.

Jack looked at him but shook his head. Olivia could see the disappointment in Benji's body language. But she could also tell that Jack was emotionally drained from the evening. So she grabbed Benji under the armpits and pulled him up into her lap. He looked up at her.

"Why don't we pick a Christmas movie to watch? And then maybe read a couple Christmas bedtime stories – and let Uncle Jack do some studying – because you two have a very exciting morning tomorrow."

"Chris-miss party," Benji said excitedly.

She smiled and put a kiss on his temple. "Christmas party with Uncle Jack at the skate park. But what aren't you doing?"

"No skating," Benji said sadly and gave her a bit of a pout.

"But what are you doing?" she asked.

"Slides and scooter and PIZZA!," he told her, reaffirming the information she'd been coaching him on for most of the week in her efforts to prepare him for the event and the acceptable behaviour that would be allowed out of him.

"That's my good, Little Fox," she said and gave him another little shake that managed to get him to emit a giggle. "So what do you say, Benj? Want to watch Thomas the Tank Engine's Christmas?"

Benji perked up a bit at that and sat forward as she picked up the controller again. "Thomas? He a train," Benji said.

"He is," she agreed and moved to start it. But she glanced at Jack as he stood from the couch.

"I'm going to hang out in the bedroom while you guys watch," he said quietly. He still sounded so sad, though.

She gave him a small nod as he picked up his bag and trudged back towards her bedroom door. "Thank you, Jack," she called after him and he gave her a little glance. "For everything tonight – earlier … and now."

He nodded. "Yeah…", he said even more softly and disappeared into her room, pushing the door shut behind him. She hoped he'd be able to get some studying done and that he hadn't gone in there to cry.


	67. Chapter 67

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"So explain to me again how Stabler got to go furniture shopping with you and I'm stuck hanging out with you and the rest of the crazies who are only starting their shopping a week before the big day?"

Olivia glanced back at Alex, who was near hanging over the handle of the cart, almost the way she'd expect a sulky teenager to, and looking bored out of her mind.

"OK, to start," Olivia said, "he didn't go furniture shopping with me. I saw him after I was furniture shopping in Queens. And, you're here because you offered to help – or I thought you had."

Alex rolled her eyes a bit and picked up one of the Lego sets in the aisle and examined it. "Why are we even down the Lego aisle? Isn't one of them too young for this and the other too old?"

Olivia held two boxes up at the other woman. "It's for Calvin. Which one?"

Alex examined the choices for a second. "Motorcycle," she said flatly. Olivia looked at the box again and then put it in the cart, returning the other to the shelf. "You're buying for him too? Now this is going to take three times longer than previously anticipated."

"Just that," she said. "I'm seeing him the morning of the 24th. I should have something for him."

"Mmm," Alex mumbled.

The attorney wasn't been that enthusiastic or helpful. But at least it was someone to keep her company in the chaos – and eventually it would be someone to help her carry bags.

"There's supposed to be an Architecture series. I wanted to look at them for Jack," she commented.

Alex nodded and jutted her chin forward. "I think I saw them at the end of the row."

Olivia wandered down to the end of the aisle and spotted the sets. She knew from her online research that there were only two of New York landmarks. She'd already decided on the cheaper of the two and scanned the shelves quickly until she spotted the Empire State Building. She grabbed it and examined the box briefly before dropping it into the cart too.

"You're putting a lot of effort into the buying for Jack," Alex told her.

They'd already spent some time down the one action figure aisle looking at Halo toys. She'd been a little staggered by the amount of selection in that area. She hadn't realized that it was such a thing. She thought it was more just a Jack thing – and memories of his dad.

She didn't remember there being that many toys when Calvin had picked out the Master Chief figure as one of his toy purchases a couple years ago. But she also hadn't really realized what Halo was at the time. And now she'd just wanted to get a replacement figure for Jack who'd seemed to have some sentimental attachment to the toy but had allowed Benji to claim it and keep it with the small collection of toys at her apartment.

The prices of the action figures, though, were sort of ridiculous. They all seemed to start around $15 - and only went up from there. She thought that was a little much for a hunk of plastic. She'd eventually settled on something called a Micro Ops set. It was tiny but the price was more realistic. She thought it looked a bit more grown-up anyway and could be something Jack could potentially set up on his desk or bookshelf … if he even liked it. She didn't really know with Jack. Buying for him was proving a challenge in a far different way than for Benji.

In her research, though, she'd seen that there was a new Halo game out and had hoped that might be something that would appeal to him as his main gift from Santa. She'd dragged an even more unimpressed Alex into the videogame section of the toy store. But apparently the popularity of the game was rather staggering. The clerk told her it was sold out and that it was flying off the shelves every time a shipment came in. Most of the copies were reserved even before they hit the shelves. He basically wished her luck at finding a copy this late in the game.

She hadn't been overly impressed with his input. But she'd intended to go into a Best Buy or something similar in her gift buying process anyway. She could only hope they'd be a bit more helpful and better stocked in things like videogames than just a toy store. She also could only hope that the popularity of the game meant it would be something Jack would enjoy. She was fairly confident that the price-mark meant it wouldn't have been something he'd gone out and bought for himself already. He could barely afford to feed himself. He couldn't afford to be buying new release videogames.

Liv glanced at Alex again, though, at her comment against Jack.

She shrugged and went back to looking at the list she'd scrawled down on a piece of paper to try to keep her focused on the shopping and get her in-and-out of the stores as quickly as possible.

"Well, he hasn't had much of a Christmas since his dad died either," she said, "and, he's going to be there on Christmas morning. Need to keep up the illusion for Benji."

It was an acceptable answer for Alex. But the truth was it wasn't just about keeping up an illusion for Benji that Santa was real and had brought presents for Jack too. The reality was that she wanted Jack to be able to have a nice Christmas too – and to come away from it with some things he wanted and some things he needed – and hopefully just some positive memories. Really, she just hoped she might be able to get to see him smile a bit. He looked so sad all the time lately.

"Is Jack putting as much effort into contributing to any of this?" Alex asked.

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow while she looked at her list more. She'd organized the items she'd come across in her online hunting into categories from Nick's suggested along the five-gift rule. But since she had wanted to take a look at some of the things and see exactly what they were before deciding what to pick – she had more than one item under each category. As she added something to the cart, she was typing the price into her phone to try to keep track of how much she was actually spending and to stay on the general budget she'd set for herself for the gift buying too.

She thought she was doing OK at the moment but they still had a lot of ground to cover - and the store was already busy. She knew the crowds were only going to get bigger as the morning chugged on. And, she really only had about four or five hours to get through everything she wanted. She knew that was going to be pushing it – especially with getting between the stores and dealing with the lines at the check out. But she had to be back to the apartment by about 1 p.m. It was going to be tight. She figured they'd likely end up having to visit more than one toy store and she wanted to get to a clothing or department store, a book store and an electronics store too.

She figured she also likely needed to get into some type of dollar store and a Duane Reade too for some stocking stuffers. Alex really didn't need to be with her for that, though. She could hopefully slip out on her lunch one day in the coming week to deal with that. She needed to get over to Funky's too on her lunch one day – when Jack wouldn't be around. She'd had Gecko set aside some things that he claimed Jack wanted for her to go in and take a look at. He'd actually been fairly helpful in giving her some ideas for Jack that fell outside of clothing and skateboarding accessories available at the skate shop. He'd offered to give her Jack's employee discount on any items she did purchase there, though. So that'd help.

"Ah, I think, he's trying," she conceded after looking at the list for a while and again trying to organize her thoughts on how to deal with the crowds and hit as much as she wanted in the little bit of time she had. "He called me the other day and asked what size shirt Benji is wearing. So I'm assuming he was gift buying."

"He doesn't know what size shirt the kid wears?" There was some disbelief in Alex's voice at that.

But Olivia just shrugged again. "If you saw what Jack had him wearing when I first got him – you'd believe that. Everything was way, way too big or too small. I don't think Jack knows what size he even wears himself. Everything hangs off him too. Anyways, though, he offered to do my stocking. So he's trying. I think he's sort of excited to have a Christmas. There's some quiet enthusiasm going on. It's hard to tell. He's a teenaged boy."

"Mmm," Alex said. "Well are we done shopping for him yet? Can we get to shopping for the cute one? Maybe that will be more fun."

Olivia snorted. "Yeah. Let's go to the Transformer aisle. But I don't know how much more fun that's going to be."

They wandered a few aisles over, Olivia looking down each one until she spotted not just the Transformer section - but an entire row lined with the toys. She gestured down it and Alex followed. But then her face changed.

"Holy Christ," she gaped. "These aren't all Transformers?"

Olivia smiled at that. "Now do you understand why I said it was getting a little overwhelming trying to pick online?"

Alex just shook her head at her in near disbelief. "I hope you know what you're looking for or we're going to be stuck in this row forever."

Olivia looked at her list again. "OK. The fire truck ones are called Sentinel Prime and Ratchet and the cruisers are Barricade and Prowl."

Alex was looking down the aisle, which was crowded by a few other people and their heaping carts. Olivia glanced at hers again and wondered if hers was supposed to be that overflowing. She knew she'd likely be adding a few things to it down the Transformer aisle but so far all she had in it were a couple Cars die casts, the two Lego sets and the Halo miniature for Jack. If she was going to be following Nick's advice she wouldn't be going completely nuts with the toys. Still, looking at some of the other carts being pushed around the store, she wondered if she was doing something wrong or if a lot of kids in the city were about to be beyond spoiled.

"That's all we've got to go on?" Alex asked her.

Olivia looked back up from examining her few pending purchases. "Ah, yeah," she said.

Alex nodded. "OK. Divide and conquer," she said and headed a little down the aisle to start riffling through the rows and rows of hanging toys. "Are these things going to be actually recognizable as a fire truck or cruiser?"

Olivia shrugged as she started to shuffle through her own area. "I don't know. Not likely if they're in robot form," she said. It looked like it was about fifty-fifty in the packaging, with some of them as their vehicles and others as the robots.

"Got one," Alex said after a couple minutes of them both working through the hundreds of toys on display. "I think …" she worked at getting the box unhooked from the back of one of the brackets and gazed at the box before bringing it over to show Liv. "I don't know, Liv. It's the robot but even in the picture it sure doesn't look like a fire truck to me."

Olivia took the Sentinel Prime packaging and looked at it too. She shook her head and handed it back to Alex. It definitely didn't look anything like a fire truck to her in the illustration either. "No," she said. "He won't know what that is. Let's hope Ratchet looks better."

Alex headed back over to where she was looking and returned the package and started pushing around the toys again trying to find another option.

"I've got Ratchet," Liv called at her.

Alex glanced her way from her own efforts. "Does it look more like a fire truck?"

Olivia shrugged. "Sort of," she allowed. It more looked like a red ambulance to her but she thought it might suit Benji's liking. She put it on seat tray of the cart. "Let's see what the cruisers look like."

"Mmm, I think I've got Barricade," Alex said and again struggled with getting a toy from the back of a bracket to unhook. When she finally managed to get it down, she smiled at Liv. "OK. This one looks like what it's supposed to look like."

She walked back over to Olivia and the cart and held it out to her before picking up Ratchet to examine. She made a bit of a face at it, clearly displaying that she didn't think it looked much like a fire truck either.

"Are you getting him both?" she asked.

Olivia put Barricade down in the main area of the cart as a confirmed purchase.

"I don't know. I need to think about it for a minute. The fire truck doesn't look that great to me. Com'on, there's supposed to be a Transformer series for little kids. I don't know if it will be down this aisle or over in the pre-school section."

Alex trailed after her now as Olivia took over pushing the cart and going on a search for the next items on her list.

"With all the research you did online – why not just buy online and avoid all this?" Alex asked as they dodged some more frazzled looking parents, but not before the father who was looking off in another direction rammed into their cart and didn't even seem to notice, offering no apology.

Olivia shrugged again at that question, though – as she looked up into the rafters for the signs pointing towards the pre-school area and glanced down rows they were walking by as they past. She was trying to resist the urge to go up-and-down each row and impulse buy. She was sticking to her list – and just going to the sections that already contained items she'd looked at online. If she saw something else interesting in those sections, she was considering them – but she didn't want to start randomly throwing things into the cart. It would end up like her virtual cart online – overflowing with stuff she didn't need and a price tag she couldn't afford.

She'd already reached dangerous territory when they'd been in the Cars section to get the Lightning McQueen and Mater die casts for Benji's stocking. As much as she hated the movie, there were so many cute sets that she'd been tempted to start adding to the cart. The one playset of Mater's garage had been particularly cute and she thought Benji would really love it. But she wanted to check out a Transformer playset she'd seen online first. If it wasn't what she expected – she might go back and get the garage set instead.

"A bunch of reasons," she replied to Alex's question. "I didn't want to get stuck with expedited shipping charges. I didn't want to risk that any of it wouldn't get here on time. I don't know what most of this stuff is – so I kind of want to see what it looks like – how big it is, how durable it is - before paying for it."

"Look at you, you already sound like a mom," Alex teased her.

Olivia snorted at that but shot her a smile. "I guess that's ultimately the object of the exercise, isn't it?"

Alex returned the smile. "Then it seems like you're doing your homework – and working towards a gold star."

Olivia shook her head at the other woman before turning into the pre-school section and starting to search for the Transformer Rescue Bots she'd seen online. She smiled as she spotted what she was looking for and pointed at it for Alex.

"What do you think?" she asked.

Alex examined it and looked at her. "That's one giant box," she allowed.

Olivia shifted the cart so she could actually look at the playset more – awkwardly lifting the bulking packaging so she could look at the back.

"It will be from Santa. So I think I'll likely take it out of the box," she commented.

Alex looked at some of the other things on the shelves in the area. "Santa doesn't wrap presents in your house?"

Olivia glanced at her. "Mmm. I think this is going to be the main Santa present – so I'll leave it unwrapped. I might wrap some of the other things."

"Other things? Santa brings more than one present in your house?" Alex teased again, raising an eyebrow at her. She'd been sure to note earlier that Olivia was being a little too organized and a stickler for prices with her list and budget calculations going on on her phone.

Olivia worked at turning the box back around and set it up on the seat of the cart so she could examine the toy more closely.

"He has some catching up to do," she commented. "Santa's bringing four presents this year."

Alex gave her a smile at that. "Santa sounds pretty generous." Olivia just shrugged at that. "Are the other Transformers from you or Santa?"

"Santa," Olivia said but took the Ratchet toy out of the seat of the cart and thought about it and set it on the shelf with the toys in that section. She felt a little obnoxious about just leaving it there but it looked like enough other people were just dropping things wherever they were standing as they made their gift-buying decisions too. And, there were lots of store clerks scurrying around and picking up the mess left in the shoppers' wake. "This comes with a fire truck. He doesn't need that."

She turned the knob on the front of the playset and sirens went off as the fire station transformed into Optimus Prime. She smiled more at Alex at that.

Alex shook her head at her. "That's going to get annoying quickly."

Olivia let out a snort. She already knew how annoying siren toys were. She was still waiting for Copper's batteries to die. But she knew the sirens and the robot voice sayings on the playset would be a key selling point for her Little Fox.

"He'll love it," she said. She glanced at the shelves some more. "There's supposed to be a playset that's a giant transforming fire truck too."

Alex pointed at one of the higher shelves. "That it?"

Olivia nodded and stood up a bit higher on her toes with her hands above her head and managed to just use her fingertips to walk the thing off the edge of the shelf and into her grip. She looked at it. It looked pretty neat too. She knew how much Benji liked vehicles – really anything with wheels - and it was one giant vehicle for him to push around. Even better - it came with an actual Optimus Prime figure, which she got the sense was important to the whole plot of the Transformer universe. She didn't really understand where that fit into things – but she figured she'd be learning since Jack had pointed out the Transformer cartoons were on the Netflix service he'd set up temporarily for them. For the sake of the toy, though, she only needed to know that the Optimus Prime figure meant there was a second vehicle toy for him to play with in the set and she thought he'd like that.

The toy felt sturdy in the box but the packaging didn't allow for the playset to do its transformation so she could see what it actually looked like inside. So she had to settle for the picture on the back and the details she'd seen online about the mission control that was apparently inside the thing when it opened.

She set it next to the other one in the cart's seat. It definitely wasn't as giant of box. It'd be easier to get home. She wasn't sure she wanted to base her decision on that, though.

"Mmm, I don't know which one he would like better," she said to Alex.

Alex glanced at her and pointed at a little sign. "It says buy one, get one 50 per cent off on these Rescue Bot things, if that helps the decision."

Olivia thought about that for a moment and pulled out her phone to do a couple calculations, glancing at her list as she did so. She looked at the toys again. She weighed in her head how much she thought Benji would like them against potential replay value and space in the new apartment. The fire truck play set wasn't that huge in its truck position and though the box for the fire hall was huge, the toy itself was supposed to fold up to a size she assumed would be comparable to the truck.

She thought Benji would really like both. They seemed to combine a lot of his obsessions … robots, Transformers, vehicle toys, sirens, little action figure men. She looked at her budget calculations on her phone again. She thought even with both – with the 50 per cent off the one, she'd likely still fall within budget with some minor adjustments elsewhere. The one set came with a little soft-cover storybook and the other with a Rescue Bots DVD. That would already cut out some of the stocking stuffer expenses she'd been considering for Benji. If she took the toys out of their boxes for Christmas morning, she could rearrange the contents however she wanted.

"OK. Sold," she said and gently placed them both into the bottom of the cart. The size of the fire hall playset seemed to officially take her cart a step towards the heaping status.

"Liv, did you see these?" Alex asked and held out a toy at her. "One step Transformers? That'd eliminate your Transformer headaches. They have a police car and a fire truck."

Olivia went over and looked. They were really cute and the one-step aspect of them was appealing.

"Mmm," she said, as she examined them. "I don't think that's what he was imagining when he asked for a Transformer, though. He'll be expecting it to look like his other ones. And, I think I've got fire trucks covered now anyway."

Alex was still examining one. She showed it to Olivia. It was a bulldozer. A proper bulldozer – not Benji's definition of what might be a bulldozer. "Would you mind if I got him one then?"

Olivia gave her a small smile. "Alex, you don't have to get him anything."

"Are you kidding me? You think I'm going to endure all this and not come out of it with a purchase?"

Olivia snorted. "Just don't go crazy," she said seriously. "I'm doing a five-gift rule thing." Alex looked blankly at her at that. Olivia smiled and rubbed her eyebrow. "I'm glad someone else hasn't ever heard of it. Amaro looked at me like I'd been living on a rock."

"So what is it?" Alex asked.

"Something they want, something they need, something to wear, something to learn, something to read," Olivia recited back to her from Nick's previous dictation.

Alex raised her eyebrow a bit at that. "Interesting."

Olivia shrugged. "It actually really helped."

"Mmm," Alex said. "Whatever happened to just getting whatever the kids wanted?"

Olivia snorted. "And make them spoiled brats? Is that how it worked in your house?"

Alex shrugged a bit. "Only child and money wasn't an issue. My parents likely spoiled me a little."

Olivia rolled her eyes a bit at that. Alex spoiled? No surprise there. "Well, five gifts is way more generous than what my Christmases ever looked like. It was a good year if my mother wasn't in a drunken stupor on Christmas morning."

Alex gave her a bit of a sympathetic look at that, which Olivia wasn't entirely sure she appreciated. It was just a comment – she hadn't been looking for sympathy about her childhood.

"So what are these gifts?" Alex asked, clearly trying to shift topics to something happier.

"Santa stuff is what he wants," Olivia said. "The other four things will be from me."

Alex nodded. "I take it we won't be in here too much longer then?"

"Yeah, I need to get into some other stores. But there's a Fisher Price building set here I want to check out first - and I want to look at the Play-Doh kits."

"Well before we go over there – pick another one of these things. The second one is 50 per cent off with this too. There's more of the little men for the playsets," she pointed out.

Olivia shrugged. "It's OK."

Alex snorted and started looking at the little men and their vehicles. "Com'on Liv, pick one. It's a good deal. I'll spot you the four bucks on the little man."

"You know they just give you the 50 per cent off the second item to get you to impulse buy more."

"Well it's working," Alex said and held out a little police man action figure. "Think he'd like this one?"

Olivia snorted. "Yeah."

Alex nodded and put her two purchases into the cart. "There. This is starting to get more fun," she said.


	68. Chapter 68

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia had barely gotten everything put into her closet – and then hidden behind as much as she could manage to move around, on the off chance that Benji did decide to go in there – when she heard the door to the apartment open and the boys talking.

She headed out of the bedroom and smiled at them. She was glad to see them back. She'd had some moments of wondering if Jack would do something stupid – and they wouldn't return. She'd had to tell herself that he'd signed the paperwork and he was co-operating – and that part of all of this was trusting Jack to do the right thing. That wasn't just necessary for her own sanity – but it would be important for her relationship with Jack and his with Benji. Mistrust would only make things more difficult for all of them.

Benji came prancing towards her holding up what almost looked like a Happy Meal box. "Mommy Fox," he near sing-songed at her. "LOOK!"

"What have you got there, Benj?" she asked and stroked his head in a bit of a half hug as he wrapped himself against her legs and waist but then quickly flopped on the floor to start dumping the contents of the box on the coffee table.

She watched as he pulled out a mish-mash of skateboard toys, Christmas knick-knacks and candy from what was apparently a loot bag.

She remembered loot bags being a lot simpler when she was a kid – and in a bag … and with a lot less stuff. Watching Benji hold up each item triumphantly at her, she was actually starting to wonder if maybe she should've gone to the party to get an idea of what little kid's birthdays were supposed to look like. Gecko didn't strike her as the most organized person – but if this was a small glimpse of what he pulled off at his daughter's birthday, what did the loot coming home from other parties look like? Though, maybe it was his wife or girlfriend that dealt with the organizing. That seemed more probable.

She knew she didn't have to worry about Benji's birthday for nearly a year, though. She should focus on getting through Christmas and not start creating new hurdles to deal with. She hoped that Benji would get invited to a birthday party of one of the kids at the nursery school before his day actually rolled around and she'd have an opportunity then to see what was involved with it all then.

Jack came into the living room and put two small packages wrapped in Christmas paper on the table. "He wouldn't open them," he said.

She glanced up at him and gave a small nod. She wasn't exactly surprised. Benji didn't deal well with unknowns. He would've been able to see the contents of the loot bag and been coaxed into accepting it. Something wrapped would be a different story.

She knew it was going to be a hurdle on Christmas morning. It was part of the reason she was planning on leaving some – or maybe even all of the gifts from Santa unwrapped. If she didn't, she wasn't sure he'd get around to opening them. Or she'd have to talk him through each one. But she thought that maybe this could be used as a bit of a trial run.

"You don't want to open your Christmas party presents, Little Fox?" she asked as he handed her a little skateboard toy that looked filled with candy.

He shook his head at her question. She gave him a smile. "Why not, sweetheart?"

"Not allowed," he told her.

Jack rolled his eyes and let out a loud breath. "They're for you. It's allowed," he said in an annoyed voice. She suspected that it was likely a conversation that Jack had been having with the boy ever since the presents were handed out at the party.

"Jack," she called to catch his gaze and shook her head at his tone. He gave her a bit of a look and crossed his arms. She allowed him a thin smile. "How'd the rest of the party go?"

He sighed and sat down. "You'd think picking a loot bag was the most life-changing decision ever," he said and gestured at where Benji was seemingly happily trying to spin a little plastic top that had been in the box. "They had one that was clearly for girls and that one and then one that looked pretty gender neutral with fish on it or some shit. He was allowed to take whatever he wanted and we were standing there like 10 minutes. I decided for him."

Olivia snorted at that and rubbed at her eyebrow. She had experienced the extended time Benji needed to make any sort of decision when it came to him actually getting to choose something he knew he was going to get to keep. But she wasn't sure she would've intervened and made the decision for him. She likely would've directed him in a way to speed up the process – but not have taken over. Though, she knew that Jack didn't have quite the same level of patience as her.

"What about the rest of it? He was OK on the scooter?"

"SCOOT-TOUR SO COOL, 'LIVIA!" Benji declared at that.

She looked at him with a mock enthusiasm face that she thought she was likely getting close to perfecting with him. "Yeah?"

He nodded hard. "I go soooo fast!"

"I hope you were careful," she said and raised an eyebrow at Jack.

He nodded. "Yeah. He was fine. No falls even and Gecko was fucking on him even more than his own kid."

"Jack, language," she chastised but looked down to smile a little at Jack's annoyance at Gecko's presence. She doubted Gecko would've told him that they'd spoken about Benji's attendance at the party and her concerns. Part of her agreeing to let the little boy go had been based on Gecko's assurances that he'd make sure nothing happened to the boy – and that Jack didn't let him push the limits.

"I fly into the pit!" Benji told her holding the little skateboard up in the air and then dropping it to the table.

"Yeah? The foam pit? Did you slide down the ramps too?"

"It a halfpipe 'Livia," Benji told her in his 'girls are stupid' tone that she seemed to get sometimes. She was sure he'd learned it from Jack.

She rolled her eyes at the little boy and shook his shoulders a little bit until he giggled. "Did you slide down the halfpipe, Benji?" she teased him.

"Yeesssss," he giggled out at her shakes.

"And did you eat pizza?"

"LOTS – and cake! Chalk-co-late!"

"Wow. Sounds good," she told him and gave Jack a smile. "Were you able to have some fun too?"

He allowed her a small nod. "Yeah. It's a pretty sick park. And, since Gecko was watching him so much I could skate a bit. Rides like butter. I'd go back."

She nodded. She didn't have much to add to any of those comments. But she was glad he had a good time. "So you guys don't need any lunch then?"

Jack shook his head. "No way. He ate like three slices and two cans of pop. I thought for sure he was going to puke on the bus back."

She snorted. "Lovely." Sounded like he'd be in a sugar coma later but she'd still have to deal with the crash before then.

"So what are your plans for the rest of the day?" she asked Jack. "I was thinking about going out and getting a tree later this afternoon after he's had a bit of a rest."

Jack looked at her. "Do you even have decorations?"

She shook her head at him. "No. Not really. That'd be part of the expedition. We'd have to pick up some of that stuff too."

Jack shrugged at her. "I should study."

She watched his body language a bit, trying to gauge how much he really cared if he missed out on putting up the tree for the holidays. She kind of thought he would. Or at least it was something she had fond memories of. Even though she'd never put up a tree in her own apartment, she'd still gone over and helped with putting up her mother's even after she was grown. It'd been something they could share. Rather, it was something that let her mother sit and have a drink … or two or three or more … while Olivia did the decorating. But it had always been something she enjoyed when she was little. There was something about getting to look at each of the little decorations and deciding where they'd look best and all the lights and sparkling of the tinsel. It's an attractive activity to little kids. She thought it translated into one that most adults had some sort of memory of and looked forward to. But maybe it was different for women. She could see how a teenaged boy might not really care either way.

"Well, I'm going to try to get him down for a nap soon, so that should give you some quiet to study. And, if you weren't interested in coming with us to pick a tree – but did want to stay to help decorate – you'd have an hour or two while we were out too. Get some dinner into you before you go home – pack you some leftovers."

"Why are you always so concerned about what I eat?" Jack mumbled at her.

She looked at him hard. "Because you don't eat, Jack. That's bad for you in some many ways. You should especially be eating during your exams. It will help you to be able to focus and concentrate." She thought about it for a moment. "We should actually likely go to the grocery store and pick up a few things for you to have at the apartment this week."

"I can buy my own groceries," he grouched at her.

"Will you buy your own groceries?" she asked.

He shrugged.

She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow. She knew from his tone and body language he wouldn't be participating in a grocery trip. But she'd already instantly decided that it would have to be another place she'd stop with Benji while they were out then. She'd pick up some things for him herself.

"How heartbroken would you be if we just got a fake tree?" she asked him instead, though, moving off the topic.

Jack shrugged again. "That's OK, I guess."

"It'd be easier … in an apartment," she told him.

"Yeah," he gave a small nod.

"So are you going to stay then?"

He shrugged. "I guess."

"Good enthusiasm, Jack," she said. "That's the Christmas spirit."

"OK. Don't do some sort of girly, stupid colour co-ordination theme crap on the Christmas tree decorations and I'll be more enthusiastic," he informed her.

She snorted at him. "OK. It almost sounds like maybe you should be coming out with us then," she said. She hadn't planned on doing a theme tree. She'd actually planned on letting Benji pick whatever, which likely meant some sort of … God knows tree. But if Jack had that many reservations about what she may or may not be putting on it – he might as well come and give his input so she didn't get accused of having mismanaged the decorating.

He shrugged. "Maybe. I need to study. I have an exam on Monday."

She nodded. "I know. You deserve some breaks too, though. Go study now. Use the bedroom, if you want, for some quiet. I'll put him down on the couch."

He looked at her like he had to consider that, but then said, "Yeah, OK, but call me you get him to open those," he nodded at the presents again. "One of my jobs this week was to wrap all that shit for everyone. And one of the things is really fucking cool – so maybe he should open it," he seemed to be directing at Benji with some fairly sarcastic aggression.

"Jack…" she got out.

"Yeah, whatever, language," he mumbled at her and stood from the couch. "Call me if he's going to open them."

She shook her head at him as he retrieved his backpack and headed into her room again. It was a little strange that her bedroom had become a refuge for three people – with a little boy and a teenaged boy seeming to more regularly take up space in it anymore than her. She was really starting to look forward to getting upstairs into the bigger apartment – and securing a little bit of her own space again. Though, she wasn't much looking forward to the actual packing, moving and unpacking aspect of it. She needed to start on some of that soon.

She looked back at Benji. He still seemed pretty happy with the knick-knacks he'd received. It was a bit of a reality check on what he did and didn't need for Christmas. Benji would be happy with anything he got.

She picked up the one present and shook it – holding it next to her ear. Benji glanced up at her. "What do you think it could be?" she asked him.

"I dunno," he shrugged with almost a disinterest.

She held it at his ear and shook it. "Lego?" she asked.

Benji examined her and then took the box and shook it himself. "Candy?" he suggested.

"Mmm," she agreed. "Maybe. Maybe it's a puzzle?"

Benji turned it around in his hands and shook it again. "Transformer?"

She made her eyes go big at that. She really didn't think that's what it was. She figured since it was from the Funky's staff holiday party, it was likely something skateboard related. But Benji didn't need to know that. "Do you think it could be?" she asked. Benji shrugged like maybe he didn't really believe that spectulation either. "Maybe it is, though, right? Maybe we should open it to find out?"

Benji examined her and looked back at the present with more skepticism.

"You know, Little Fox, on Christmas morning there's going to be presents for you to open – wrapped up just like that."

He squinted at her. "From Santa?"

She nodded. "There will be presents from Santa. And there will be presents from Mommy Fox and from Uncle Jack too. So maybe we should practice opening a present now?"

He scrunched his face up at her. "But maybe it not for me 'Livia," he said.

She shook her head and pointed at the tag on the box. "Look," she told him, "presents have tags on them to say who they're for and who they're from."

Benji gazed at the sticker tag a bit. "It say it for me?"

"It says To: Whacker and Jammer. From: Funky's Crew. Who are these Whacker and Jammer people? You're right. Maybe there was a mistake. It's not for my Little Fox?"

"I Jammer!" he protested.

She looked at him. "You're Jammer? Are you sure?"

He nodded. "I Jammer."

"Who's Whacker?" God, she hated that nickname. She didn't even want to think about how Jack ended up with that title.

"Peedg!" Benji said a bit more excitedly.

"So it is to Benji and Jack?"

He nodded.

She shrugged. "Then I guess you can open it, right? It's to you."

Benji looked up at her and then back down at the present. He scratched at the paper a bit and then looked up at her again. "You sure 'Livia?"

She nodded. "I'm sure. You think you want to open it? Practice opening a couple presents, Benj? So we're all ready for present opening on Christmas morning?"

He scrunched up his mouth in thought at that but then looked up at her and nodded.

She gave him a smile and called over her shoulder. "He's going to open them, Jack."

She had to shake her head a little bit, though. She'd managed to accomplish in a couple minutes what Jack had likely been trying to do for the better part of an hour or more. Sometimes she thought that the teen just had no idea how to talk to the little boy at all. But she'd have to see how it went. Getting him to open these now was one thing – but she was hoping she wouldn't have to talk him into opening each and every package on Christmas morning.


	69. Chapter 69

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She was standing back and just enjoying watching the boys decorate the tree for a while. She had been helping – but really it was more fun to watch them.

Benji seemed completely fascinated with the process. He'd wanted to help just about every step, much to Jack's chagrin. Jack had pretty much taken over getting the lights on the thing and had kept batting the little boy away and telling him to just wait until he was done. After some minor shrieking and growling at his uncle, she'd managed to coax Benji out from under foot while Jack did his thing. But that had only worked so long when Benji realized that Jack also wasn't going to let him help put the garland on. She'd had to step in again and convince Jack to let the little boy run around the tree with the sparkly garland in tow. Jack was pretty unimpressed about having to adjust the thing from the mess his nephew made but relented. With that done, everyone seemed to settle into co-operatively getting the rest of their decoration purchases up on the tree.

Now that she was standing back and just watching them, Benji was bringing over every ornament he picked up to show her before taking it over to the tree to put on. Sometimes he was standing next to the tree for far too long trying to decide where to put it, only to hand it to Jack to have him put it up beyond the branches within his reach. Bossily directing the teen about the exact spot – almost down to the branch and needle that he wanted it placed on.

She'd called at Benji a couple times and told him to leave the ornament where he could reach it. He'd picked out several that were clear to her were likely going to be play things. She wanted them to be on branches within his reach so she wouldn't be tasked with having to retrieve the things for him whenever he decided he wanted to play with it. Or worse, for him to decide he was going to try to retrieve it from an upper branch and end up sending himself, or the tree, tumbling.

Shopping for the decorations had proved interesting – maybe almost as fascinating as watching the boys decorate the tree, itself. At first Jack had just kind of stood there crossed armed, following beside the cart and not saying a thing or making any move to pick anything. When they'd finally got to some starter sets of hanging shatterproof balls, she'd instructed him to pick a set that met his criteria of 'non-girly, non-themed, non-colour-cordinated'. Seeing as all the packs looked colour co-ordinated to her – she figured he should have the responsibility of picking the most appropriately, least co-ordinated one.

The teen had stood in front of the sets a long time looking at them while her and Benji kept on working their way down the aisle. She thought the rows and rows of little hanging ornaments on one side of them and the line of decorated trees on the other was nearly as exciting as being in a toy store to the little boy. He was delighted by the sheer volume of little things dangling within his view and reach.

It took some time before Jack finally did come over with one of the tubes of balls and placed it in the cart. But it seemed to work as a catalyst and it almost appeared to propel him onto a mission. He kept disappearing only to return and place something in the cart and then disappear again. It had reached the point where she had to tell him to slow down a bit – as she started to look at the price tags on the items he was placing in the cart and realized that their Christmas tree and decorations expedition was quickly adding up to a much heftier expense than she'd anticipated.

Initially she tried to tell herself that she just had to look at it as a start-up fee. Most people her age would've accumulated these sorts of decorations over the last several decades of their lives. A slow buying of a few items a year; the addition of a husband and children into their lives and the accumulation of ornaments, decorations as gifts and momentos what would've collected over the years. That just hadn't happened in her life, she told herself. So, she was going to have to just take a hit to get it established a bit.

But the ornaments were costing far more than she'd thought they would. She'd expected that the things would range from about $1 to $5. That was pretty far from the reality, though. Even Benji was picking ones that had price tags starting around $10. Jack's choices were even worse. He'd put in one that was $27, which she thought was a little ridiculous.

"OK, Jack," she'd said at that point, "We need to reel this in. You can pick what you want of the ornaments under $10 – preferably in packs of more than one decoration, OK? Then you can pick one special one like this." She'd held it up at him. "This is a little expensive."

He'd glared at her briefly. "You said we could pick what we wanted," he informed her. It was true. She had. But she'd clearly been misguided when she'd put that out there. She'd spoken too soon.

Still she nodded. "I did. But I didn't mean $30 ornaments, Jack. Com'on. I think $100 to decorate the tree is being pretty generous. So let's make that spread far enough to actually cover the tree. And, that needs to include Benji's picks too. Not just yours."

Jack picked up one of Benji's ornaments out of the cart and dangled it in front of her face. "Then he can't pick retarded things like this," he said of the dragon wrapped around the wreath that the little boy had spotted and quickly claimed as a must-have.

It had actually taken coaxing to get him to hand it to her to put into the cart for safekeeping. It was likely he thought if he let go of it, he might never see it again. He still struggled with the concept of getting to keep things. That had been apparent earlier in the day when he'd finally opened his Christmas party gifts. He'd been thrilled with the little Tony Hawk bobble head on a pull-back skateboard and even more over the moon about the 'Toy Boarder' army men on skateboards. But he still didn't quite grasp that they were his: he could keep them, they weren't going anywhere, they didn't need to be returned.

She took the dragon ornament from Jack's hand and quickly put it back in the cart before Benji spotted the accusation and likely started his shrieking again. Jack seemed to be grating on Benji's nerves at that point in the day too, though she thought the little boy was just tired and cranky from all the activity and sugar of the morning – and not quite as annoyed as she was becoming with his uncle.

"OK. One," she told Jack sternly, "you let me worry about the math of Benji's picks. You just focus on making more reasonable choices …"

"You said …" he tried to cut her off.

"Com'on Jack," she pushed back at him. "You're almost 19. Stop trying to sound like an eight-year-old. You understand that this is costing a lot of money. It's costing more than I expected. Help me out here. And, two – I HATE," she stressed, "when you give me that tone and attitude you're giving me right now. It pisses me off even more when you do it while I'm trying to do something nice."

He crossed his arms tighter in a bit of a pout and she was fairly certain that they were about to tumble into either a bigger argument or he was going to disappear into the background and make no further contribution to the decorating efforts. But after several beats of them staring each other down he dropped his arms and gestured at the ornament.

"It's Santa and the Baby Jesus," he said.

She nodded. "Yes. I can see that, Jack."

"Well, you need that," he said – like she just wasn't getting it.

She watched him for a moment – and she supposed at that moment it really was when she got it more. He was picking things similar to what he would've had on his tree growing up. She glanced back at his selections. Where Benji had been focusing on picking out ones that were basically little sewn stuffies that he likely hoped to get to play with, animals (especially dogs) and recognizable cartoon characters – Jack had been putting in ornaments that featured the nativity, angels, snowman and teddy bears. Not exactly what she would've thought of as the top choices of a teenaged boy.

She sighed. That made it a bit harder for her to be a hard-ass with him. But still – she was the adult, the parent – and the one paying for it all.

"You can get it, Jack," she told him. "But I'm telling you – ONE special ornament this year. If you want it to be that one – it's fine. Just please don't bring back another $30 ornament to add to the cart."

He glared at her again for a moment but then allowed a small nod.

"OK," she said. "Do any of these other ones have giant price tags too?" She leaned over and picked up one and looked at its tag. It was $15 – more than she'd like but not that bad.

He reached into the cart and handed her what she'd initially thought was a brass ornament when he put it in – but looking at it now, she realized it was a gold plated angel. It had a $40 price tag.

She shook her head. "OK. The angel or this other one?"

"Kneeling Santa," he said flatly.

She nodded and handed the other ornament back to him. "Then put this one back, please. Are there any others in here that you can live without? Some of them are pretty similar, Jack. Maybe we'd like some variety on the tree."

He sighed and looked down into the cart and pulled out a few more virtual duplicates and took them into his hand. She figured that move in itself knocked down the price tag of the cart by about $100.

"Is the $100 budget just the ornaments or is it everything else?"

She sighed again and rubbed at her eyebrow. "What everything else, Jack?"

"Lights," he said.

She shook her head. "We'll count the lights separately – but we aren't doing some pyrotechnic light show in the living room. We're just getting a string of lights. That's all."

He rolled his eyes at her. "You need other stuff too," he informed her.

"OK. What 'other stuff', Jack?"

"I don't know. Lots. You don't have anything," he told her.

She looked at the ceiling for a moment and forced herself to calm. There were moments were she was ready to just tell him to get the hell away from her.

"OK, when you see 'other stuff' you think we need – bring it and show it to me. Don't just put it in the cart and walk away. We'll deal with it on a case-by-case basis."

"That's retarded," he said.

She shrugged. "'Em's the rules, Jack. Sorry."

He snorted at her but then disappeared back further into the section while her and Benji continued to slowly make their way down the aisle, the little boy touching just about everything he could. He wanted to put most things into the cart too. But he was easier to wrangle than Jack. Her looking at something with him seemed to give him enough excitement without him having to know it wasn't actually going to be purchased. Getting to play with it for a few minutes in the store seemed to be good enough for Benji.

Jack slowly started coming back and now actually showing her the items he'd picked rather than just tossing them in the cart and taking off again. He actually managed to pick a couple things that she likely wouldn't have thought of on her own – mostly because she didn't know they existed, including a plate labeled with Santa's Cookies. It was a bit of a frivolous purchase but it was cute and she let him add it to the cart. Really, the only thing she ended up vetoing was a wreath made out of bells. Her building didn't allow door decorations and she didn't see the point of having it in the apartment. She also told him to put back the stocking hangers. She didn't have a mantel to set them on and she'd already determined that they'd likely just be hanging the stockings on the backs of the chairs at the breakfast bar. She didn't want to pay money to have something a little fancier to hang them on … she supposed her bookshelf?

She'd also eventually approved him picking an angel for the top of the tree, which he insisted was necessary, despite the stars being about three times cheaper. A skirt for the tree, garland, old-time tinsel, and a candle (that smelled pretty awful to her but 'Christmas-y' according to Jack's teenaged boy's nose and 'REALLY good' according to Benji. Jack had been sure to point out that it was also a necessary purchase since 'you won't let us get a real tree, so it's not going to smell like Christmas'. He was getting a little demanding for a kid who'd initially shown little interest in even participating in the outing. But she'd forced herself to start looking at the purchases he was selecting through the lens of him trying to rebuild what he'd missed the past few years and what he was likely trying to pass on to Benji. So she was trying to be more understanding and not was hung up on what number was going to ring up at the till when they eventually did get to the checkout).

They did have another minor kerfuffle when they reached the point of picking stockings. Olivia would've really preferred that they all have the same style. But after she'd told Benji they were going to pick out a stocking for Santa to fill up for him – he'd been near instantly attracted to the one that was closest to him with a puffed felt reindeer wearing a plaid scarf embroidered on the front. It wasn't exactly what Olivia envisioned when she thought of stockings but she thought that when they got down to it, the Santa aspect of Christmas was magic meant for the little kids and she wasn't about to argue with Benji. Him actually picking something – quickly – and seeming to understand it was being purchased for him to keep without having a long discussion about it. That was an achievement in itself. She wasn't going to try to convince him to pick something else a little more traditional.

There were lots of different characters of the style that Benji had picked, so she'd suggested to Jack that pick one from the same line. Apparently that wasn't going to happen though. He had no interest in them. He wanted a knit stocking and picked out something that was about as different as possible from what Benji had chosen. She'd again tried to encourage him to keep it all the same. But he was having none of it and she was really at the point she wanted to be done with the shopping trip before any fun aspect of it completely dissipated. So she'd just picked one she liked too. It'd be three vastly different stockings for Santa to fill. Not that it really mattered. She just didn't see the point of having mishmash. She supposed, though, if she wanted to, she could try again next year and reinvest in the stockings. She kind of doubted she'd do that, though. It wasn't like they were $5 stockings that had got picked out.

By the time they got home she was ready for a Christmas break – or maybe more appropriately a Jack break. So she'd encouraged him to go and study while she made dinner and that they'd do the tree after that. He seemed raring to go right then. But had eventually listened when she'd raised her voice a bit at him – and he disappeared back into the bedroom until the food was put on the table. Thankfully she'd managed to collect herself enough that she was able to enjoy the tree when they did get to it after dinner.

They'd downloaded an album onto her computer, put on the music and started puttering away at it. The artificial tree had looked pretty terrible after they'd gotten it out of the box and set up. She had started to question her decision to go with the fake tree – and the one she'd eventually picked, which had been on the cheaper end of things. But it slowly started to look better and better as they got the lights, garland and decorations onto it.

There wasn't a lot of space for the tree in the little apartment and it was pushed into the corner in the little space that Benji was using behind the couch for his play spot. It made the space that much more cramped. But still – it was nice to have a tree. It was nice to see her place looking almost Christmas-y. That had never happened before.

"Looks good guys," she told them from where she was standing. "There much more to put on?"

Benji had claimed the little tube of tinsel and seemed to be loving have the responsibility of having each little icicle on the branches. He wasn't loving it quite as much when Jack was taking some the one's the little boy had placed off the lower branches to move higher up the tree to balance the look out a bit. But she wasn't interjecting to stop Jack's efforts. Benji didn't need to be taking those off the tree to play with later.

"He has like three more," Jack said and held out his hand for one but Benji gripped them closer to his chest and moved to a spot on the tree away from his uncle to ensure they didn't get taken from him. Jack shook his head at him.

She worked at getting the angel out of the box as they finished that up. "Who's going to do the angel?" she asked.

Benji jumped back around to the front of the tree at that. "ME!"

"You?" she teased him. "Aren't you a little short?"

Benji scrunched up his face at that and gazed up at the top of the tree. "I climb?"

She smiled but shook her head. "It is not a climbing tree, Benji. Not now and not ever," she stressed. "Jack will lift you up."

Benji looked at Jack at that – and Jack looked at her. "He's not going to be able to do it," he told her. "I'll do it."

She shook her head. "He'll do it. I'll help. Just lift him up."

She handed the angel to Benji who admired her for a moment.

"Why are we putting an angel on the tree, Benj?" she asked him.

They'd talked about it at the dinner table. She was trying her best to honour Jack's wishes (or she supposed in a way maybe more Jay's memory) by keeping the religious aspect of the holiday in the season. She'd brushed up a bit on some of the smaller details of the Christmas story and intended to read him one story out of the religious Christmas treasury and one out of the other treasury of classic children's tales for the holidays at bedtime.

Benji looked at her wings and then held her by them. "She have wings like Flame," he informed her rather than answer her question and shook them a bit. "They don't come off like Flame's."

She smiled and supported the bottom of the angel a bit to stop his roughness on the rather expensive decoration. "Gentle, Benj."

He gazed at her at that and looked at the tree topper again. "She live in Heaven," he said.

Olivia nodded. "You're right. Angels live in Heaven. What'd the angel do that was special at Christmas?"

"Fly?" he asked after a bit of thought.

She nodded again. "She flew down to Earth and who'd she talk to?"

"Mary?"

"Wrong angel," Jack interjected.

Olivia shot him a look and shook her head.

"Well that's wrong," Jack said.

"Do you want to do the lesson then?" she asked him a little sarcastically.

Technically, Jack had been raised in the Catholic Church – and if having religion in the holiday was so important to him – he was likely better qualified to teach the story to the little boy. But she wasn't sure it would be productive for anyone involved with the attitude that was streaming off him and the way Benji seemed to cringe when his uncle countered anything he said. Jack apparently acknowledged that because he shut up and she looked back to the little boy.

"That's right, sweetheart," she assured him, despite Jack having told him that he was wrong. "An angel went and talked to Mary and told her she was going to have a baby. But that was a boy angel – Gabriel. The girl angel went and talked to some other people …"

"Angels in the Bible are all guys," Jack interjected again.

She glared at him. "Jack …," she snapped a little more harshly.

He sighed and examined the floor.

"Do you remember, sweetie?" She tried again. "They were sleeping in a field."

Benji looked at the doll some more. "She have a star," he said.

Olivia nodded. "She does – and that's part of what she goes and tells these people about."

"She tell the sheep-heards to follow the star," Benji said and looked at her.

She smiled and nodded and stroked his head. "Very good. Why are they following the star?"

He puckered his lips again in thought about that for a second. "To go see Baby Jez-us?"

She smiled some more and gave him another nod. "Do you remember where the Baby Jesus is?"

"Away in the may-ger!" he said with a lot more confidence.

She let out a little snort at that and smiled widely at him. "Good job, Little Fox. Think we should put her on the top of the tree so we can see the Star of Bethlehem like the shepherds?"

"We follow it 'Livia?"

She smiled. "We do. In here …" she tapped at his heart, "and in here…" she tapped at his head. "In our hearts and in our minds, Benji."

"We don't go to may-ger?"

"No, baby. Jesus was born a long time ago. So he's not in the manager anymore to go and see."

Benji considered that for a moment. "He dead?"

She glanced at Jack at that. She again thought that he'd likely be better to answer that question but he seemed to have quieted at that point. So she met Benji's questioning eyes again.

"Jesus dies at Easter, Benji," she said. "So we can learn more about that in the spring. But Jesus is God's son, right? You remember Angel Gabriel telling Mary that?"

Benji nodded hard.

"OK. So he was very special and he died a long time ago so that we could all go to Heaven. So that's where he is now."

"He died but he came back to life," Jack interjected at that point, which Olivia wasn't sure would be helpful. She actually thought it was probably going to be beyond confusing to a four-year-old. "He's the only person who ever did that ever. Then he went back to Heaven to be with his dad – God."

"Like we go to Heaven and see people?" Benji asked, screwing up his face at Jack's explanation.

Olivia nodded a bit – though, sort of unsure of how to bring together the line of conversation and questions at that point. "Like that, Benj. Jesus died so we could all go to Heaven and see the people we love when we get there. But we'll learn about that at Easter. Right now – it's Christmas. So this is when Jesus is born."

"Away in a may-ger," he said again.

She smiled. "Away in a manager," she agreed. "So are we going to put the angel on top of the tree?"

Benji nodded again and she looked at Jack, who moved to behind him and stuck his hands under the little boy's armpits and lifted him above his head. Benji just hung there.

"Get on my shoulders," Jack mumbled at him – at which point Benji flailed around a bit and nearly picked his uncle in the face. Olivia actually found that a little humourous. She thought at that point in the day, Jack could likely use a bit of a kick. Though, maybe not in the face.

After Benji finally settled on his uncle's shoulders, Olivia put her hands up in the air.

"Stretch way up, Benj," she told him, as Jack moved closer to the tree. "Can you reach?"

The little boy matched her movement and she reached up too and helped him guide the angel into place and she then pulled her down and adjusted some of the branches to make her stay put.

"Good job, Benji," she told him, as Jack stepped away from the tree so they could take a look and then lifted the boy up and off his shoulders.

"So now it Christmas?" Benji asked excitedly as his feet landed back on the ground.

She smiled at him. "Not yet, Little Fox. Almost. Just over a week. Nine days."

"Nine daaays?!" he whined.

"Nine days," she agreed. She almost wanted to whine too. Not enough time.


	70. Chapter 70

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Jack glanced up at her as she came out of the bedroom from getting Benji down and pulled the door nearly shut behind her. She'd left a grocery bag on the counter and told him to pack up some food from the fridge and cupboards to take home with him for the week – since they hadn't gotten the chance to go over to the grocery store. But based on how flopped over the top part of the bag was, she didn't think he'd claimed very much. Instead, he had her little recipe box sitting on the counter and was leaning on both of his elbows and flipping through it.

"Did you get some stuff?" she asked him and went over and looked into the bag.

Jack had taken a can of soup, what was left of their box of cereal, and the two little containers of self-contained leftover meals she'd packed up for him from dinner. She sighed at him – but he didn't even look at her. So she started moving around the kitchen herself – grabbing the half loaf of bread off the counter and putting it in the bag, taking the three apples and the one navel orange out of the fridge and adding them too. She took out what was left of a block of cheese and put it down at the bottom. "Do you want some salad?"

He glanced at her again and shook his head.

"The eggs?"

He scrunched up his nose at that.

She shook her head. "I'm putting in another can of soup," she told him and he offered no response.

"You aren't Catholic are you?" he asked as she turned back around and put the can in the bag, moving things around a bit so hopefully nothing fell onto the loaf of bread and squished it too badly on his trip home.

"Why?" she asked.

"Because you can't just be saying Christ's dead. It doesn't work like that," he said and glanced up at her, his eyes seemingly landing on her chest. "And you don't even wear your saint or have a crucifix in here or anything. What's that? Like a Buddhist thing?" he nodded at her one medallion.

She touched the one and looked down at it. "It' a lotus mandala," she allowed. "But I'm not very religious, Jack. It's more about what it represents."

He watched her – or rather where her fingers were. "What's it represent?" he asked.

"It's a reminder that was all have the ability to rise above life difficulties," she told him.

He met her eyes for a moment at that. "What are the other ones?"

She shrugged. "Gifts. Momentos. Other reminders."

"Why do you need so many reminders?" he said sarcastically.

She snorted and looked at the counter. "Don't know. I guess because I deal with a lot of bullshit. I see a lot of the bad people can cause … can be."

He looked up at her again at that. "You don't need any reminders from your own faith?"

She gave him a small smile. "I don't define myself as Catholic," she told him. "Or even Christian … or any religion."

He gave her a funny look at that. "But I thought you knew Dad at college," he said.

She nodded. "Yeah."

"You went to Siena."

She wasn't sure if it was a statement or a question, so she just nodded again.

"It's a fucking Catholic college – with like … monks," he said.

She snorted at that and rubbed her eyebrow. "Well, it was where I got in and they offered me some scholarship money too. And it was far away from my mother. The religious aspect wasn't too much of a factor in my decision."

"Would've been in mine," Jack mumbled at her and turned back to flipping through the recipe cards. "I didn't know they let heretics in," he said even more sarcastically. Though, she wasn't sure how much he was joking.

Still she gave him a small smile. "It wasn't that bad. Not nearly as bad as you likely think."

He made a face at her, like she had to be lying.

"You're the one wearing your faith around your neck," she told him. She meant it as a bit of a joke – or at least a reality check. Jack did his best to hide his faith but it was still clear that it had played a role in his formation and his worldview. She was used to dealing with that, though, after years of talks and debates and head-butts with Elliot about his faith and how it affected his interpretation of their cases and the world around them. Still, how Jack's face changed, she'd clearly hopped onto a landmine.

"My medallion – my Nan gave it to me when I started high school," he spat at her. "The crucifix is Dad's. Don't you recognize it?"

She shook her head. "No, I'm sorry, I don't, Jack. But I really hadn't taken that close of a look at it on you – and the last time I would've seen it would've been a long time ago. I probably wouldn't have recognized it anyway. It sounds like both of them are very special to you, though. I'm sorry if you took what I said as flippant."

He glared at her again for a moment and then went back to flipping through the cards.

"Are you looking for something?" she asked. It was clear he was.

"Nan's cinnamon roll recipe," he said. "It's what we eat on Christmas morning. But you don't have it."

He pushed the box across the counter and looked in a bit of a sulk again. So she pulled the recipe box towards herself.

"Let me take a look," she offered.

"It doesn't matter," he stated and took the bag of food off the counter and toted it over to the front door, dropping it on the floor next to his backpack – and then bent to start putting on his shoes.

"Just wait," she called at him. "It clearly does matter to you."

"No. It doesn't," he said – his back now to her and his ass in the air as he tied his shoes, his jeans riding down his rear so badly that she nearly saw the full length of his boxer shorts. Some one really needed to help him with his attire. She thought he was taking the skater look a little too far.

"Jack, just come and sit down for a minute," she sighed at him.

"You don't like shoes in the apartment," he muttered at her.

"I'm giving you a free pass," she said. "Come sit down."

He sighed and came and sat on one of the breakfast island stools – his elbows slumped on the counter and he looked at her.

She gave him a thin smile. "Talk to me," she said. "What's wrong?"

He shrugged.

"You've been all over the map today, Jack."

"I just want to get home and study for my exam," he said.

She nodded. "OK," she allowed. That was understandable. Exams were stressful. His semester had been stressful. He needed to do well on the exams to keep his scholarship. He likely didn't get in as much studying that day as he wanted – or maybe as he should've. "What exam is it on Monday?"

"Western architecture," he mumbled. "It's sort of a history class."

She allowed him a little nod again. "Going to be ready?" she asked but he only shrugged.

She gave him a small sigh and turned to pull the magnetic notepad off the front of the fridge and grabbed a pen. "Cinnamon rolls? Is that what you want for Christmas morning? Do you want me to try to find a recipe online or pick some up at a bakery or something?"

He shook his head. "No. They wouldn't be Nan's."

She rubbed at her eyebrow and let out a breath and looked at the recipe box again. "OK. Jack, even if I do find the recipe in there – they still aren't going to be your Nan's. I'm not much of a baker."

"You made her crisp," he said flatly.

She gave him a small smile. "That involved cutting up some apples and mixing them with some cinnamon, flour, sugar and oatmeal, sweetheart. Cinnamon rolls are going to be a little more involved."

He gazed at the countertop at that and made no comment.

"I'll see what I can do," she offered. "Is there something else you'd like for Christmas morning?"

He shrugged.

"Big boy words, Jack." Sometimes she wondered if Benji was the toddler she was dealing with – or if it was Jack.

He gave her a brief glare but then rubbed a finger along some of the marbling in the granite on the counter. "Fruit salad," he said quietly. "Not canned. Homemade. Cut-up fruit."

She nodded. "OK. What kind of fruit do you like in it?"

"Apples and oranges and strawberries and pineapple and grapes and stuff."

She wrote down his suggestions. "OK. Sounds good. Is there anything special you want for dinner on Christmas Eve or specific treats you'd like here?"

He looked at her for a moment – almost like he was surprised she was seeking his input. She actually wasn't sure he was going to answer and was again expecting to get another shrug.

"Do you make cookies?" he asked, though.

She allowed a small nod. "I was planning on making some cookies with Benji next weekend. You can help too, if you're here. If there's a specific kind you want – email me them this week so I can make sure to pick up the ingredients."

"OK," he said softly.

"Are there any store-bought goodies you like at Christmas?"

He seemed to think about that for a moment. He almost made a space similar to Benji's concentration-pucker when she asked the little boy a question.

"Eggnog, Turtles and chocolate mint ice cream."

She gave him a small smile and wrote them down as well. "Chocolate mint or that ice cream you see at the holidays with the candy cane bits in it?"

"Candy cane," he allowed.

She nodded. "And dinner on Christmas Eve? That's not eggnog and ice cream is it? Those are just treats for over the holidays, I hope?"

He shook his head. "It was just appetizers and stuff. Cheese and crackers, pot stickers, egg rolls, spring rolls, jalapeños poppers, mozza sticks, mini quiches, shrimp ring, sausage rolls, pumpernickel and spinach. That sort of stuff."

She looked at him at that and almost had to force herself not to laugh. It sounded pretty unappetizing to her. She wasn't sure how accommodating she wanted to be on that family tradition. She looked down at her pad and tried to decide what to write down from that list. She tucked at piece of hair behind her ear.

"That's an interesting combination," she told him with an upward glance. "You know, we can start some of our own traditions too? Is there anything from that list you really enjoyed having on Christmas Eve?"

He shrugged. "The sausage rolls and the cheese and crackers, I guess," Jack allowed. "It was fancy cheese and crackers, though."

She looked at him. "Define fancy cheese and crackers?"

"Like Babybel and dill Havarti and stuff."

She watched him at that – trying to determine just how serious he was. That was not anywhere near her definition of fancy. She was surprised that growing up on a diary farm there wouldn't have been a bit more of an appreciation for artisan cheeses. But he clearly wasn't joking – so she gave him a small nod and jotted a note.

"And crackers?"

"I guess like Triscuits and French Onion," he said.

"Triscuits?" she asked.

He nodded.

She turned back to one of the cupboards behind her and took out an open box of the crackers and put it in front of him. "They're almost always here, Jack. Benji's addicted. Help yourself. Take that box home with you."

He looked at the box and then looked at her. "You're laughing at me," he said.

She shook her head. "I'm not at all. My mother would always bring home Chinese take-out on Christmas Eve when I was growing up. Wonton soup and chicken chow mein. That's my memories of our high class Christmas Eve," she offered a little sarcastically at him.

"Everyone does their own thing," she told him. "Personally, I don't think either of our traditions sound that appetizing and maybe we should try something new? Of our own? But I will pick up some crackers and cheese. I think Benji would enjoy that too and that's quick and easy to have around for snacks. I know a bakery that has some nice sausage rolls. I'll see about getting some there too. If I can't figure out cinnamon rolls – maybe sausage rolls would be an OK treat for Christmas Day?"

He shrugged. "I guess."

She watched him for a moment. The sadness in him was rolling off him again.

She let out a breath slowly. He was hurting. She could tell. But she could only help as much as he'd let her. There'd been glimpses of some cracks over the past 24 hours that she had thought he might be ready to start letting her in – at least a little. Right now, though, that didn't seem to be the case.

"What about church?"

He glanced at her from his downward gaze. "You just said you aren't religious."

She shrugged. "You are – and I'm trying for Benji's sake. If it's important to you – we'll go."

He just returned her shrug, though.

She looked at the ceiling for the moment. "OK. Well, let me know – because I think going to Christmas Mass in New York City is likely a little different than in Horseheads."

He looked at her funny at that. "Why?"

"I know some of the churches in Manhattan require you to have tickets to certain services at the holidays," she said flatly and looked at the list she was accumulating.

He gaped at her. "Tickets to go to church?"

She nodded. "Some of them. Some of the services. I'd have to look into what sort of options we had at this point. We might have to go further afield – or to a less popular service. So you need to give me a bit of lead time to figure that out – if it's something you want to do."

He shrugged. "It'd be weird to go without Nan anyway."

She gave him a bit of a sad look. "Jack," she sighed, "I know how hard Christmastime can be. I know it brings up a lot of memories and it's going to have you thinking about home and about people – and missing them. We can try to bring in some of those traditions here – and I am trying for you. But, even if I was able to mirror everything - which we both know I won't be able to – this year is not going to be like Christmases you had growing up or on the farm. Those people you're missing – they can't be here. It's not the farm – it's my cramped little apartment. It's not a real tree. I don't have a tonne of Christmas stuff. OK? The three of us can still have a nice day, though. We can make it our own. We can make some new memories and some new traditions. Just try to enjoy it. I know sometimes it can be hard. But for Benji's sake … try. For yours too, Jack … try."

He nodded a little but didn't look at her. "Yeah," he said quietly.

She sighed. She wished he could be a little happier – or maybe that he could try a little harder. She hoped that some of it was him still getting used to the ideas in the paperwork he'd signed the night before and him coping with stress about his exams.

"What are we having for Christmas dinner?" he asked. "Turkey?"

She looked at him a bit more at that – and let out a breath. "I guess I wanted to talk to you a bit about that."

He brought his eyes back to her when she said that. There was almost a fear in them – like maybe he thought she was going to tell him he wasn't invited for dinner.

"My friend," she told him quickly, trying to calm his fears, "she offered to help with dinner. To basically do most of the labour – and then to come over here in the afternoon to finish up and eat with us. She doesn't have any family to spend the day with either, Jack. And, really, if I don't have to be cooking, it means I'll be able to spend more of the time enjoying the day with you and Benji. I'd really prefer to do that than being in front of the stove all day. She wants to do a ham and some side dishes – not a turkey. That'd be easier for her – and easier to transport over here too."

"Your girlfriend?" he said rather than responding to anything else in her statement.

She sighed and looked at the counter before meeting his gaze again. "Jack, sometimes you say some really obnoxious things to me. You know I'm not gay. I was with your Dad for nearly two years."

"Like that matters," he mumbled.

She shook her head at him and rolled her eyes. "OK. Well, why it would matter to you if I was … I don't know," she nearly threw her hands up at him. "And, you suggesting that I am … because, what? I'm single right now? It's just rude. Is this how you treat other people? Because – I care about you – and I'm trying to help you. I'm really trying to do some nice things for you. So if this is how you treat me – I really don't want to think about how you treat other people. It likely explains a lot about why you seem so lonely."

"I'm not lonely," he spat out.

She shrugged. "You seem pretty lonely to me."

He slipped out of the chair at that and headed back to the door, pulling his badly beaten up army surplus jacket that appeared to just be a shell and didn't look anywhere near warm, off the hooks next to the exit and slipping his arms into it. She followed him over and watched, even though he was doing his best to ignore her.

"Don't just hang up when you're done talking to Benji this week," she told him. "Talk to me too. After. I'd like to hear how your exams are going."

"Whatever," he mumbled and reached for his backpack slinging it up and onto his one shoulder.

"Not whatever," she said and held out the box of Triscuits to him again as he picked up the bag of groceries. "If you don't want to talk about the exams, fine. But as the week goes on and you get a better idea of what you'll want to be doing on the weekend, I'd like to talk a bit about your birthday – and at what point you think you'll be coming over here and staying for a few days around Christmas. We need to talk about your move into residence too and how we want to work that."

"I don't want to do anything for my birthday," he said and pushed the box of crackers back at her.

"Well, I'd like to take you out for super – so I'd like to know if you have that day off work, to start. And, then I'd like an idea of where you might like to eat or what you might like to eat – because given how close it is to Christmas, I should likely try to get us a reservation."

He ignored her and reached for the door.

"Jack…" she sighed.

He gave her dagger eyes. "I don't want to spend Christmas with a stranger," he spat at her.

She looked at him hard. "I hope you aren't referring to me. Because – you're being ridiculous."

"No, your … whatever … friend."

She sighed again and looked at the ceiling for a moment. "It's not a stranger, Jack. It's Alex. You met her when you signed the parental designation paperwork. The notary. The ADA that works with my unit. She wouldn't even be here for most of the day – dinner and some visiting. Spending time with family and friends – that's supposed to be what the holidays are about."

"She's not my family or my friend," he said. "She's some lawyer."

"She's my friend," Olivia said back to him sternly. "And, Benji's met her a few times now. They have nice interactions together. She's good with him. And, Jack, she doesn't have a family anymore. She hasn't had a Christmas in a long time either. You know what that's like. And, she expressed interest in doing this. Yes, it's good for her – but it would also be really good for me too. I want to spend the day with you and Benji – watching him open presents, playing with his new toys with him, watching some movies, relaxing. Having the first Christmas I've had in … I couldn't even tell you. A lot more than three years, Jack. I don't want to spend the day at the stove. It's the only day I have off this week. I don't have a Christmas break. I want to take advantage of the day. I'd like to take her up on her offer."


	71. Chapter 71

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She moved her arm to support Benji's chest as he leaned over even further off her hip to riffle through the row of hanging Tech Decks. He was taking forever to choose one.

She was trying to give Benji a bit better idea of the concept of gift-giving by providing him the opportunity to play a role in picking out something for Jack. She wasn't too sure it was helping. Though, he did seem excited about the concept of getting to pick something to give his uncle. She had explained to him multiple times that they were going to go and pick a present for Jack and then wrap it and put it under the tree. Then on Christmas morning Jack was going to get to open it – that it was to him, from Benji – and it would be Jack's, for him to keep. And, just like there would be presents for Jack to open and keep – Benji was going to have presents to open that were his and he could keep.

She felt a bit like she was talking in circles, though, and almost until she was blue in the face. He'd nod like he understood but then he'd ask some question or say something else that clearly indicated he wasn't grasping the concept.

She'd taken him to the craft morning at the Scandinavian community centre earlier in the morning. He'd been enthralled with the activity and she'd been pleased that they were catering to the whole family. There'd been a complex paper angel that she was able to sit and putter away on while Benji completely went to town with the white glue and glitter and cotton on his Tomtar. They'd both been content until one of the project co-ordinators had come by to check on them and had made a passing comment about that their creations would look wonderful on their tree or would make great presents.

"But it not a present," Benji had protested after the woman had moved on.

Olivia had shaken her head. "No, Benj. Our ornaments are not presents. We'll put them on the tree when we get home. She just meant that crafts can make nice presents."

"But I make crafts," Benji had protested louder.

She nodded. "You do, sweetheart."

"BUT THEY NOT PRESENTS!"

She shook her head in agreement. "They aren't, you're right."

"But you take them!"

"I put your paintings from school on the fridge, Benj. That's all."

"But you can't keep them!"

"I'm not keeping them, Benj. They're on the fridge for us both to look at."

"BUT THEY NOT PRESENTS!"

And, so the confusion had re-emerged and the circular conversation continued. She really feared that between Jack's attitude and Benji's seeming inability to completely grasp the concepts around gift-giving and gift-receiving, that Christmas might turn into a bit of a disaster on the morning of the 25th.

In some ways her concerns about Benji coping with it like a normal kid were increasing a little bit now that they were smack dab in the middle of the Toys R Us in Times Square. It was pure mayhem in there. Kids and their parents were going nuts. There was lots of running around, tantrums from children wanting something, parents telling them it was almost Christmas or that they should've asked Santa – or that maybe Santa or Grandma would be bringing that for them. It was the typical naughty behaviour you'd nearly expect in a toy store – especially smack in the tourist area of the city. But not her kid.

Benji had shown some wide-eyed interest in the ferris wheel when they first entered. They'd stood and looked at it for a while – him pointing out the Toy Story cart and the 'dump truck' Mega Blocks cart. But there'd been no whining about wanting to go on it. She might've considered offering it up in a different set of circumstances but the line was insane and she'd eventually just moved him along. They'd stopped to look at the giant T-Rex for a while too but when the thing had start roaring, the little boy had been startled and grabbed at her hand and sought to be picked up, acting much more timid about the animatronics than she would've expected.

She'd purposely steered him clear of the Transformer section to avoid any potential meltdown about wanting to add to his collection, though she still wasn't sure that would've happened even then. He'd likely just been happy to look at all the options that were available – but that he seemed to feel were out of his reach because he wasn't a 'rich kid'. None of the other larger-than-life characters on display in the store seemed to resonate with him at all as they made their way to the small little extreme sports figurines. The fact that other children around him were having fits about wanting toys or that there were parents with armfuls of pending purchases following around after their brats – seemed to resonate with him even less.

The concept of wanting, receiving, getting, buying … it all just seemed like something Benji couldn't understand. It made having him inside the store more manageable for her – but it concerned her about Christmas too. She knew he'd like getting the gifts – after he accepted they were, in fact, for him and after she had managed to get him to open them. But she was still just so concerned the day was going to be a little overwhelming and confusing for him – no matter how much she tried to mitigate that. She really wasn't sure how to do that.

Limiting the number of things under the tree. Leaving some things unwrapped and out of boxes for instantaneous play options. That was about the best she could come up with. She thought leaving everything unwrapped would be just as overwhelming and confusing – too much visual overload in the living room. She hoped she could stop somewhere on the way home from work tomorrow to pick up some wrapping paper and start working on getting some of the gifts wrapped and under the tree. Maybe if Benji had a few days of getting used to seeing them there and being told which ones were for him, he'd start acclimatizing to the idea and hopefully even anticipating getting to open them.

He finally sat up straighter on her hip and showed her a package. "'Dis one," he declared.

She let him slide down her side and to the floor and looked at it briefly before handing it back to Benji. He gazed at it with admiration. She thought he might want it more than Jack. But he seemed pretty proud of himself at his selection and he'd been insistent that he wanted to get Jack a Tech Deck after she'd asked him what he thought his uncle might like. She tried to give him some other options.

"Gecko told me that Jack really likes Animal on the Muppets," she tried. "Maybe he'd like an Animal toy or tshirt?"

"Tech Deck!" Benji had declared.

"You know, I think Jack really likes James Bond and the character Jack Skeleton on Nightmare Before Christmas – because he has a name like his. I bet there's lots of tshirts from those two movies that your uncle might like."

"Tech Deck!" Benji had said again.

She eventually relented. It was Benji's gift to Jack – it should be what the little boy thought his uncle would like, which was clearly … Tech Decks. Or at least that's what the kid related to the teen. And, the toy he'd selected was only $5. So she wasn't going to put up too much of an argument.

"You sure that's the one you want to get him, Benj?" she asked and pointed down to another shelf. "Those ones come with two and a movie – and are the same price. The one you have picked only has one Tech Deck in it."

He looked at it again and held it back up to her. "But it have tools and stickers!" he said excitedly.

She knew the stickers would be a selling point with Benji. They'd given the kids a sheet of winter-themed stickers at the daycare to use on their art projects. Benji had put the entire sheet on that day's project, one of his caretakers had been sure to point out to her when he'd proudly presented her with the paper when she'd picked him up one day the previous week. He seemed to have decided stickers were about the best invention ever.

"Peedg use tools to rig decks for real too 'Livia," he added.

She nodded. "That's true," she agreed and took his hand. "OK. Let's go then."

"Now what we do 'Livia?" he asked, skipping a bit as he followed after her, still admiring his selection.

"Well, first Mommy Fox wants to check one more thing here for Jack's birthday. Then we are going to pay for this. Then we'll go to Funky's – and you're going to pick out a tshirt for Jack for Christmas and we're going to look at something that Gecko said your uncle might like for his birthday too."

"Wazzit?"

She shrugged. "I don't know, Benj. We're going to have to see what Gecko picked out for us."

"Then what we do 'Livia?"

"Then we're going to go to the police station for a couple minutes so I can pick up a file I forgot."

"Why?"

"Because after you go to bed tonight, Mommy Fox wants to work on it for a bit."

"But it not bedtime."

"I know it's not bedtime, sweetheart. After you go to bed, I'll work on it."

"Buy-in be there to fix Megatron?"

She snorted and looked at him. "You don't even have Megatron with you today, Little Fox. And, Jack fixed Megatron for you yesterday."

"But I transform him and he broke now."

"Oh, great," she said and shook her head at him. "You think maybe Megatron is too hard of toy for you to play with?"

Benji shook his head at her hard at that.

"Mmm," she said. "It sure seems like he's broken a lot."

"Just his plane, 'Livia."

"Mmm," she nodded. "It sure seems like his plane is broken a lot."

"What we do after police stay-shin?"

"We go home, Benj."

"What we do there?"

"Nap?" she suggested.

Benji glared at her. "NO!" he protested. That were his thoughts at the moment – but she suspected by the time they did get back to the apartment, it would be nearing his usual naptime and he'd go down on his own.

"Watch a Christmas movie?" she suggested instead.

"Thomas?"

She smiled down at him. "We already watched Thomas, sweetheart."

"It good," he told her.

She nodded. "It was. But I think we'll try another one. I bet it will be just as good."

Benji gazed at his toy selection some more. "Peedg leave this to play with at home?"

She looked down at him. "That will be up to Jack, Benji. It's your present to him. He's likely going to want to take it with him to his apartment – not leave it at home with us."

"Can I play too?"

"You'll have to ask Jack," she told him. "You're giving it to your uncle for Christmas, Benj. It's his toy to keep and to play with and to take home. It's not yours."

"But it a present," Benji stated.

"It's your present to Jack. Jack will be giving you a present that you can keep too."

"Tech Deck?" Benji asked.

She gave him a smile. "I don't know, baby. Part of the fun of getting a present is that it's a surprise what's inside."

"But maybe Tech Deck inside?"

"Maybe a Tech Deck," she agreed.

Benji looked at the toy again. "'Dis one good," he said.

She shook her head. Maybe she needed to write Jack a memo about what Benji wanted for Christmas. She wondered how much he had that under control. She hadn't wanted to be overbearing or make him feel like he needed to spend money he didn't have. But Benji was clearly going to expect there to be something from Jack for him under the tree on Christmas morning after all the prompting she was giving him in trying to prepare the little boy for the holiday. She hoped that his uncle didn't disappoint him – or her.


	72. Chapter 72

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Olivia, leave your coat on," Cragen called at her as her and Nick returned to their desks from being out on case. "We're going out for lunch."

She looked at him, as he came out of his office, slouching his trench coat up and onto his shoulders. She rubbed at her eyebrow for a moment and shook her head. "Ah, I was planning on taking my lunch in a couple hours," she told him. "I have some errands I need to do."

"Not multiple choice," Cragen said as he walked by her and towards the elevator bays.

She sighed and looked at Nick, who raised a questioning eyebrow at her. But she just shrugged and started to re-button her coat to follow after the Captain.

He didn't say much to her on their walk over to the diner and even less after they'd ordered and sat waiting for their food. She didn't know what to talk to him about. She wasn't working on any overly pressing cases – nothing major, just the usual. There wasn't much to say about them and after she'd given him their status updates, she really didn't feel there was much else left to talk about.

Talking to him used to be a bit easier. It wasn't like either of them had enough of a personal life to chatter too much. But they had at least had a rapport. It just hadn't felt the same since May. She didn't know if the Captain was embarrassed or he felt judged – or if she'd just reacted poorly to the harder line he'd taken in the squad room when he finally returned to work that summer. But whatever it was, their dynamic just didn't feel the same anymore.

She knew it wouldn't. It was not the kind of thing where everything could just go back to normal after it was all said-and-done. It was the kind of thing that stuck with you for the rest of your career – if not the rest of your life. It became the sort of thing that was a defining moment in your make-up. You couldn't exactly just shake it – no matter what you did. But it all still made her a little sad.

She missed what they had had. Even though there were moments where Cragen had frustrated here over the years and that she'd felt like he'd played Dad a little too much with her since Elliot had left – there were times she'd still rather have all that back than what they had now. It felt like just another thing she'd lost over the course of the past 18 months of her life.

She supposed it was kind of like one of those moments where as a child – or more likely a pre-teen – you realize that your parents aren't infallible. They were all still trying to move on from that and learning how to operate in the new reality.

"How's the boy doing?" Cragen finally asked – as he started fixing his tea the way he liked it after the waitress set it in front of him.

She just gave him a small nod and took a sip from her glass of water. "Good," was all she offered.

He gave her a thin smile at that. "Where's the paperwork at with all that?"

She shrugged. "Filed … on Monday morning."

"Have they told you your court date yet?" he asked.

"No. My attorney said it will likely be around the end of January, though."

Cragen nodded. "Good," he said.

"Yeah," she said and examined the table, working on folding up the little paper wrapper that had been around the straw brought out with her glass of tap water.

Cragen moved his cup around on his saucer a bit. "Approval came through for you to have the 31st off," he told her.

She nodded. "Good. I'm glad."

She was. She'd been a little unimpressed about having to go through the proper channels to get the day officially off. But Cragen was pretty by-the-book anymore. She'd been concerned that she wouldn't have gotten the paperwork in in time, even though the Captain had said he didn't mind her taking the day off.

She really needed the day. She needed the time to get Jack moved out of the apartment and into residence. She didn't think that was something he was going to be able to pull off completely on his own without some help. Beyond that, she really did want some back-to-back time to spend with Benji. Four days off in a row would be nice – assuming no one did anything stupid over the weekend leading into the New Year. That was always questionable. Still, she knew even in a best case scenario with the time off, she'd likely end up having to spend a chunk of it working at packing up the apartment rather than just enjoying time with the little boy.

"I was surprised you didn't ask for the 24th or the 26th off too," Cragen said.

She just shrugged. "I think it's better for everyone if we keep busy during the day on the 24th – and I knew Nick was taking the 26th. That Amanda's taking her A.L."

Cragen nodded. "He going to go out to D.C. too now?"

She shrugged again. "He hasn't told me how he's dealing with it."

The waitress returned and put their meals on the table in front of them.

"Thank you," Cragen said, while Olivia just nodded her appreciation for the bowl of soup she'd ordered. She just let it sit for the moment, though, steaming and cooling before she took a taste. "How are you and Nick working together these days?"

She added some pepper to the top of her soup – mostly as something to do and gave it a small mix with the spoon. "Good."

"Your closure rate this fall has been good," Cragen said, as he spread the mayonnaise he'd had them bring out on the side onto his sandwich.

She nodded. "Yeah. Things seem to be going well right now."

"You two are OK being back together?"

She shrugged. "Ask Nick. He was the one who'd asked for the split in the first place."

Cragen eyed her for a moment but then took a bite out of his club sandwich and seemed to chew very slowly while watching her. She scooped up a spoonful of her soup and blew on it for a moment, avoiding the eye contact. The way he was looking at her was making her a little uncomfortable. She could feel that there was another shoe waiting to drop. She just wasn't sure what it was yet.

"You know the registration period for rank exams opens on the 4th," he said after he swallowed – still gazing at her.

She glanced up at him from her bowl of butternut squash soup. So, that's what this is all about, she thought. At least it wasn't anything too serious. She could talk around it.

She nodded. "Yeah," she allowed.

"Where are you at with that?" he asked, before taking another bite from his sandwich.

She shrugged. "Same as the last time we talked about it."

He gave her a small sigh as he finished swallowing. "Don't you think that maybe you should be rethinking that now that you have a child in your life?"

She snorted at that and put down her spoon. "Captain, I actually think I should think about it even less now that I have a child in my life. I can't afford the pay cut of going from detective first-grade down to a sergeant. I also really can't afford to have to go back to patrol for six months before I can come back and do my job."

"You know that strings would be pulled for you, Olivia," Cragen said. "You wouldn't end up back in uniform or with the pay downgrade. John didn't."

She shook her head and examined the table for a moment before meeting his eyes again. "With all due respect, Captain, you don't have as much pull as you used to."

He gave her a sad glare at that for several beats. "We both know you have other contacts and other people who can pull strings for you besides me," he said.

"But you're my rabbi – everyone knows it - and that's how those chips fall," she said flatly.

He gave his head a small shake and looked back to his sandwich. "Then get a new one," he said and lifted a quarter to take another bite.

She gave him a sad smile. "No thanks."

They both knew their connection, their affiliations, her loyalties to him – had impacts on her career. But he'd stuck his neck out for her before and she wasn't about to start switching allegiances now, especially after putting her trust in him and putting herself on the line for him. Things may be different now. But she wasn't ready to switch things up that much.

"You have to do your time as sergeant before you can move further up the ladder, Olivia," he told her after he'd swallowed.

She sighed hard again. "Captain, if I had wanted to climb the ladder, I would've done the sergeant exams at my three years – years ago, decades ago – while I was still P.O. I didn't. I volunteered for this. That's what I wanted."

Cragen shook his head at her. "You'd have more flexibility in your schedule after you got up to lieutenant," he stressed to her. "You'd still get calls in the middle of the night – but it'd have to be pretty bad or a pretty big case going on for you to be called out to the scene or to not be getting home to that little boy in time for dinner."

"If I wanted to be stuck behind a desk, dealing with meetings and having to supervise people like me – I can think of a lot more appealing options than what you're suggesting," she said. "Ones that offer a much better work-life balance and a nicer pay cheque than all of this."

"You've been thinking about leaving," Cragen said.

It really came across as more of a statement than a question. She supposed that when you got right down to it – it wouldn't have been a secret. Not to Cragen. He'd known her too long – and given her attitude since Elliot's departure, it had been more than clear to pretty much everyone in the squad that she wasn't exactly happy to be there anymore.

Still, she wasn't entirely sure how to answer that. So she just shrugged. "I'm coming up on my 20 quickly."

"You moving on would be a huge loss to SVU, the NYPD and the city," Cragen stressed out near staccato at her.

She knew he meant it was a compliment – she knew he likely believed it too – but it just struck her the wrong way. "I have more to think about now than SVU, the NYPD or the city," she pushed back at him with an annoyed tone.

"I think he'd be proud to know his mother is working for the people of this city," Cragen told her.

But she grew more annoyed. She snorted and shook her head. "I've spent my adult life watching this job pull apart families as we work for the people of this city," she said almost sarcastically. But it was true. SVU seemed to destroy the families of everyone that passed through. It was why most people – maybe the sane ones – got out before it was too late.

"I've waited too long for this. I've worked too hard to get it," she said. "I thought I wasn't going to get it, Captain. Maybe I still won't. But if the court approves my paperwork – I'm not going to have MY SON growing up wondering where the hell I am and thinking I care about the victims … this darkness … more than I care about him."

"You can't walk away from the victims, Olivia," Cragen said. "You care too much."

She nodded. "I care. But what I can't walk away from now is him. I already love that little boy too much to put this job before him. I put this job before my life for too many years. It's not going to go before his life or his happiness."

Cragen watched her. But she broke the eye contact and turned back to her soup.

"Go do the exam, Olivia," he said after several minutes of silence while she tried to simmer down – forcing herself to eat her meal and not say anything she might really regret. "You can do the lieutenant's exam in two years. They'll hand you a supervisory position pretty quick after that – maybe mine."

She glanced at him at that. Just like he knew she was considering leaving, she knew he'd been considering retiring. This was the first time he'd verbalized it in anyway, though.

"He'll barely be in Grade One," Cragen said. "You'll be able to have it both ways. The job and the family. At least try it that way before you throw in the towel. Don't make a rash decision."

"This isn't a new thought process," she near spat at him – feeling a little bit like she was starting to talk to him like Jack had been talking to her the day before.

He nodded. "I know. It's a thought process 18-months in the making, I'd say."

She let a deep breath out at that.

"At least think about it," he said. "Sign up for the exam. I'll even spot you the registration fee. You don't have to go write it, if you decide you don't want to. But get your name on the list. Get a date. Don't put it off another year."

She shook her head at him. "I'll make a decision that is best for my family," she told him a little harshly.

He nodded and gave her a thin smile. "I know you will."

They were silent for several minutes and the Captain turned back to working on his sandwich. She finished her soup and moved the bowl closer to the end of the table for the waitress to retrieve. She willed the Captain to finish off his lunch a bit faster – so they could get out of there. But he appeared to be taking his time – slow bites of the sandwich and a fry or two and some forkfuls of coleslaw between each mouthful. She wondered if it would be rude at that point to say she was going to leave and at least try to hit one or two of her Christmas errands before heading back to the station house. He didn't give her much of a chance to further contemplate that plan, though.

"Brian Cassidy approached me about coming back to SVU," he said between one of his mouthfuls.

She looked at him for a moment and tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. "Ah, yeah, he was into the squad room one night last week. I talked to him a bit. He mentioned he was planning on talking to you."

"What do you think about that?"

She shrugged. "That he doesn't want to spend the last half of his career chained to a desk either."

"You know that's not what I mean," he said. "Do you think he could hack it this time around?"

She made a face at him and shrugged again. "You're the one that encouraged him to move on last time."

He nodded. "That was 13 years ago. A lot can happen in 13 years. People change. He's not a young man anymore. He's served the NYPD well."

"More or less," she mumbled a bit.

Though, she didn't think Cragen would likely judge Cassidy too harshly on his indiscretion with Carissa given the circumstances. She actually thought Cragen agreeing to give Cassidy a chance to take up post in SVU might create optics that the Captain didn't need – given both of their proximity to the case and its fallout.

"You worked with him a bit in the spring. What's your impression of where he's at?"

She took a deep breath but conceded, "He's good police."

"But is he good for SVU?"

She shook her head. "That's your call. Ask John. He'll have an opinion. He always has an opinion."

Cragen nodded. "I've talked to John about it. John's the one that sent him to me."

Olivia shook her head again at that and looked at the ceiling for a moment. She should've put together that Munch was involved in this somehow. Brian showing up with the food for him was a key give away. But even beyond that, Munch had always had a soft spot for Cassidy. He'd groomed him – been nearly his training officer while Bri got his feet wet at SVU. She thought Munch had seen him as near a kid-brother – someone to look out for. That had become more apparent in the spring, and especially after Cass was shot.

"It'd take us up to six," Cragen said when she didn't respond. "Get everyone paired off. There's space for it in the budget right now. There has been for a while."

She shrugged. "We've been five other times. No one's ever complained about having to work solo sometimes."

Cragen tilted his head. "But right now two of my detectives are single parents of young children – and have complicated situations that seem to be eating up some of their work time. We haven't had that before. And, it's only going to be so long before that starts to have an impact on our closure rate – and blind eyes are only turned so far, especially when we're already living under a microscope."

She sighed. "You said earlier that Nick and mine's closure rate was good this fall."

"Exemplarily," he allowed.

"Then what's the problem?"

He shrugged. "I haven't seen the full stats from the last month yet. What do you think those are going to look like?"

She rolled her eyes. "I don't think they will be much different than any other month. I'm doing my job, Captain," she said, almost offended.

He nodded. "I know. But I don't know that having you and Nick partnered is the best decision – when you both have added responsibilities outside of the station now."

She snorted. "So what? You want to bring Cassidy back on board and partner one of us with him?"

"I'm considering it," Cragen said flatly.

Olivia let out a small laugh at that and looked at the table. That wasn't what she wanted to hear. At all. For so many reasons.

"Could you work with him?"

She gaped her mouth a bit and examined the ceiling again as she let out a breath at that, shaking her head. This lunch just kept getting worse. Merry Christmas, she thought.

"I could work with him," she allowed. "I don't particularly want to work with him."

"That's not what I asked," Cragen said in his Dad voice. "What about Amaro?"

She did laugh at that and shook her head. "Ah, no. Partnering Nick with Cassidy would not be a good idea. Them working in the same squad might not be a good idea."

Cragen had missed that confrontation, though, she thought he'd taught wind of at least some of what had happened in various comment and chatter since he'd been back. Still – it would take a long time to build the trust between those two. Understandably. It's hard to trust someone who's had a gun held to your head. It's not exactly someone you want to have as your partner. Not to mention, she thought that Nick and Brian would take battle of the wills and battle of the egos to a whole new level. That was some competing testosterone that the squad room really didn't need added to it.

"Well they might have to work at changing that," Cragen said. "Who would you prefer to be partnered with, Olivia?"

She exhaled again. She hated this. "Captain, Nick and I have had some rough patches, but I think we've really gotten into our grove as partners, especially lately. That took work – on both our parts. I don't really want to walk away from that now – again."

"Staying with him might not be an option, Olivia. Not right now. The only right now I see it working in would mean that something else doesn't work out for you. And, I don't think that's an outcome that you want either."

She sighed and looked at the table.

"How'd you and Rollins do?"

She shook her head. "That'd take work."

"Anyone you're partnered with will take work."

"How many partners do I need to go through in a two-year period?" she spat at him.

He shrugged. "I guess however many is needed for our squad to get back to where it was."

"Don – it is never going to get back to where it was. You made that clear from the day El handed in his papers. Suck it up, deal with the change or move on. I've been sucking it up. Don't force me to move on."

He eyed her again at that. But the waitress came and put their bill on the table and collected their dishes. Cragen broke their eye contact and pulled the cheque towards him before she could take a look at it – reaching for his wallet in his pant pocket, arching his back against the seat to gain access to it.

"If you were on-call on the 26th, do you have access to someone to watch the boy, if you needed to come in on short notice?" he asked, after examining the bill and started counting some bills out of his wallet.

She gave a small nod. "Yeah. I do."

He looked up at her, as he pushed the cheque and the small pile of money back to the centre of the table. "Stay home with the boy," he said. "But be available by phone for the day, all day – you're on-call, not on a personal day. I talked to Fin and John. We'll cover the three of you – so you can have family time."

She watched him for a moment and gave a small nod. "Thank you," she said quietly.

He nodded back and started to pull his coat back on. "Think about the things we've talked about. This isn't a one-off discussion, Olivia."

She allowed another small nod while she put her jacket back on as well. "OK," she near whispered. She wasn't sure how much she wanted to think about any of it. It just sounded like more on her plate when it already felt overflowing.


	73. Chapter 73

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She smiled a little as she worked at organizing some of the cookie ingredients and bowls in the kitchen and on the little dining table. She didn't think Benji had any true concept of how loud he was being – though, Jack clearly did.

"OK," she heard Jack say so clearly, he might of well have been in the same room as her. "You need to either shut up or talk quieter."

"I quiet," Benji responded.

"You are not being quiet," Jack said back to the little boy. "You need to be quieter. Whisper or something."

"Why?" Benji asked, in a voice nowhere near a whisper.

"Because she's just in the next room. She's going to hear you," his uncle said.

Jack had reappeared the night before. He seemed a bit happier than when he'd left the weekend before. She'd tried to gauge how his exams went but during the week when she'd spoken with him, he'd been just as grouchy as on the weekend. On Friday night all that he'd allowed was, "They're done." She really wasn't sure if that was good or bad. But she supposed that however they'd gone – there wasn't much more that could be done about it now. She just hoped as they moved further away from him having completed the last one – he'd keep getting a little bit happier and a little bit more smiley.

He'd actually brought a gym bag with him that looked near stuffed beyond capacity. She'd never seen him with a bag other than his backpack before and had started to think he lived out of the thing, based on how much he seemed to have in there at any time and the random belongs he always seemed to be pulling out of it. It almost seemed worse than her purse.

But between the bag and the pack – she was starting to think he really wasn't intending to head back to his apartment much between now and his move. She didn't really mind that – as long as he was packed and ready to go when they did get over there to move his belongings and to carry the hodgepodge bit of furniture he had down to the trash area (She really hoped he wasn't going to ask that any of it be brought over for his space the new apartment). Him being in a better mood would also help her keep her head about him staying for more than an overnight too.

They so needed to get into that apartment upstairs, she had thought again, though. Her and Benji in the apartment was cramped – and she didn't know when her back was going to truly recover from months of sleeping on the couch. And, when Jack was over – the place just felt bursting at its gunnels. The addition of Christmas decorations, though fun to put up and nice to look at, just made it that much more crowded. She was almost tempted to try to move in right on January 1st, as soon as she got the keys, even though she knew that that wouldn't be realistic. The furniture for the boys' room wouldn't be delivered until later in the week – and needed to be put together. And, even with Jack's help, she was at least likely going to need one other set of hands – or maybe just eyes – to watch Benji as things were taken upstairs. Waiting until the weekend would just be easier to recruit some help. Beyond that, with when she'd secured the new place, she'd been stuck in the middle of the month in terms of notification of her vacation of the current suite. So, she'd be paying for two places in January. Lovely. She might as well take her time to get some of the stuff moved and not go at it like a complete crazy person.

Jack hadn't seemed to want to chat much to her after he arrived, though. He'd said he'd only finished his last exam that afternoon. All he wanted was to raid her fridge – getting there just as her and Benji finished their dinner. And, then he'd declared he was taking Benji Christmas shopping. It hadn't so much been him asking her – as him telling her. But, she'd taken it as a positive sign that he was even thinking of Christmas – and apparently shopping. So even though she'd thought it was a little late to be dragging the little boy back out – she'd let him, only requesting that they be back by 9 p.m. at the latest. She'd actually thought that was going to be well enough past the little boy's usual bedtime and a big enough disruption to the routine she'd been working so hard to establish with him. But really, the next several days were going to be lots of disruption to Benji's routine. She might as well just kind of roll with it and understand there'd be some crankiness from the little boy and likely some insecurity and meltdowns she was going to have to work at mitigating.

They really hadn't been gone that long, though. It wasn't much more than 90 minutes from when they'd left the apartment to when they'd reappeared and Jack had gone about stuffing a bag in the front closet – and very loudly rearranging things in there.

"Don't go in there," he'd instructed her when he'd come into the living room.

She'd shaken her head at him. "That's where we keep coats and boots, Jack," she'd commented at him. "I'm going to have to go in there at some point between now and Christmas."

He'd glared at her for a moment and then disappeared back to the little front area of the apartment. She heard him open the door again and then she saw him pull one of her jackets out and toss it at the hooks by the door.

"There. Your coat is on the hook," he told her.

"Well, I hope you picked the right one," she teased him.

"You have too many fucking jackets," he mumbled at her. "Just stay out of there until I can move it somewhere else. The other closet."

"In the bedroom?" she asked. "Stay out of there."

He shrugged. "I was already in there to hang up some of my clothes."

She sighed at him. "Jack…"

"I didn't look at anything."

"Don't go back in there," she ordered.

"Whatever," he mumbled and came and slouched on the couch, where Benji had already joined her and was randomly flipping through the Christmas movies with the videogame controller. She actually thought part of the thrill of the Christmas movies for Benji was getting to use the controller.

"You guys weren't gone very long," she commented while she worked at re-arranging Benji's hat head.

Jack shrugged and pointed at something on the screen but Benji just kept flipping. She knew he was looking for the Thomas movie. He didn't seem to have that much interest in any of the other ones. Thankfully there were multiple Thomas the Tank Engine Christmases so at least she wasn't having to watch the same one over and over.

"Just had to take him somewhere to pick up something," Jack said.

She nodded. "Somewhere close?"

"None of your business," Jack replied and gave her a look.

"We went to …"

"'Jamin shut up!" Jack raised his voice at him and the little boy gave him a clear stink-eye and pushed his back more against her side. She gave Benji a small smile and accepted the cuddle but shook her head at Jack talking to him that way.

"We talked about this," his uncle said. "You don't tell her where we went. Or what we got."

Benji growled quietly at him and leaned against her more, looking up her. "We get you …"

"'Jamin!" Jack said again.

"A PRESENT!" Benji shouted at him.

"Shh," she told the little boy and stroked his forehead. "No yelling, Little Fox." He rolled his head against her and she leaned down and put a kiss on the top of his head. "I'm excited for my present. Thank you."

Benji nodded and glared more at Jack. Almost like he was trying to show up his uncle in the affections he was getting versus the grouching that Jack had going on on the opposite corner of the couch.

They had seemed to reach some sort of truce by morning, though, and Jack had come and asked if she had 'wrapping paper and tape and stuff'. She'd gone and retrieved it from the bedroom closet and from under the bed for him – so he didn't go rooting around himself. And, so he didn't claim the 'special' Santa wrapping paper she'd bought for the presents coming from the North Pole.

She'd left the wrapping supplies out on the bed and the two boys had eventually disappeared in there, leaving her to start organizing for the next Christmas prep activity. She wasn't sure how involved Jack was going to get to be in the baking, though. But she wasn't entirely sure he wanted to be involved in the baking – or if he just wanted cookies he liked available to eat. Either way, he had slept until around 10 a.m. before appearing in the living and doing some whining about all-nighters and studying and how tired he was and how he didn't want to go to work. By the time he was actually up and showered and dressed – there was little more than an hour until he was going to have to leave the apartment to head in to Funky's.

She wasn't sure how far him and Benji would get with their wrapping – especially if he was having Benji helping. She'd learnt herself when she'd let Benji help her wrap his presents for Jack that he was more of a hindrance than a help. Though, the amount of tape – which is apparently very similar in the cool factor to stickers – that got used on Jack's presents from Benji likely meant that the unwrapping part would at least be extended, maybe drawing out Christmas morning.

Benji had been disappointed, though, that she hadn't let him help too much with the folding in the actual wrapping. She had let him help with a bit of the cutting, at least until the paper looked like it had been gnawed on by a dog. Then she'd taken over in making a clean swipe down the paper in a single movement with the scissors. That had left Benji a little dumb-founded and he then wanted to try to do that himself too – not understanding that his little kids safety scissors weren't likely going to have the same result. Still, she'd cut off a little square of paper for him to experiment with. It distracted him enough that she was able to get some of the wrapping done without his 'help'. She didn't think Jack would be quite as understanding of his nephew's help as she'd been, though.

"We wappin' it Peedg?" she heard Benji's voice again, as she started digging out the couple mixing bowls she had and contemplating if she should likely wash them out first. They looked more than a little dusty.

"Yeah. We're wrapping the couple things you picked," Jack had replied, in a voice that wasn't exactly a whisper either. Another reason they needed to get into the new apartment. There wasn't any privacy at all in this space. Though, she figured even though there'd be more space upstairs, the walls would likely be just as thin and the sound would travel just as much.

"But we not read it yet, Peedg," Benji protested, making it clear that her present from the little boy was some sort of book.

"We aren't going to read it," Jack said. "We're wrapping it. Here – tape it."

"But maybe we should read it first," Benji suggested.

"She'll read it to you," Jack said. He was starting to sound exasperated. She hoped that didn't escalate.

"'Livia?"

"Yes," Jack said. "She'll read it to you after she opens it. Or something."

"On Christmas?"

"Yes," Jack had said again. She could hear the paper rattling around. Based on the extent of it, she actually didn't think Benji was that involved. She actually imagined him standing in there with the book clutched to his chest in deep thought about whether or not he was actually going to let his uncle wrap the present. It had taken some convincing to get him to let her wrap Jack's Tech Deck too.

"When Christmas?"

"Tuesday," Jack said.

"When Twos-day?"

"Like … three days," Jack said.

"Too long!" Benji protested. "Read now!"

"No," Jack had replied. "It's a present. We aren't reading it now."

"Why?" Benji had whined.

"Because it's a present," Jack had said more pointedly. "Here – tape it."

It was quiet for several moments but apparently Jack had won him over because she eventually heard him say, "Here too."

There was more rattling of paper and the sound of the tape being ripped off the roll and cut.

"Pick a tag," Jack had said.

She smiled thinking that Jack had no idea how long that was going to take. She'd made the mistake of tasking the little boy of picking one of the gift tags too. It was apparently a complicated affair. She wasn't on a schedule, though, and had just sat there going between watching him, looking at the muted news on the television screen and listening to the Christmas music they had on in the living room. She wasn't trying to get everything done in less than an hour like Jack.

"Just pick one," she heard him say after about 30 seconds of silence. "Here, this one."

Benji made his shrieking sound. "NOT THAT ONE!"

"It doesn't matter," Jack had said. "This one is fine. Look. Snowmen. It's great."

"NO!" Benji had yelled.

"Then pick one. We still have the other one to wrap. And I've got a couple things to wrap before leaving for work. Hurry up."

"Santa," Benji had said after another bit of silence.

"OK. Here. Write that there and your name here. Just copy this," she heard Jack say.

"What it say?" Benji asked.

"To: Olivia. From: Benji."

"Mommy Fox," Benji had interjected.

"There's not enough space to write that. You write too big."

"MOMMY FOX!" Benji had shouted at him louder at him.

"Whatever," Jack had muttered. "There. That's how you spell 'Mommy Fox'. You still have to fit it on there though. So don't be messy."

That was kind of a ridiculous thing to say to him. Getting Benji to write J.P. on Jack's tags had taken up nearly the entire space on the little cards. There was no way in hell he was going to fit 'Mommy Fox' on the tag or for it to look neat-and-tidy.

But Benji must've been set on the task assigned to him because it was quiet again expect for some minor ruffling. It sounded like Jack was taking plastic off of something.

She felt a little bad to be eavesdropping – and potentially ruining any sort of surprise. But at the same time, she liked getting the chance to over hear them – and to know that there were two people in the next room who were actually wrapping a gift for her. She really couldn't think of the last time someone had given her a wrapped present to open on an occasion like Christmas or her birthday. She really wasn't expecting whatever gifts she got from the boys to be particularly exciting – but she was excited about getting them. Just getting them – and having the boys there to give them to her was really the gift in itself. She really didn't care what she got. She wasn't really expecting to get anything. She'd set her expectations of Jack really low. So she was already impressed that he not only seemed to be trying – he seemed to be semi-organized.

"There. What do you think?" she heard Jack asked Benji.

It was quiet for a moment. "Why not one there?" Benji had asked, and she tried to think what they might be discussing now.

"Because I don't have anything for there," Jack had responded. "It's OK. She'll have one."

What would she have that Jack wouldn't have available to him? she wondered.

"We wrap 'em too?"

"Yeah. But just one box … if we had a box," Jack said.

She heard some movement and the bedroom door opened and closed and he came out and looked at her in the kitchen. She gave him a small smile from where she was drying off the bowls.

He sighed and shook his head. "You can hear us, can't you?"

She shrugged. "Not really," she told a little white lie.

Jack rolled his eyes. "Do you have like … wrapping boxes or something around?"

She nodded. "I got a few packs – but they are basically clothing boxes. What's left is under the bed. Some tissue paper is in the bag with them too. But don't go claiming that roll of wrapping paper there. It's off limits. Don't let Benji even see that roll either," she said seriously. If he saw it, she knew she'd feel compelled to re-wrap the Santa gifts in something else and she really didn't want to get involved in that.

Jack rolled his eyes more at her and moved back towards the bedroom. "I won't touch the wrapping paper."

The door opened and clicked shut again – and she could hear him rustling around more and then the sound of him taking the plastic off one of the set of boxes – followed by what definitely sounded like Jack grumbling and cussing. The cheap little boxes didn't exactly pop up that well, she'd learned, but they served their purpose after you got what you needed into them.

There was more clear conversation around Jack coaxing Benji to participate in the wrapping – at a speedy rate – and then writing on the tag. But shortly after that the little boy came skipping out of the room carrying two presents, which he brought over to show her.

"Wow," she told him. "Good wrapping Benj."

"They heavy!" he informed her.

"Are they?"

He nodded hard. "You want to shake 'em 'Livia?"

"Hmm," she said.

"Do NOT let her shake the box," Jack called from the bedroom where the door had been left open by Benji. She saw him stick his head out the door. "It's fragile," he called at her and then shut the door again – apparently continuing on wrapping without the little boy's help anymore.

She snorted. Jack bought her something fragile? That could be interesting.

"OK, which one am I allowed to shake, Benji?" she asked.

She'd been using shaking the presents and trying to figure out what they could possibly be as a way to try to get Benji to have some comfort with interacting with the ones labeled to him and hopefully have some anticipation about opening them. She knew that if she still had him in a few years – and after he'd hopefully adjusted into a more normal childhood where he expected to get presents and actually wanted to open them – that instilling that habit in him now might blow up in her face. But for now – she just wanted to get through Christmas morning without having to beg him to open his gifts.

"Bottom," he told her and tried to shuffle the two items in his hand. So she reached and managed for him, before he dropped what was apparently a fragile object sitting on the top.

She weighed it in her hands – making sure to be very visual for him in the movement and acting as though it was far heavier than it actually was, though it did have a bit of weight to it.

"Wow. It is heavy, Benji," she agreed and lifted it closer to her ear. There was no noise and from the shape and weight to it, it was obviously the book – likely a children's one. "I wonder what it could be?"

"I not allowed to tell," Benji informed her.

She nodded. "That's right. You don't tell people what their Christmas presents are. It's supposed to be a surprise. But … hmm … I could still guess …"

"What you guess, 'Livia?"

"Hmm …" she shook it again. "A box of chocolates?"

"NO!" Benji said, clearly excited that she hadn't in fact guessed right. "Guess 'gin!"

She shook it some more. "An iPad?"

"NO! … What an iPad?"

"A bigger version of Mommy Fox's phone."

"NO!" he declared again.

"I have no idea, Benj," she said. "I guess I'll just have to wait until Christmas morning to find out."

"You can't shake 'dis one," Benji said holding up the one still in his hands.

"I know. Jack said it's fragile."

"What fag-gill?"

"It means it can break if you shake it," she said. "I bet it's something pretty special, if it's fragile."

Benji nodded. "It fag-gill and special."

She ran her hand through his hair and smiled at him. "OK, sweetie. I can't wait to open them. But you better go and put them under the tree for now, OK?"

She held out the book and helped him get a hold of it again and watched as he trotted over to the tree and crawled around under there to find a spot to put them among the ten boxes around sitting piled under there.

It was strange to see a tree in her apartment. It was stranger still to see a tree in her apartment with that many presents under it. It was never that many presents under her tree growing up – and she didn't even really feel like she'd completely gone to town on the boys. Been generous but been reasonable. She hoped. But perhaps the strangest was to see a little boy in her apartment crawling around among the presents at the foot of the tree. But there was something about it that just made a smile at tug at her lips whenever she saw him over there – whether it was to place the gifts, take a look at them or to play with some of the ornaments. She was having a Christmas and she was getting to share it with a little person.


	74. Chapter 74

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She glanced up at Jack as he came out of the washroom and did a bit of a double-take.

To start, he didn't have a hat on – and she thought about the only time she hadn't seen him with a hat was in the mornings of the nights he'd slept over. So he either had bed-head or he was moving between the shower and the bathroom and it was a damp-shaggy mess. But not only had his hat been removed – it looked like he cut his hair. It wasn't the long skater shag, rimmed and almost helmeted from his caps. Though it still looked like something she'd anticipated seeing on a skater – or at least a teenaged boy – it was much shorter and looked like he'd combed it and put product in it to create some sort of swish-y, spike-y look going on through his bangs and into the short crop on the top of his head.

"Did you get a haircut?" she asked cautiously. She wasn't sure she was allowed to ask. She knew he had – it was glaringly obvious. But maybe she wasn't supposed to acknowledge it.

He shrugged and looked almost bashful about it. "Ah, yeah. Dad always used to make us get our haircut before Christmas. I hadn't since the summer – so, you know, whatever."

She nodded and gave him a small smile. "It looks nice. Different."

"Ah, yeah, thanks," he said and looked away.

But it wasn't even just that. Based on his appearance and the smell radiating off him and from the bathroom – it was clear he'd taken the time to shave. Not that Jack ever seemed to accumulate too much facial hair – just enough to look scruffier than he needed to. But, it was still something he'd done for their outing apparently – and it had made him look that much younger and baby-faced. He'd probably shaved off at least two or three years in his appearance but at the same time, it also somehow made him seem a little more mature.

Perhaps what had taken her back the most, though, was his clothes. She'd become so used to seeing him in his baggy Dickies and jeans. The oversized hoodies and the skateboard tshirts that might as well been dresses, if he'd wrapped his belt around them. She just assumed that was all he owned – and even if he owned something else, she doubted he ever wore it. Or that maybe he had deemed it as clothing that didn't need to be brought down to New York when he fled the farm.

She'd basically just accepted that that Jack would be wearing ill-fitting jeans and a hoodie out to the theatre and to the nicer restaurant they'd be heading to after. She'd decided not to even say anything to him about it – even in passing – because she feared that it would only create a confrontation. And, she didn't want to fight with him on his birthday or right before Christmas. She left it – deciding that him participating in the day was about as much as she could hope for and not to push her luck.

Really, him brushing his hair and shaving had exceeded her expectations of him. But this change in attire made him almost unrecognizable. The industrial worker style navy Dickies had been replaced with a pair of stone grey cords. And, they actually fit him! The ass was at his ass and the crotch was at his crotch – neither were hanging at his knees or showing off much of his boxer shorts. He'd paired the pants with a checkered green plaid shirt that even looked like it had seen an iron – and also looked tucked into his pants. The colouring on it was really making his eyes pop and the hazel nearly danced at her when he did look her way (Though, maybe she was just noticing his eyes more since his hair was hanging over half his face). He'd even finished off what she'd actually call an outfit with a black and grey stripped pullover sweater, having pulled the half-zip down to show off the colours of his shirt underneath.

She almost couldn't stop herself from glancing back at him again as he emerged from out of the bedroom – having deposited the clothes he'd had on in the morning and now working at adjusting his belt while he came back into the living room. He met her eyes as he finished and looked up. He gave her a funny look and then looked down at himself.

"What?" he asked. "This isn't nice enough for the play?"

She gave him a smile – resisting the urge to point out that they were going to a musical, not a play - and shook her head. "That's not it at all. You look really nice, Jack."

He looked away again. But Benji got up on his knees from where he'd been sitting at her feet on the opposite side of her, playing with a couple of the ornaments from the tree and half-watching another Christmas special while they waited for Jack to finish getting ready. Benji gazed at his uncle.

"I wear green too Peedg," he declared after some thought. "We look NICE," he repeated Olivia's sentiment.

Jack examined the little boy at that. She'd put him in a flannel green and blue plaid shirt that didn't clash too awfully with his brace and then pulled some oatmeal cargos onto him and a rather Scandinavian-looking patterned red zip-up sweater that she'd fallen in love with when she'd seen it but the little boy had actually taken to it almost as quickly – and it was rapidly becoming less of a 'special occasion' sweater and more of a 'can't get it off him' sweater.

Jack sighed and looked at her. "You're wearing green too," he said of her shirt. She really hadn't put that much effort into putting on an outfit. They were going to a matinee of a family show at a time of year when the theatre was likely going to be fairly overrun with people under 12-years-old. She didn't think she needed to pull out anything that special. She just didn't want them to look like complete slobs. Though, she was sure there would be some families there in their sweat pants, just like when she'd taken Benji to get his picture with Santa. So she'd just grabbed some clean work clothes and paired the pants with a slightly nicer and more seldom worn green blouse she had.

She shrugged at his comment. "A lot of people wear green or red around Christmas – especially when they're basically going on a Christmas outing."

He rolled his eyes. "We're going to look retarded."

She snorted at that. "You will see people wearing outfits that are much more matchy-matchy than this when we get to the theatre, I'm sure," she told him.

He shook his head. She got the impression that he was contemplating changing to avoid them looking like they were together … and maybe even a family, God forbid. She kind of hoped he didn't though. He looked nice – and she actually kind of liked the idea that they were all in green even though it had been unplanned and unintentional, even when it came to her and Benji. She watched him and his eyes drifted back to her, though his arms remained crossed in his small snit about the clothing.

"What?" he demanded again.

She shook her head. "Nothing," she said, a little apologetically.

"Then why do you keep staring at me?" he said sounding more embarrassed than angry. He clearly wasn't entirely comfortable in the clothing he was in. It wasn't his usual look.

She shrugged and rubbed at her eyebrow. "You just look different than what I'm used to seeing, Jack. Right now, you look so much like how I remember your dad."

He gave her a bit of a disgusted look at that, though. "It's kind of creepy when you say shit like that."

She shot him daggers for a moment – knowing he'd get the message that he'd again used language that she didn't approve of around Benji. He was getting better about it, but he still had a long way to go.

"What's creepy about that? I think it's pretty normal to tell people they look like their parents as they start growing up. You've told me before that you hear that a lot from people who knew your dad."

Jack gave her a look. "Yeah, but you like … banged my dad and now you look at me and see my dad. It's gross."

It was her turn to give him a bit of a disgusted look at that. "What's creepy is that you think I look at you and see you as anything other than Jay's son and a boy that I've signed paperwork to serve as a guardian for. That's creepy, Jack – and slightly insulting, if not leaning towards disgusting."

He shrugged. "Sorry," he offered. She wasn't sure how much he meant it. But it was more than he usually said after saying something that obnoxious.

Still she nodded to accept his apology – such as it was. "Com'on, let's get going," she said. "If you're ready?"

He looked at his wrist and a watch … he was actually wearing a watch too? She'd never seen him in a watch before either. He was always pulling out his phone.

"It's barely 12:30," Jack said, though he followed her and Benji into the little front foyer. "I thought the show didn't start until 2? It's not going to take that long to get there."

She nodded as he let Benji sit down and work at getting on his boots – while she pulled a pair of hers out of the closet.

"You know how he walks," she nodded at Benji. "Even a mile takes a long time with him – and we're going to have to go through or around Times Square. It's going to be packed with families going to shows and dinner and tourists being tourists. It will take a while to move through those couple blocks or to bypass them."

He sighed a bit at that. "An hour and a half?" he asked.

She shrugged and pulled on her jacket – Jack still standing there in his socks. She wasn't sure if he was just waiting for Benji to get up off the floor so there was more space to maneuver around the little area or if he was hoping he could talk her into putting off leaving.

"The theatre will open its doors about 45 minutes before the show. We can look around. Take him to the bathroom – or at least find where the bathroom is for intermission. Check out a booster seat for him, if they have them. Look at the merchandise. Find our seats. The time will go by fast. And, it's going to take us at least half-an-hour to walk there with him, if not longer."

He sighed again but moved more into the cramped space and started readying himself to go too. Though, he looked up as she pulled Benji's jacket out of the closet and held it open for him. The little boy was still struggling so much with getting his arm through any sort of sleeves even with a brace, which was significantly less bulky than the cast.

He gave her a funny look. "Did you get him another coat?"

She glanced down at the wool-blend toggle coat. "Ah, he's had this one for about a month," she allowed.

"What was wrong with the ski jacket you got him before?"

She shrugged. "Nothing. But with the cast he was really struggling with zippers. He's more independently able to do up these big toggle buttons on his own," she said, as Benji went about doing just that after she'd gotten his arms into the sleeves. "The other winter jacket is still there. It's good for when we're going out to the playground. It will be good for when we actually get some snow too. More water repellant."

Jack still gave her a look like she was a crazy person.

"Well, this one is a bit nicer too," she said. "For things like this."

"So it's good for like … once every few years."

She shrugged. "He's been wearing it almost daily," she said. "More than the other jacket."

He shook his head at her and leaned down to start tying up his badly beaten up shoes. She guessed he hadn't fully completed his outfit – and hadn't brought some boots or dress shoes. The shoes he owned were so badly worn they literally had a hole in the bottom. She'd made some comment about it and he'd informed her it was an 'ollie hole' from skateboarding wear-and-tear. The way he said it, it sounded like it was some sort of badge of honour. But really, especially with them getting into winter now and cold, wet weather, she didn't understand why he didn't at least want to wear shoes with intact soles – even if he didn't want to invest in a pair of boots. Cold, wet socks and feet all day didn't sound very comfortable to her. Nor did a jacket that looked like it had been to Vietnam War and barely made the trip back to the United States. She thought he must be freezing all the time. She was almost cold just looking at him. Though, with Gecko's help and Jack's employee discount, she was hoping to revise some of that come Christmas morning. Hopefully in a way that was up to Jack's approval. Gecko had assured her it would be. She'd have to see if Gecko really knew as much about Jack and his tastes as he seemed to think he did.

"So how many jackets does he have now?" Jack said a little mockingly as he straightened back up and grabbed his coat from the one hook.

She shrugged. "I guess three. A fleece, the ski jacket and this."

"You trying to get him one for each year of his life or something?"

She snorted. "Maybe. I will likely get him a light-weight water repellant one when we get into spring."

Jack snorted at her. "How many jackets do you own?"

She shrugged. "I don't know." She looked in the closet and shoved some things around. "It looks like five."

"So not one for each year of your life?"

She shook her head at him. "Just because it's your birthday – don't think I won't tell you off, Jack."

He gave her a smile, though. "I'm only teasing you." He nodded at Benji. "You've made him over to look very New York."

She looked down at the little boy all buttoned up and ready to go and now just pulling on his hat and mitts. He didn't look like much of anything to her besides a little boy in some winter gear.

She shrugged. "If that's what New York looks like," she allowed.

"Oh, that's what New York looks like," Jack said and pulled on his own gloves that he'd clearly cut all the fingers off on his own. Or she assumed he'd cut them off. Maybe he'd just own them so long he'd worn holes in them – or they were another purchase from the army surplus shop.

"Hmm …" she said as she opened the door and encouraged Benji out of it, "because you're such the fashion expert."

"I am," Jack said but at least the tone of his voice indicated he knew he was being ridiculous. He grabbed his cap off the hook.

"If you put that on, you're going to mess up your hair that you clearly spent at least 30 minutes in front of the mirror working on," she told him and pulled the door shut to lock it.


	75. Chapter 75

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She gazed at Jack across the table. He looked a little flustered – if not outright uncomfortable. He was staring at the menu but then kind of looking up and glancing around the restaurant like he really wasn't sure he was supposed to be sitting there.

She was a little surprised at him. He'd seemed so out of place at the theatre too. He was almost glancing around it after they got inside in a similar way she'd previously seen Benji do when she'd had him out to various activities around the city – like his little bubble had suddenly been burst, or maybe expanded, and he didn't know what to make of it.

"Wow," he mumbled a bit when they did finally make their way into their seats. He'd still been glancing around and taking in the entire auditorium of the theatre for quite a while. He'd been near wide-eyed and slacked jawed for a while, which had kind of shocked her – because Jack just really didn't strike her as the artsy type at all. But he'd finally leaned across Benji's seat and said to her, "I didn't know it was in this theatre."

She'd just shrugged at the comment. She really didn't follow the theatre scene enough in the city to know much about one theatre to the next. She hadn't picked a show based on what theatre it was playing at. She didn't think it mattered.

"It's one of Lansburgh's theatres," he'd said a little more excitedly. She raised an eyebrow at him. She still had no idea what he was talking about. "The architect. He designed all these famous theatres on the West Coast. But this is like his only theatre on the East Coast. It's the only theatre in the country that is kind of inspired by Byzantine architecture. We talked about him this term."

She gave him a smile and nodded. She was glad to see him enthusiastic and excited about something – even if it was a happy-coincidence that they were apparently sitting in some theatre that was deeply important architecturally in the country … or at least the city. She'd had no idea. It had just been where Elf was playing to her. But it was nice to have him actually speak to her – and to articulate something that wasn't angry or depressing or about skateboarding.

He so rarely said anything about what he was studying, she sometimes wondered how much he was actually absorbing and if he was even enjoying it. But with the way his eyes were glowing and darting around the theatre in those moments before the lights dimmed – she was able to see a bit more about what was going on inside him and maybe why he was pursuing a degree in architecture and design. He did look truly in awe by the building.

After the performance had started, though, she had been concerned that Jack's enthusiasm was quickly going to dim. They musical was OK. She'd seen A LOT better but she'd also seen worse over the years. She wasn't sure that it was entirely the best introduction for either of them to Broadway. She was actually pretty sure she'd look over at Jack and see his eyes about ready to roll out of his head. But when she'd gawked down at him, that hadn't been what she'd found. His eyes had been on the stage and they still looked not only happy, but engaged. He was even smiling and there were several times she heard him laugh – a real, out-loud laugh. The first time she noticed it, she'd actually glanced at him again and had stopped to think if she'd ever actually heard him laugh yet. There were little snorts, minor chuckles or sly grins he'd give her regularly in their interactions – but she didn't think she'd actually heard him laugh out loud before.

Benji had seemed just as absorbed by the show – the bright colours and the music and the dancing and the silly little jokes. The first time Santa had appeared on stage, though, he'd pointed excitedly and near yelled out at the top of his lungs, "SANTA!", at which point she'd first felt like about the worst parent in the auditorium but had then pulled him into her lap and shh'ed him, whispering a reminder that they couldn't talk in the theatre – he needed to watch quietly. She'd also thanked fate that they'd somehow just managed to end up in aisle seats and in the second-to-last row of the section, so if he did fuss again, she could hopefully sneak him out without disturbing the entire theatre.

As the show went on, though, it was clear that Benji was far from the problem child in the auditorium. There were other parents who were having to deal with far more rowdy and loud children – and actually having to leave the performance. Benji, on the other hand, had calmed after being seated on her lap and it hadn't become an issue. He'd put his hands up to her ear and whispered a few questions or running commentary to her. But he mostly just sat on her lap – and it actually just added to her experience too, she thought.

There were points where Benji was nearly bouncing with excitement on her knee and he'd look up at her with these big eyes and glowing smile of near amazement. So even though, she really could've taken or left the show, it made every last cent she'd spent on the tickets worth it, for even one of those looks from him. Maybe another gift in it all was that at some point in the First Act, Jack had apparently realized she'd moved Benji to her lap and rather than continue sitting with a seat separating them, he'd actually moved over and claimed Benji's vacant seat so they were sitting next to each other. More behaviour she wouldn't have necessarily expected of him. Maybe she was selling Jack a little short, she'd thought.

"Are you liking it?" she'd asked Jack at intermission, as she stood with Benji and got him to do some giggles and shakes of the sillies out. She was sure the people around them thought they were crazy – and it looked like Jack might be trying to pretend he wasn't with them.

He'd just glanced at her from looking through the Playbill. "Yeah. It's pretty good," was all he offered.

She supposed there were certain undertones or at least settings in the show that Benji and Jack might be able to relate to on some level – beyond the hodge-podge morale of the story of the 'real spirit or Christmas' that was going on. The orphaned boy raised as an elf only to find out he's human and head to New York to discover his real family and help them capture the Christmas spirit. Then there was all the images of the city, including Macy's and Santaland popping up. And the general contrasts of a 'small town boy' trying to figure out how to operate in the jaded 'big city'. So it at least had a few layers to it – not that she thought Benji was picking up on any of them beyond Santa and the North Pole and elves and bright colours and happy music he could bounce along to on her knee (he'd just about lost his mind when the theatre started to fill up with snowflakes during the closing number). But it gave her something to at least try to engage with and something about it seemed to be capturing Jack's attention too.

"Did your dad take you out to much theatre growing up?" she'd asked, trying to make some conversation with him, after she'd given him some space and taken Benji on a bit of a circuit of the theatre to try to stretch his legs and ready him to sit still for the last part of the show.

Jack shook his head. "Nah. There's nothing like this in the county."

"What about up in Rochester?" she'd asked.

"Nah. We basically never went up there. We went into town to the movies or the drive-in sometimes. Been to a couple movies here. A concert at MSG last year. But first time doing this."

She nodded. She figured it was the first time he'd been to a Broadway show – but she was a little surprised it was the first time he'd ever been to a live production. That made her a little sad for him – but it also felt a little nice to be able to get to give him the chance to see something like that for the first time, and hopefully, he'd enjoy it enough that it wouldn't be the last. He hadn't said anything about it being girly or little kiddie or faggy, so she hoped that meant it was something he could maybe see himself doing again. Maybe going to a show at the holidays – or on a special occasion once and a while – could be something they could all share together in the future.

But she wasn't sure how he was doing now that they were at the restaurant. His body language seemed a lot more uncomfortable than in his quiet moments at the theatre before he seemed to relax into it and embrace the experience.

"How are you doing with the menu, Jack?" she asked and he met her eyes for a moment after gazing at something somewhere else in the restaurant, she wasn't sure what. But then he looked back down at the list of food.

"If you really hate it, we can go and just try to get in somewhere else," she offered. She wasn't sure how realistic that would be. Things would be busy in the immediate area – and really, likely most places in the city. They could likely get in at some of the restaurants that weren't just working on reservation bills that night – but they'd probably have to stand around and wait for a table for a while.

"Ah, it's OK," he said. "It's just that … a lot of the menu is in French."

She gave him a bit of a look and then looked back to her own menu. It looked in English to her. But really, she was fluent enough that the scattered French on the carte didn't seem that overwhelming to her. Really, she didn't think that some scattered extra 'e's and some 'le's and 'la's should be that overwhelming to him either.

"Umm … well, if I can help you translate something, let me know," she said. "Is there something you're struggling with?"

He looked up at her again. "You know French?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Yeah. More or less."

He examined her for several moments. "My mom's French," he offered.

She caught his eyes at that. He really hadn't said anything more about his mother since the first week they'd known each other. She didn't much feel it was something she needed to ask him about – and knew that it likely was a bad thing to dredge up given everything else he was dealing with at the moment. Still, it was an interesting little tidbit. She actually thought maybe she should've picked up on that. She'd so connected Jean-Paul and Isabelle to being heavily religious inspired names, she hadn't considered how French-sounding they both were.

She wasn't necessarily shocked by it. Jay had had a bit of something about the French – or at least the French language. Languages had been something they'd sort of shared, in a way. It wasn't surprising to her that he would've ended up with someone else he could've wooed with his fluency or at least flirted with in his piss-poor American accented European tongues.

But she realized that Jack likely didn't mean it as a tidbit at all. She rubbed at her eyebrow for a second.

"Ah, I'm sorry," she said. "I didn't realize. I just picked the restaurant because it seemed kind of trendy with kids your age and foodies. It was near the theatre, they had space for us. The menu looked OK to me. But, if you want to go somewhere else, we can."

Jack had actually eventually suggested the Shake Shack or Olive Garden as his top dinner choices. She'd thought he was being sort of ridiculous – especially given all the other great restaurant choices in the city. Shake Shack and Olive Garden didn't stand out to her as places you went to for a birthday meal … or ever. But maybe she should've just left well-enough be.

He'd just shrugged. "It's OK. She wasn't like real French like this anyway. Like Canadian French or whatever. It's just weird you are like … French too."

She allowed him a small smile at that. "I'm not French. I just … know French. And, if your mom is from Quebec, she wouldn't necessarily be French. Lots of people speak English there – especially around the border."

Jack examined her at that for a moment. "Montreal or something, I guess," he said flatly.

She nodded. "Well, there's lots of English in that city too – and in the communities just to the south of it, heading into Vermont and New Hampshire."

He eyed her again. "How do you know?"

She gave him a look and turned back to the menu for a second composing her thoughts. This was about as close to a civil discussion they'd reached regarding Jack's previous family life and some of her relationship with his dad.

"I've spent some time up in that area of Quebec," she offered. "Going up to Montreal used to be a bit of a thing when I was around your age. If you weren't going south to the beaches on Spring Break, you'd be heading up to Montreal and Tremblant for the skiing and the lower drinking age."

He snorted at that. "What's the drinking age?"

"Eighteen," she said and gave him a small smile.

"Good to know," he replied and she shook her head.

"Your dad never took you guys up there?" she asked a little surprised. The city really wouldn't have been that far from Horseheads for a summer road trip or even a weekend get-away if Jay still didn't mind driving, which he never seemed to when she knew him.

Jack just shrugged, though. "We never went much of anywhere. Farmers don't take vacations," he said flatly.

That made her a little sad for him too – like Jay hadn't gotten to spend time with his kids in the way he may have wanted to. But she supposed when you're a single parent, you don't always get to do as much with your kids the way you want. It's choices and balance and availability of time and money and opportunity. Still, it was a little depressing to think that they never had any sort of family vacation together. It was a strange thing to think about too because thinking of Jay as a father in the city she envisioned him as the kind of guy who'd have his kids out to museums and markets and parks and little events and activities around the city every chance he got. Or maybe that's how she wanted to see him as a father … or maybe that's just the kind of parent she wanted to be. The truth was that she never got to see Jay as a parent – and even if she had, raising children in New York would be very different than raising them in a rural community while where you lived was also where you had to work.

"What's it like?" Jack asked of Montreal and actually seemed interested.

She nodded and gave him another small smile. "It's a really interesting city. Your dad and I went up a couple times while we were together. It's always fun. Diverse. A bit of a party town. You'd likely find the architecture interesting. There's still a real European flavour to it – and the Church's role is still very prominent too. A lot of history."

"Dad went?"

"Well, he went with me a couple times. I don't know he went any other times after that. I assume he did. He'd definitely been before we'd gone together. He liked to have the opportunity to practice his French. Not that you need it that much in Montreal. Quebec City – a lot more. It's a really different city – that's definitely like you're in another country, or the other side of the world. But we only got there the once. I haven't been back to either in … ages at this point."

He eyed her more at that. "Dad spoke French?"

She gazed at him and suddenly felt a little uncomfortable but wasn't sure entirely why. Maybe because it felt like she knew something about his dad that he didn't – and it was a small piece of some puzzle that Jack was trying to put together, but maybe a piece that Jay didn't want him to know for whatever reason. But she tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear and gave a small nod. "Yeah. He did. He spoke a few languages when I knew him. We both did."

"You speak other languages?"

Him actually asking anything about her also seemed a little strange. He'd claimed multiple times that he knew all he needed to know from whatever stories his dad had told him. That he knew all about her. She still found herself wondering what exactly that meant – what the hell Jay had been saying to his son. But Jack had offered very little in terms of a preview of what that might be.

"Ah, I know Spanish and Italian too."

"How?"

She shrugged. "I studied them. I wanted to learn."

"Why? What's the point?"

She shrugged again. "It was something I was good at and it was kind of fun. And, it's actually come it fairly handy over the years with my job. It comes up more often than you think. I actually wish I knew a few other languages."

"What ones?"

"Ah, some of the Asian or Middle Eastern languages would be beneficial. I sort of wish I'd learned German too."

"Then why don't you just do it?" Jack asked seriously.

She shrugged again at that though. "Time. Age. Stage. Languages are harder to pick up as you get older. Your brain is finished wiring – and starting to shrink with its old age," she partially joked.

"So did you do like a semester abroad or something to learn any of the languages?"

She shook her head. "No. I've never done much travelling. I've been to Britain once – when I was a child, with my mother. And, I went to Italy once. That's about it. Besides Canada, for how much that counts."

"But not France?"

"No. I'd like to go to France. Someday. Very much."

"Did Dad?"

"Go to France? Ah. Yeah. Your dad did a backpack trip in Europe the summer of his freshman year at college."

"Really?" Jack asked with some real excitement in his voice.

She nodded. "To my recollection, yes. He had some funny stories. Pictures."

Jack gazed at her more at that. But she didn't know she remembered any of them well enough to tell and she just wasn't really sure what she was supposed to say. It sort of seemed like Jack knew less about his dad than he thought. But she also wondered a little why some of these things would've been parts of his life that Jay wouldn't have shared with his son.

Maybe they were achievements and dreams that he'd given up to raise his own family – and hadn't wanted his children to know what he'd put aside, to let them dream freely and to encourage them in that. She definitely got the sense that Jack had dreams and aspirations. But that he already felt like many of them were outside of his reach anymore. She hoped that they might be able to resolve some of that and at least make a couple of them achievable, if not realities.

Thankfully she didn't have to try to think of one of the stories that Jay had shared – or at least one that she thought would be OK to share with his son or with his four-year-old grandson sitting next to her. Or at least she didn't have to regurgitate anything like that for the moment … She got the sense that it might be something Jack would be following up on with the way he was looking at her so expectantly – in a way he never really had before, expect for perhaps the first-time they met and he'd eyed her up-and-down almost like he was expecting more or perhaps something or someone vastly different. But for the moment their server was back at the table.

"Do you have any questions about the menu?" he asked almost too politely, smoothing down the white apron wrapped tightly around his waist. "Or are you ready to place your order?"

Olivia looked up at him. "I think we're going to need a few more minutes," she told the man and he gave her a small smile and a little nod and disappeared further into the restaurant again. "So what do you think, Jack? Do you see something you want to eat?"

He shrugged. "Everything is so expensive."

She shook her head at him. "OK, you aren't supposed to be looking at the prices. Part of the reason I picked this place was because I thought the prices were pretty reasonable for what the food is. And, it's your birthday. It's a once a year thing – it's a treat. Your dad must've taken you out to dinner for your birthday?"

He shrugged again. "Yeah. But just to like Beef's or something."

"So what'd you order there? Steak?"

He looked at her and shook his head. "No. They didn't serve steak," he said flatly.

She looked at him more at that. With a name like Beef's she couldn't imagine what else they'd serve. "Hamburgers?" she questioned. That might explain why Shake Shack was on his list of preferred choices.

"No," he said.

"Do I want to know what they served?" she asked at that point.

"Like wings and stromboli and subs and stuff," he offered.

She nodded. She knew that there weren't likely a tonne of options in the Horseheads area – and that feeding a teenager, Jay probably wanted to go cheap, filling and greasy. But it sounded a little disgusting to her.

"Ah, well, do you mentioned pasta," she said. "They have some kinds of pasta here. They sound good. Or did you see the Prix Fixe menu?" she asked and reached across the table and tapped the top corner of his card.

He nodded. "Yeah, but it doesn't list any of the prices and it doesn't say what anything is."

She gazed at him for a moment again – and organized herself on how to deal with that comment in a way that wouldn't come across as patronizing or overbearing.

The afternoon with Jack was definitely proving a bit of an education to her about him too. He was a little more sheltered than she'd thought and he clearly hadn't experienced too much of the city since moving there – nor had he had the opportunity to be exposed to maybe a bit wider worldview … maybe even moderately culturally … while growing up. Things that she would've kind of expected to be common knowledge or an experience that an 18 or 19 year old kid would've had at that point seemed new to him … theatre, a moderately nicer restaurant, a Prix Fixe menu, basic understanding of a language on spoken on their own continent, vacationing, leaving the country … or even the state.

She'd had moments like that with Benji – where she was shocked and a little sad that he was just experiencing something with wide-eyed wonder for the first time. But her Little Fox was just four. Jack was technically an adult – but it seemed like he had some more room for experiences and growth than maybe she'd previously thought.

"OK, umm … the Prix Fixe menu is a three-course meal, Jack," she offered and tried to meet his eyes so hopefully he wouldn't feel like she was talking down to him. "So it's a fixed price – and you get an appetizer, an entrée and a dessert. If you're having trouble with what some the things listed there – I can help. Or, you can go back onto the regular section of the menu and see the description there. It's a good deal and has some interesting options. I'm going to get something off of the prix fixe."

Jack gazed at her a moment and then looked back at the menu. She thought he might be shutting down. But after several quiet seconds, he asked, "What's grilled hanger steak frites?"

"Hanger steak is a cut of beef. I'm not sure from where. You'd have to ask the server. Frites are just French fries. So it's steak and fries."

He nodded. "What's the other frites thing?"

She looked back to the menu. "Ah. That's mussels in … sort of a wine sauce … and fries. You might not like that much since you don't like seafood. Mussels are an acquired taste for a lot of people."

"What's 'Jamin going to eat here?" Jack asked with some skepticism in his voice.

She gave him a small smile at that. Benji was way more adventurous with his food than Jack gave him credit for. Benji had tried lots of things she'd put in front of him that Jack had turned up his nose at in the apartment.

"HUMMUS!" Benji declared.

She rubbed the little boy's shoulder at that. "We are going to get some hummus to share," she agreed with him before meeting Jack's eyes again. "I'm going to get him one of the soups and he'll share my meal."

He eyed her again at that. "What are you getting?"

She looked at Benji, who had been very content lining up some of his new Toy Boarders on the table along with his army men and the little police figurines he had. He was behaving really well – actually almost surprisingly well. She wasn't too sure how much she could expect out of him after having asked him to sit still and quiet in a theatre for more than two hours and to then come and be polite in a bit nicer restaurant. Though, there were other families in there, so she didn't feel that out of place having him in there. But it definitely wasn't the kind of place that brought out colouring placemats, crayons and kids' menus.

"What do you think, Benj? Do you want to eat chicken, spaghetti or couscous?"

Really, she was going to forego what would be her first choice if she'd been in there with friends or on a date or whatever. She wasn't going to order a $35 meal for Benji separately when he wouldn't come anywhere near eating it all – and when they really didn't need extra food sitting in the fridge at home with all the extra goodies and treats already in the place for the holidays. So – she'd eat whatever he thought he'd eat. She suspected the portions would be larger than she was prepared to stomach on her own anyway. She might as well share it with the little boy.

"Koz-Koz," Benji said with some confidence.

Jack gave him a funny look at that. "He knows what couscous is?"

She nodded. "We've had couscous salads before. He likes it."

Jack considered that comment and she could see more skepticism in his eyes. Couscous would not be something Jack would jump up-and-down about trying. But she was actually a little surprised that Benji was selecting it too, even with the option of spaghetti available.

"You sure, Benj?" she asked.

That actually likely would've been near her first choice – so maybe she was lucking out after all. It sounded good – and way less heavy than the spaghetti.

He nodded vigourously, though. So she gave him a small smile and shrugged. "OK," she agreed. She sure wasn't going to argue with him.

Jack eyed them some more and shook his head. "You're turning him weird," he said.

She snorted at that and Benji sat up on his knees on his chair and leaned across the table angrily.

"I NOT WEIRD, 'TUPID-HEAD!" he yelled far too loudly for the kind of restaurant they were in.

She shook her head at him and pushed his shoulder down. "Benjamin. Sit," she ordered, "and no shouting. We don't call people names."

He squinted at her as he placed his butt back on his heels. "I not weird!" he informed her.

She shook her head. "You are definitely not weird," she agreed.

Benji glared at Jack across the table. "I not weird," he informed him sternly again.

"Whatever," Jack grunted.

Olivia shook her head a bit more and rolled her eyes. "Don't antagonize him, Jack," she near pleaded.

He rolled his eyes at her at that. "We're from Horseheads. We don't eat … couscous," he said.

She shrugged. "Benji does. Let him eat what he wants."

Jack huffed but didn't argue further, looking back down at the menu again. "All this comes with dessert and we're having cake after, aren't we?" he asked.

"Ah, I actually just picked up some cupcakes, Jack," she told him and thought a bit of disappointment briefly flashed across his face.

"We just have so many other treats and sweets at the apartment right now," she felt the need to clarify. "I didn't really think we needed a whole cake around."

Jack gave a small shrug – and she supposed maybe she really should've run the cupcake plan by him before just making the decision herself. But – she still didn't think her logic was that flawed. They'd made cookies. There was chocolate and ice cream at home. She had some candy for their stockings. There was eggnog and hot chocolate and she'd even relented and picked up a bottle of Dr. Pepper and a bottle of Coke, as per Jack's request. Though, she had indicated to him that when they were gone – they were gone and she wouldn't be buying more for in her house until another holiday rolled around.

She really thought that there were going to be enough goodies around the apartment over the next several days that they might all end up in a diabetic coma anyway. She didn't need to add a whole cake for them to eat through to the mix as well.

"They're fancy cupcakes," she offered.

He shrugged. "Yeah. It's just that Dad always made me a cake."

She gave him a bit of a sad smile at that. She wasn't really sure what to say – but it made her feel a little bad again for having not asked him about what he wanted to do for a cake. She just hadn't particularly wanted to bake either. There was so many other things that needed to get done before Christmas to have his birthday right there too. She was doing her best to acknowledge it for him. But really it sort of felt like one extra thing to get through in the lead up to the holidays that she still didn't feel entirely prepared for. She wasn't really sure how Jay would've dealt with all that extra year-after-year – especially when Jack would've been younger and likely had higher expectations about getting to have his special day just before Christmas.

"He'd kind of go crazy," Jack said quietly and looked down a bit. "Like he'd do whatever I wanted. Like not just flavour … like shape. One year he did like a three-dimensional skate park with like a half-pipe. It was pretty awesome. Like Cake Boss awesome."

She gave him a bigger smile at that when he glanced up at her. That never was a side of Jay she saw – baking and decorating cakes? But it didn't take much for her to imagine Jay doing just about anything for his children – even sculpting cakes.

"But it's like Nan's cinnamon rolls, I guess," Jack said and looked back at the table. "It wouldn't be the same anyways."

She raised her eyebrow at him but conceded, "I'm not much of a baker – and I'm definitely not very artistic, likely even less-so with fondant."

He snorted at that and shot her a small look.

"They're from Crumbs," she offered again. "They're supposed to be very good."

"Highly recommended by other women at your office, right?" he said.

She shrugged. "Maybe."

"Girls have some sort of thing for cupcakes," he commented.

She snorted at that. "Everyone likes cupcakes, Jack. What's not to like about cupcakes?"

He gave her a look and rubbed his hand on the table like he was trying to come up with an answer.

"I like cupcakes Mommy Fox," Benji informed her with some glee in his voice.

She smiled at him. "I know you do, Benji. Are we going to put a candle on a birthday cupcake for Uncle Jack when we get home?"

Benji nodded. "We sing 'Appy Biff-day, Peedg!"

He snorted and shook his head at that. "Please don't."

"I pat-tice," Benji told him with even more enthusiasm.

Jack looked slightly horrified at that and glanced at her like he hoped she'd put a kibosh on Benji's singing idea – especially if he meant he was going to have a practice round in the middle of the restaurant. But she just gave Jack a thin smile.

"He has been practicing for you," she told him. "All week. You're in for a treat."

He gazed at her for a moment. "What kind did you get?" he asked quietly – apparently still a little hung up on the cake situation.

She shrugged and rubbed at her eyebrow. "I just got a sampler box. Hopefully there's something in there you like. It's all different kinds. You'll be able to try a couple."

"One have Mmmm-Mmmm-z, Peedg!" Benji declared. "I have 'dat one."

"Hey," Olivia said and looked at the little boy until he met her eyes. "What did we talk about? Who's birthday is it?"

He flopped his cheek against her arm and looked at her with his puppy-dog eyes. "Jee-Peedg," he said a little disappointed.

"Who gets to pick their cupcake first?"

He gazed at her again. "Peedg," Benji told her again.

She nodded. "Peedg."

Jack watched them and then said, "It's OK. He can have that one."

She gave him a thin smile. "OK. But we're still working on practicing some manners and some sharing, aren't we, Benji?"

The little boy was having some struggles at nursery school when it came to the concepts of manners and sharing – both when snack was being handed out and when the kids got free-play time. Apparently his shrieking and growling wasn't being as readily accepted there by his caretakers as appropriate behaviour and they'd basically asked her to have a talk with him at home. So she'd been trying.

He didn't seem that opposed to sharing at home – but he also didn't have any siblings or kids around that he had to share with. He'd share snack with her when she asked. But she'd also seen him be bossy and pushy at the playground. But Benji was always a little bossy and demanding. She didn't really want him to become that bossy annoying kid that none of the other kids ever really wanted to play with – or worse, for him to become a bully. So she was putting a bit more effort into correcting him when the opportunity presented itself.

He just rubbed his cheek against her more like that might get him a free pass. The cuter he was the more forgiving she'd be, right? At four, he seemed to think he might already have it all figured out and have her wrapped around his little finger. He might be right on some level – but she wasn't going to let him get away with things that easily. She wasn't used to being a pushover and she wasn't about to start with any child she was raising.

"Is there something you'd like to ask Jack about the cupcakes, Benj?"

He thought about it for a moment and then whispered against her. "Can I have Mmmm-Mmm-z?"

"May I please have …" she corrected him. "And look at your uncle when you ask."

He flared his nostrils against her sleeve and puffed his cheeks up but then turned to look across the table. "May I please have Mmmm-Mmmm-z, Peedg?"

Jack let out another snort at that but shrugged. "Yeah, sure, 'Jamin."

The little boy turned back to her and looked up to her maybe a little too triumphantly with a bit of a 'told-you-so' glean to his eyes. But there was also an expectation in them – like she was supposed to hand him the cupcake right then.

"Well, they aren't here, Benj," she told him. "And you've got to eat your dinner before you have sweets anyway."

He flared his nostrils again at that and looked back to his little men on the table – moving some of them around, like maybe now he was planning an attack to get at the cupcakes a bit faster.

"So again why order off the prix fixe thing when we're having dessert later?" Jack asked again.

She shrugged. "You don't have to order off the prix fixe, if you don't want to. But if you don't have room for the dessert – or you don't want two desserts tonight – I'm sure they'll package it up for you."

"I don't even see dessert on here unless they're even weirder looking words," he said, gazing at the menu again.

She allowed him a small smile at that. "The server will bring over the dessert menu when you're done your meal," she told him.

The server must've heard her mention him because he appeared only moments later.

"How are we doing?" he asked, his little notepad in hand and starting to look anxious to get their ticket in and likely their table freed up for the next reservation coming in after them.

Olivia glanced at Jack. "Are you ready?" she asked.

He nodded but looked back at the menu like he still was unsure. But she took his affirmative as permission to get the order in.

She glanced at the server. "OK. We're going to have the crudités to share."

"Your dip choices," the server interjected.

"Hummus," she said of the first and glanced at Jack, seeking any input he might have on the second choice. But he was still looking at the menu and she suspected he didn't have a clue what she was ordering for them anyway. "Ah …" she looked down the list again. She knew Jack seemed to have an aversion to hummus. Though, she didn't think he'd ever actually tried it. Still she thought she should likely pick something that wouldn't seem as foreign to him to go in the second dish on the platter. "Just the herbed dip," she offered.

"Would you like to add the breads and cheese to your platter?" the server asked.

She nodded. "Yes."

She wasn't sure how Jack would feel about goat cheese – but she was going to skip over telling him that it wasn't just … cheese. She actually wondered if the crudités might prove a little overwhelming or embarrassing for Jack as he gauged how he was supposed to eat it. But it wasn't exactly rocket-science or high-class dining. It was a veggie and dip platter. She knew Benji would almost dive into it and wouldn't think twice about piling hummus and cheese and olives onto a piece of cucumber or a round of bread. She could see Jack gazing at the appetizer like it was … from another country, she supposed. Really, though, she was more getting it for Benji. She wasn't sure how much of her meal he would eat and she wanted to make sure there was at least something on the table that she knew he would munch on.

"We're going to get a bowl of the onion soup for him," she tapped on the little boy's head. "And, then I'd like to get off the prix fixe: the arugula salad and the vegetarian couscous. And, please bring out an extra serving plate with my courses," she told the server. "I'm going to be setting him up with some of my meal," she nodded at Benji again.

The server nodded at her and turned to Jack, who glanced up from the menu again but looked back at it.

"And for you sir?" the server asked him.

It prompted Jack to look up at him again – giving him a bit of a look. She suspected there weren't many times in Jack's life he'd been referred to as 'sir'.

"Ah, I guess, I'll have the prix fixe thing too," Jack said. "The soup …"

"Which one would you like, sir?"

Jack stared at him blankly.

"Which soup would you like, sir?" the server seemed to think he was clarifying.

She looked across the table at the teen. "Pistou is a soup too, Jack. It's a vegetable soup. The onion soup is kind of … a baked soup. It will have a piece of bread floating on top of it with cheese melted onto it. I think you'd enjoy it."

Jack looked a little embarrassed again and she was really starting to feel bad about the restaurant choice too. She really hadn't known that it would be this hard for him.

"The onion," he said a bit more quietly, "and the steak."

"How would you like your steak, sir?"

"Medium rare."

"Very good," the server replied and retrieved their menus. "Your appetizers will be out shortly. Can I get you anything else to drink? More wine, ma'am?"

She shook her head but allowed a small nod at the end of it. "With my meal."

The server nodded. "And for the young men?"

She glanced at Benji but he looked like he was still doing fine with his juice and water. So she shook her head about him and looked across at Jack – but he just gave her a small headshake too.

"You're sure you don't want anything, Jack?" she asked. "A Coke?"

He just shrugged.

"My maitre-d informed me that you are celebrating a birthday tonight, sir," the server offered. "May I offer you a virgin cocktail or one of our other non-alcoholic beverages on-the-house? Specialty or otherwise?" Jack did allow him another small glance at that. "I'd like to recommend the Spicy Ginger."

Jack shrugged. "OK," he said.

"Very good," the server said again. "I will return with your drink, sir."

He disappeared again and Olivia gave Jack a small smile but he quickly broke the eye contact and started examining his hands in his lap.

"You doing OK?" she asked.

He shrugged. "It's just … weird … being somewhere like this," he said.

She gave him a bit of a sad smile at that. "I'm sorry, Jack. Making you uncomfortable wasn't my intention."

He shook his head. "It's not that. It's nice. Really," he sort of sputtered. "I don't know … it's just different."

She gave him another thin smile and a small nod. "Well, it's no Beef's in Horseheads," she offered.

He seemed smile a bit wider and more real at that comment and allowed a small shake of his head.

"Did Dad do stuff like this when he lived here?" he asked and glanced up at her.

She rubbed at her eyebrow and took her turn to examine the table at that. "I really don't know, Jack. I didn't know your dad while he was living in the city after school. And, he never came down into the city with me while we were together."

He glanced up at her. "Why not?"

She shrugged. "I guess maybe partially because I never invited him. I didn't much want him to meet my mother. And, he seemed to really like getting home on the various breaks during the year to spend time with your grandparents. He seemed really close to his family back then. I'd imagine he did things like this while he was here, though. I know he was very excited about the concept of getting to live and work in New York. He wanted to experience city life."

Jack nodded. "I can't imagine my dad living here," he said quietly.

She gave a little snort at that and allowed him a small smile. "Back then, I couldn't imagine your dad living here either. But it was something he really wanted – and obviously he did it."

"Sort of," Jack said softly.

She nodded. "He did it, Jack," she assured him. "Sometimes things just don't work out the way we expected – or after we get them we decide they aren't what we want. Wants and priorities are allowed to change. They do change."

"Yours changed?"

She nodded again and glanced at Benji. "Yeah. Mine have changed a lot over the years. I'm not the same person I was when I knew your dad. I'm not the same person I was when I became a detective. I'm not even the same person I was a year-and-a-half ago. Life takes us in all different sorts of directions. That's not wrong. It's just life."


	76. Chapter 76

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She had thought they were going pretty good. The afternoon had gone well. But now she was really starting to wonder if it had proven to be too much for Jack – or he really hadn't enjoyed it.

Jack had actually seemed to really enjoy his meal after it got brought out to him. He clearly loved the soup – as had Benji, who had made quite the production of stringing the cheese halfway above his head and lowering it into his waiting mouth. It was borderline disgusting – and possibly more than slightly embarrassing behaviour for the kind of restaurant they were in. They were clearly a high-class family.

Jack had been just as enthusiastic about his entrée. He'd commented that the fries were 'the best fries ever'. She wasn't sure what he was ranking them against – but if it was fast food restaurants, she was sure they didn't have much competition. His declaration, though, had prompted Benji's attention and him wanting to try some. Jack hadn't been that willing to share and even after he'd reluctantly put two on Benji's plate and the little boy decided he wanted more – she'd been almost concerned there was going to be a confrontation over fucking French fries between the two boys. But she'd managed to dissipate it with some talking at Benji about manners and behaviour and Jack's birthday and eating his own meal. He'd reluctantly sat back down and focused on his own food but she'd seen him eyeing Jack's plate for the rest of dinner. The teen had noticed too and eventually put another two fries on Benji's plate, which he'd gleefully eaten.

She'd enjoyed her meal too and Benji hadn't had any qualms about helping her eat through it. Though, he'd declared that it was "reallllly 'picy" – and, really he'd been more focused on the crudités, which he'd put a pretty good dent in all on his own even with Jack and Olivia grazing on it as well.

She'd ended up having part of her meal packaged to take home. She figured she could take it in for lunch – or leave it in the fridge on the hopes that Jack might try it and not just start eating through the holiday goodies while she was at work and Benji at daycare. Neither of them had had their desserts brought to the table – far to full and Jack had indicated he wanted to have room for a cupcake when they did get home. So they'd both order the beignets, after she'd again explained to Jack what they were – and really the chocolate fritters were about the only transportable menu item available – and they'd had them package up to take with them as well.

She'd made them walk home a bit of the long way so they could go see the tree in Rockefeller Plaza.

Almost immediately after getting there Jack had decided he was more interested in checking out the NBC store than looking at the tree. The plaza was crowded enough as it was – the store looked like the people in there could hardly move it was so bursting. But she hadn't wanted them to get too badly separated and to have to try to find each other in the mobs of people. So she'd followed him in, eventually picking up Benji and holding him on her hip, for fear of losing him or having him trampled by people who didn't seem to be looking where they were going at all.

It became apparent rather quickly that it was another area of the city that Jack had never been in. Not that he'd have a huge reason to ever frequent it. But it seemed like the sort of place that a university kid who wasn't from the city would at least check out at some point. Apparently not Jack, though.

She was starting to wonder what he did the previous academic year when he wasn't studying. But maybe he'd been so obsessed with maintaining his scholarship then that all he had done had been study. This fall, he'd definitely had other things on his mind, so she could forgive him that. Still, she really hoped he was able to reach the point that he'd feel some comfort about actually getting out and really exploring the city and taking advantage of the opportunities available in it – things to see and do and experience – while he was there and going to school.

There was a whole lot more to New York than the university campus, studying, skateboarding spots, Starbucks and pizza joints. She really hoped he'd see that and take advantage of it while the opportunity was there for him.

Jack noted to her that the place did tours. She wasn't sure if that was supposed to be some sort of hint. But she had pointed out that the last tour of the day had already left. Even if it hadn't, the price to go and look at some empty television studios looked kind of ridiculous – she wasn't interested. And, she really doubted it was something that would hold Benji's attention at all.

"This is where SNL is filmed?" he'd asked.

She shrugged. "I think so."

"Well do they take you into the SNL studios?"

She shrugged again. "You'd have to go up to the desk and ask."

"You've never done the tour?"

She shook her head. "No. I live here. I'm not a tourist."

He made a face at her at that comment. But she glanced at the prices again as he disappeared into the store and noted there were gift certificates. She wondered how serious he was about it being something he wanted to do. She thought she was done Christmas shopping – but maybe another stocking stuffer wouldn't killer her. She didn't really want to stand in the line then, though, and she doubted she'd have the time to get over there tomorrow. The place would likely be even more of a lonely bin on Christmas Eve day anyway.

She followed after him. Benji wasn't that impressed that she wasn't putting him down – and he kept wanting to touch things or making sounds when assholes kept bumping into them and not excusing themselves. Or worse – being pushed into them by other assholes who weren't apologizing to anyone involved in the collision. God, she wanted Jack to finish looking – so they could just look at the tree, let Benji tell them the figure skaters weren't really skaters and they could get home. So much for her idea to show the boys the giant Christmas tree. She should've known better about how busy the area would be.

Jack seemed to think about every tshirt in the store was hilarious and kept holding one up to her for her to look at. Again, she wasn't sure if this was more hints – unfortunately overdue and not influencing any pending purchases – or if he really just thought they were amusing. Most of them weren't from shows she'd ever watched – or even knew existed. So they didn't strike her are particularly humourous. Others just seemed vastly inappropriate.

"You can't wear that in public," she said at one.

He rolled his eyes at her. "Sure you can," he said. "It's funny."

"It's obnoxious," she corrected.

"Same thing."

She shook her head. "It's not the same thing."

He wandered some more as Benji literally started whining almost continuously against her shoulder. "Mommmmmmmmmmmmmmmiiiiiieeeee ee FOX!" he'd end each long yowl. Jack seemed completely oblivious to just how bored and frustrated his nephew was though.

He finally held up another one at her. "There," he said. "That one's for you."

"Parenthood is hearing 'I hate you' and knowing you're doing something right," the shirt said.

She looked at it for a moment and then looked at him. She wasn't sure how to take it. If it was touching in a way – or if he really didn't mean much of anything by it. She sort of expected the latter.

"Well, I haven't heard 'I hate you' from you yet today," she commented. "Does that mean this isn't going as well as I thought?"

He shrugged and put it back on the rack. "I'm having fun," he mumbled without meeting her eyes. But at least he responded – and he hadn't mocked that she'd cautiously interpreted the parenthood comment as being directed at her and her abilities with him, rather than with Benji.

She sighed though as the little boy beat against her shoulder again. "OK, Jack, if you are going to keep on looking, Benji and I are going to have to wait outside. This is just too crowded for him. We'll be over by the tree – just to the left of the door we came in – not down by the rink. We'll wait for you before going over to that side."

"Yeah. Whatever," he mumbled at her again, still flipping through the shirts.

She shook her head at him. Sometimes she couldn't tell if she was making headway with him or not. "OK. We'll see you out there. Don't be too much longer."

He sort of grunted at her and she started to maneuver around the mob scene to get Benji and herself out of the heat, stuffiness, crowding and pushing - and back outside where there was some more breathable air but about just as many people. Still she was able to put the little boy's feet back on the ground.

"OK, Benj, until we leave here – you are NOT to let go of Mommy Fox's hand. Your hand in mine at all times. Understand?"

He gazed up at her and nodded.

"What are we doing, baby?"

"Holding hands?"

"Holding hands – TIGHT," she stressed again. "DON'T let go."

But she did manage to guide him over closer to the tree and after they got over there, he seemed happy for her to pick him up again so he could take a look at it.

"It waaaaaaaaaaaay bigger than our tree Mommy," he'd told her stretching his neck as far back as it would go and looking all the way up to top.

She'd heard the 'Mommy' without the 'Fox' and felt it sit with her. But she didn't want to verbally acknowledge it – as much as she wanted to. She wanted Benji to make that transition on his own terms and in his own time. She wasn't sure if it was just another slip … another one-off, like his nosebleed night … or if this could really be the start of the transition; from 'Livia to Mommy Fox to Mommy. Though, she imagined she'd still spend some time, if not always, being some combination of all three.

She put a little kiss on his cheek after he said it, though, and juggled him a bit closer to her as she balanced him against her. He gave her a look as she did it. She gave him a smile. "Love you Little Fox," she told him softly.

He got a bit of a silly little boy grin on his face and smacked his mitted hands against her cheeks, pushing them back into some sort of contorted face that she was sure likely looked rather hideous but then he planted a sloppy kiss on her one cheekbone. "Mmmmmmaaaaammmhhhhhhaaaa," he made in his kiss-mimicking sound as he did lay the kiss on her.

She smiled at him more and shook her head. "Silly," she told him and adjusted his hat a bit after his tree gazing efforts. But then she pointed way up until his head followed again. "You see the star all the way up on the top, Benj?" He gazed but didn't reply. She rubbed her cheek against his. "We'll see it better from the other side. We'll go look when Uncle Jack comes back out."

"Why it only have white lights Mommy?" he asked.

"Mmm, I don't know, baby. It's likely easier that way. It looks really pretty, doesn't it?"

"It glowin' like an angel. Right, Mommy?"

She gave him another smile. "Absolutely right, sweetheart."

"Do Santa leave presents under 'dis tree too?"

She shook her head. "I don't think so. Because it's not in a home. This tree is for everyone in the whole city to come and enjoy. Look at how many people are here enjoying it tonight."

Benji glanced around them in the crowded plaza. "There lots," he said.

She nodded. "Lots and lots," she agreed.

It had taken another about 15 minutes before Jack had finally appeared and with a bag. She gazed at him and shook her head.

"What'd you buy?" she asked. Nothing in that store was remotely cheap. It was aimed at tourists looking to spend a small fortune.

He held up a tshirt that said "Bears. Beets. Battlestar Galactica." at her.

"Is it funny?" she asked. Because it sure didn't look funny to her.

"Trust me. It's hilarious," he said. "Especially since I'm from a farm."

At least it wasn't one of the ones that said Frak Off or That's What She Said or Blow Your Pants Off or Assman. She wasn't trying to be an uptight prude. But there were some things that she thought might be awesomely hilarious to teenaged boys or in a university residence that really didn't need to be explained to a four-year-old.

"Is it a Battlestar Galactica tshirt?" she asked, in a bit of disbelief that he'd spent money on a shirt that had about 30 characters on it and no logo or graphic of any kind.

"No. It's The Office," he said. "From when it used to be funny."

She shook her head again. "You realize we've got birthday presents for you to open at home? And that Christmas is in … basically a day?"

He shrugged. "Yeah. But you didn't get me this."

She laughed somewhere between annoyed, frustrated and amused. At least it was the first time she'd ever seen him buy anything for himself beyond food. So it wasn't like he spent his money on ridiculous things regularly. She just thought he'd picked a slightly ridiculous time to actually spend money on himself.

"OK, then …" she finally said. "Can we move to the other side of the tree now and look?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Sure."

She shook her head at him but started working at finding breaks in the crowd to work their way around to the opposite side. Getting over wasn't as challenging as she thought it might be. Jack hadn't seemed that impressed with the tree, though, he did stand quietly and gaze at it while Benji babbled about it being the biggest tree ever and probably taller than half the buildings in the city and having about a quadruple-dillion lights on it. He'd been far too taken with the size of the tree, all the sparkling lights on it and the gold of the statues and angels down the walkway to provide much commentary on the wrongness of the figure skaters. She wasn't even sure he entirely noticed them. That wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She didn't really want to get into a debate with him and she thought Jack might do his best to rile up the boy if he did get going.

They'd eventually started to leave but Jack had then pointed out that they were right next to the Lego store and had actually asked if they could go in rather than barging straight for it like the NBC store. So, she'd reluctantly agreed to go and take a look in there. It didn't look quite as ridiculously busy as the NBC store but it was certainly crowded too.

Still, she found it interesting to watch the two boys in it – and the other men in the store. It was a little eyeopening in that it looked like a lot of men didn't ever really outgrow Lego. There were definitely men in there on their own – who, she supposed could be fathers picking up last minute Christmas gifts. But some of them she just got the impression they were browsing – like Jack.

She had wondered if Jack would be even interested in Lego or if it was something he'd had outgrown. She'd seen him playing with Benji's Duplo blocks. But that always looked like he was sort of putting together some structure for the little boy – or at least the illusion of it all being for Benji.

The teen headed over to the Lego Architecture section, though, to look at those sets. So she hoped too that was a sign that he'd enjoy getting to open up one of the landmarks on Christmas morning.

He'd held one box at Benji of the Rockefeller Center. "That's where we are right now," he said to the little boy.

Benji looked unimpressed. "We at the Lego 'tore," he replied like Jack was about the dumbest person ever. Olivia had to hold in a bit of a laugh at that – and it was hard because the comment was tugging at the sides of her mouth, trying to make her smile so much.

Benji had been much more impressed with a series that appeared to be dinosaur themed and then some other sets that looked like they had a whole series of heavy construction equipment. He was even more impressed with the sizes of some of the boxes. She'd eventually had to tell him that the boxes said they were ages five and up – so he was still too little.

"Five come after four," he told her.

She nodded. "It does. But right now you're four. So maybe you can ask for Lego for your birthday – or you can ask Santa next year. This year – too little."

"How old I now?"

"You're four," she clarified. She knew he knew that. She wasn't sure what he was asking.

"Four and half?" he asked.

She shook her head. "Not even four and a half yet, Benji. You're four and about three months. You still have lots of months to go until five."

"Then I big enough for Lego?"

"Then you'll be big enough for Lego," she agreed and glanced at some of the boxes again. If she thought Transformers were bad, she didn't want to imagine the headaches involved in putting together these sets and having to manage them if he ripped them apart. She supposed it was a good thing that Jack looked interested in Lego – hopefully that could be his job on weekend visits.

Right then, Jack was actually looking at some of the sets in the series that she'd picked from for Calvin. So she prayed that meant that a 13-year-old boy would appreciate that as a gift too. She really had no idea what to get him. She didn't know him well enough anymore. Or at least not as well as she'd like. He only really complained about school or his grandparents when she did get to speak to him. That didn't provide her much to go on in terms of his interests.

She was a little nervous about seeing him the next morning. She hoped the visit went OK. It had been so long since she'd actually gotten to see him. If it wasn't for all the pictures he was posting on Facebook – with piss-poor privacy settings that he never seemed to go and improve no matter how much she encouraged him to – she wouldn't even really know what he looked like anymore. But he certainly looked a lot more grown-up than he had the last time she'd seen him.

It had been during the walk from the plaza back to her building that Jack had suddenly gotten really quiet. Maybe not compared to usual – but compared to the rapport they'd managed that day. She'd tried to make some more small talk with him but she started to get the usual grunts or one-word answers from him.

She'd tried to reflect back on what had happened between the restaurant and then and if she'd have said something that would've shut him down. The only thing she could think of was having mocked his tshirt purchase. But he hadn't seemed that upset in the period immediately following her comment.

She sometimes felt like the comments you hear about dealing with the moodiness of teenaged girls were a bit of a fallacy. Teenaged girls could definitely be mean bitches. But teenaged boys seemed just as moody to her, as far as she could gauge. They were a bit like navigating a minefield too.

Not long after they got in the door at the apartment, he'd declared he was going to use the bathroom and change into 'real clothes.' She'd just nodded and had started getting the cupcakes and some plates and forks out; some glasses for milk or whatever carbonated chemical product Jack wanted to ingest – and finally, taking the ice cream out of the freeze to thaw a bit, in case he decided he wanted some of that too. She had Benji go and get the few birthday presents from their 'hiding spot' on a chair at the dining table and put them over on the coffee table too so his uncle could open them. But by the time all that was finished, Jack still hadn't reappeared from the bedroom and its door was firmly shut.

So she'd moved Benji over to the couch and they'd flicked through the channels on the television until she actually did find a showing of the Peanuts' Christmas and left it on for the little boy. As they reached the first commercial break, though, she glanced over her shoulder at the door again. She sighed and looked at Benji. He seemed pretty engaged with playing with the ornaments and watching the show, so she stood from the couch and walked over to the bedroom.

She tapped on the door. "Jack? Are you decent? Can I come in?"

There wasn't an answer.

"Are you OK in there?"

"I'm fine," came a quiet reply.

"Are you going to come out for a cupcake and to open your presents?" she asked.

"In a bit," she heard mumbled from the other side of the door.

She sighed and put her forehead against the door. "Well, Benji is really excited for you to open the one present – and it's starting to get close to his bedtime, Jack. You think you'll be out soon?"

"Yeah," he said weakly.

She sighed again and thought about it for a moment. She looked back over at the television. The show was back on at that point and Benji seemed distracted. So, she twisted the knob on the door and pushed it open a crack. She knew Jack would've seen and heard it – but no protest came from him, so she pushed it open a bit more until she could see him. He was just sitting on the edge of the bed, his elbows resting on his knees, examining the floor. He was still dressed in the clothes he'd had on all afternoon.

She watched him for a moment and then stepped into the room and shut the door behind her. She went and sat next to him on the bed and gave his back a small rub. He didn't jerk away.

"You want to talk about it?" she offered. She knew even though he had seemed to enjoy the day, as far as she could tell, it was a hard day for him. It was clear he'd been thinking of his dad. And, the immediate proximity to Christmas wasn't making things any easier on him. His body was there – but she knew his mind was lots of other places that weren't exactly happy.

He shook his head.

She nodded. "OK. Do you think you're going to want to come back out tonight?"

He shrugged.

She gave him a weak smile and rubbed his back a bit more. "Benji would really like to spend a bit more time with you, if you think you're able to come back out," she told him.

"Why are you being so nice to me?" he asked quietly after several minutes of silence while she keep her hand resting on his back and giving it the occasional small rub. She could feel how slow and shallow his breathing was – like he was trying not to cry.

She shrugged. "It's your birthday. It's nice to be nice to people on their birthday," she responded.

He gave her the smallest glance ever. "I don't just mean that. I've been really mean to you and you keep trying to be nice to me."

She snorted at that and watched him. "You haven't been mean to me, Jack," she told him. "You've been kind of obnoxious to me fairly regularly. I wish you wouldn't be – but you're also a teenager. So it's not entirely unexpected. Does it annoy me? Yes. Does it piss me off a bit sometimes? Yes. But does it hurt me? No. It's nothing I can't handle. I've got a pretty thick skin. Most of the stuff you're doing that you think might be 'mean' to me – it's more hurting you … and sometimes Benji … then it is me."

"Then why do you keep being nice to me? You don't even have to now that I signed the papers for you."

She rubbed his back a bit harder at that. "Jack, I'm not trying to establish a relationship with you just so I can have a relationship with Benji. I wasn't being nice to you just to get you to sign the papers. I would've still been respectful of you – even if you had decided not to sign the paperwork. I'm being nice to you – I'm trying to get to know you – because I want to have a relationship with you too. I want to know you – have you in my life as well. Not just Benji."

"Why?" he said and his voice cracked a bit.

"Why not, Jack?" she returned.

He just shrugged.

She shook her head. "Well, I haven't seen any reason why not. I think you're a pretty interesting guy after we get past your tough-guy exterior. And, when you aren't giving attitude – when you're actually talking – you're a pretty fun guy to be around too, Jack."

"But you did all this stuff for me today and you have birthday presents out there and … you got me Christmas presents. It's just … I don't understand … you didn't have to do that."

She looked at him again. "I know I didn't have to do that, Jack. I wanted to do that."

"It's too much," he said.

She shook her head at him. "It likely looks like more than it is, Jack. Trust me – some of the gifts aren't that exciting. There's clothes. There's some things Benji needs. That big one out there is just a comforter set for his new bed upstairs. It was something I was going to have to buy for him anyway. You don't have to worry about it. It's not anything to get upset about. I wasn't trying to make you feel uncomfortable."

"But you didn't have to get me anything," he stressed again. "You didn't have to do any of this."

She nodded. "I know, Jack. I wanted to. I wanted you to have a Christmas too. I wanted you to have a birthday. The things we did today – the play, a family meal, going and seeing the tree. That's not the sort of thing that I get to do usually. It was nice for me too. It's for me too. There's a selfish aspect to it."

He gave her a small glance again. He rubbed at his face – so she rubbed his back again.

"It's OK," she assured him. "It looks like you bought way more than I expected too – spent way more than you needed to or that I wanted you to … or that you should've. I wasn't expecting you to get me anything. The only thing I wanted and expected from you was to have something under the tree for Benji. I wouldn't have cared if you'd gotten him a toy or chocolate bar from the 99-cent store – as long as he had something to open from you. By the looks of it, you did a lot more than that. More than you needed to."

"He hasn't had presents before," Jack mumbled.

She nodded. "I know – and you haven't had presents in a long time either."

He made a sad sound and she rubbed his back harder, as he rammed the heels of his hands into his eyes.

"Com'on," she encouraged, "don't get so upset about happy things, nice things. Not a few presents. This is definitely not worth getting so worked up about."

He nodded but didn't look at her and kept his hands at his face.

She draped her one arm around his shoulders and shook him a bit in a loose half-hug.

"Com'on, Jack," she said softly. "Take a few minutes to calm down – and go wash your face and then come back out. We're watching a Charlie Brown Christmas. Come watch the end of it with us – and then we'll listen to Benji's singing, have a cupcake – and you can either open your presents or we can let Benj put them under the tree for you when you're ready."

He moved his head a little and she ran her hand through the hair on the back of his neck and gave him a small smile even though he wasn't looking at her.

"OK, Good Man," she said and stood back up, giving his one shoulder another small squeeze. "I'll see you back out there soon. Take as long as you need. But you know you don't want to miss the end of Charlie Brown."

He made a small noise that sounded like a half laugh … or maybe a quarter … so she moved back towards the door and stepped outside to give him a few more minutes of privacy.


	77. Chapter 77

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She really had no idea what she was doing. But Jack had held up a controller at her after she'd gotten Benji to bed – and since he was putting in an effort, so was she. The sad part, though, was that when she'd let Benji excitedly play the new video game with his uncle for 20 minutes before bath-time and bed – from what she'd seen it'd looked like the little boy had managed a hell of a lot better than her.

Jack had given her a minor tutorial – pointing at some of the pads and buttons and triggers on the controller when she'd taken a seat on the couch with him. "Move, balance, push," he'd said, "and just button mash for tricks."

She'd nodded – and really button mash was all she was doing. That wasn't even accomplishing much. Jack had grabbed the controller back from her after a couple minutes of play and had apparently set her character on 'ridiculously easy' since she 'sucked'. It hadn't really helped at all. While Jack's character on the screen might as well have been going through a ballet motion of movements – not so unlike the few times she had seen actually Jack skate and effortlessly move from one trick to another – her character on the screen would barely move before it was on the ground again. She was sure in real-life half the skin on her face, elbows and knees would be left on the concrete of the street at this point.

But at least Jack seemed to like the game. He seemed to be engaged in it – not really caring how badly she 'sucked' at it – or having protested when she asked him to let Benji play with him when he'd first taken the plastic off of Skate 3, a game that Gecko had told her Jack was constantly playing on the game system the store but apparently didn't have himself.

He'd seemed to like his other gifts too, and she hadn't been sure he would've. But when he did back out of the bedroom – he'd put a bit of a pained smile on his face and let Benji dote on him for what was left of the rest of his birthday. He'd cringed a bit when Benji had sung and put his fingers in his ears, which only prompted Benji to do a second round of Happy Birthday for him. And, though, he'd let the little boy claim the M&M's cupcake as promised, he'd stood over the other five in deep thought before picking one.

"You can have more than one, Jack," she'd told him, after his thought process was starting to reach the epic lengths of time that it sometimes took Benji to make any sort of decision. "There's enough for two each – and really, I'm not likely going to eat two."

He glanced at her. "Not tonight?"

"You can have my second one," she clarified. "So there – you've got three choices."

He'd just looked back at the box. "They should give you a map – like in chocolate boxes," he'd commented. "So you know what you're picking."

She'd snorted a bit at that. He'd finally settled on the one that was apparently chocolate mint – to go with his candy cane crackle ice cream. She made a mental note of his affinity for chocolate mint – but it was definitely not something she thought she'd much want to stomach. She supposed that meant more for him – and he seemed to think it all was fantastic. There weren't any more comments about his dad's cake or missing out on that. She wasn't sure if he was thinking it and just not saying it – or if the cupcake, such as it was, did turn out to be a reasonable replacement.

She'd found the one she'd picked out to be way too sweet for her, even though she'd thought she'd aired on the side of caution when she'd picked oen that looked more vanilla-y than the mounding decadent chocolates of some of the kinds that had been put in the box. But after a couple forkfuls of hers, she'd ended up cutting what was left in half and moving it to the boys' plates. Neither of them had made any protest about that.

When they'd gone back over to the couch to open his presents, Jack had seemed to have calmed into things a bit more again. His thin smile didn't seem as laboured and his body language was more relaxed. It seemed like he wasn't just trying for Benji's sake (or at her request) and that he might be enjoying himself a bit again.

"Three presents?" he'd commented when she instructed Benji on which one to hand to him first.

That comment just prompted Benji to hold up the smallest package containing the videogame. "'Dis the best one Peedg. But I not 'llow'd to tell you wazzit is. Des boring tho," he added of the box he handed to his uncle.

Jack snorted and looked at her. She just shrugged and rubbed at her eyebrow at that. They likely were pretty boring to a four-year-old.

"Watch how Jack opens his presents, Benj," she instructed instead, "so you know what you've got to do on Tuesday morning."

"Chris-miss?"

She nodded. "Tuesday is Christmas."

Jack worked on opening up the box and took out the Volcom cap and held it up. He gave her a smile. "Thanks," he offered softly.

She nodded at him. "If my sources were wrong about which one you wanted – you can say," she told him. "You can go switch it."

He shook his head and worked at peeling the sticker off the rim. "This is the one I wanted," he said, and flexed the rim of the stone grey cap and then ran his hand through his hair and adjusted it up and down his forehead and onto his head.

She thought he looked better in that colour – less pale. And the hat itself certainly looked less gross. She doubted that caps were something that Jack ever considered washing – even though it looked like he pretty much constantly his previous one his head and was obviously wearing it while sweating and 'exercising' with his skateboarding.

"Good?" he asked, obviously still trying.

She nodded and gave a small shrug. She didn't want him to suggest that it was creepy that she was looking at him again. "Looks good to me," she allowed, though.

His eyes had lit up a bit more when he'd opened the other box and pulled out the hooded henley made by the same company as the cap.

"I can't believe Gecko sent you over to Volcom," he said holding the shirt in front of himself and examining it. "He always says I'm a traitor for going label."

She snorted and shook her head at that. "He didn't say anything about that to me."

He glanced at her. "I kind of think the size might be wrong, though," he told her cautiously.

She nodded. She'd taken a risk with that. She knew he'd likely feel that way. She knew from when he was living with her and she'd done some of his laundry that he usually wore extra-large in his shirts and hoodies. She'd even seen a couple Double-XL. But there was no way Jack was anywhere near an extra-large, if he was going to wear clothes that actually fit him. She thought he was more likely a medium – maybe a large, depending on how broad his shoulders and chest actually were, which was really hard to tell with him wearing such baggy clothing all the time.

She knew he might protest the size of the shirt and want to return it – but she'd decided to see what happened when he was given a smaller size. She wasn't going to try to completely change his look – but she thought maybe he needed someone to give him some gentle pushes towards what was more appropriate attire for someone his age. She knew he hoped to get into skate park design – but he'd also expressed that he wanted to do that while working with cities and municipalities, wading through bureaucracy, to use and revitalized under-utilized space. He couldn't be going into meetings like that dressed in clothes that didn't even fit him. She figured he'd also likely have internships and summer jobs starting to come up as he worked through his college career. She thought maybe trying to encourage him to at least size his clothes properly might be a step in the right direction.

"Well, try it on," she said, "if it doesn't fit, I'll give you the receipt. You can go and return it."

He examined her for a moment and then stood from the couch and pulled his sweater and dress shirt up and over his head in one movement. She hadn't expected him to do that right there in front of them – he usually seemed so bashful - and with his earlier accusation of her looking at him as a sex object or something of the sort. She also just really hadn't expected him to do it right then. She thought he'd likely just tell her the next morning that he'd tried it and didn't like the way it fit and wanted the receipt. But tossing the day's tops onto the couch, he picked up the new shirt and pulled it up and over his head and then tugged it down his front.

He looked down at himself after he got it on and then glanced at her and tugged at the hem of the shirt a bit more.

"I think it's a little small," he said.

She gave him a small smile. "That's actually the way it's supposed to fit," she told him. "It's a slim cut. So at the risk of being accused of being creepy again – it looks good on you. You can see your arms. It's fitting across your chest the way it should. And, it pairs nicely with those pants," she added.

They did – and she thought that was likely something that someone needed to tell him. She didn't think he'd necessarily know on his own. And, if he did keep the shirt – it would mean that he'd have a shirt and a pair of pants that actually fit him and he could still look like some sort of teenaged skater kid.

Really, too, she wasn't going to tell him, but wearing clothes that actually fit would likely help him with the ladies. The kid had really defined biceps and chest - and in his quick change in the middle of the living room she'd seen his abs before she'd looked down to watch his nephew instead. She knew most of the definition would've come from spending his teens, and the past summer, working on the farm. But she was sure his skating – and the physical activity that provided for him – hadn't done any harm to keeping him in shape either. Jay was a few years older when she'd been dating him. Still his son looked a lot more fit than she even remembered his father being - and Jay had kept busy with his sports too.

"Leave it on for a few minutes," she suggested. "Think about it. I'll get the receipt out for you. I don't care if you want to go and get a different size or pick something else."

He just nodded. It was kind of a weak nod where she thought he was likely just humouring her. But it had now been a couple hours and he still had the shirt on and hadn't said anything more about it.

His cellphone buzzed and he put his controller down on his lap and fished it out of his pocket and looked at what must've been a text message. He pushed up his screen to get access to the QWERTY keypad on his rather dated phone. It was about the fifth time in the last couple hours that the phone had buzzed and he'd wordlessly looked at it – sometimes responding and sometimes just shoving it back in his pocket, she'd noted.

On the TV screen, Olivia noticed, that even with him not touching the controller anymore, his character on the screen was still managing to stay upright and not doing the face-plants that she seemed to be becoming an expert at without even trying. In her glance and button mashing, though, she'd apparently managed to do something and her controller vibrated in her hand. She looked back to her section on the screen. It looked like she'd managed to hop up onto the edge of a fountain and her skateboarder was sort of grinding around it.

"Oooh, I'm doing something," she exclaimed, probably a little too excited about the accidental achievement on the videogame.

Jack glanced up from what he was doing and at the screen. "Balance," he commented. She was sure he'd shown her how to do that – but she had no idea which button or pad or bumper or trigger that was anymore and while she glanced down at the controller in her hand, Jack added, "Too late." Her controller stopped vibrating and she looked back up to the screen and found that her skateboarder was once again sprawled out on the ground and looking none too happy about it.

She sighed and glanced at Jack as he shoved his phone back into his pocket and picked up the controller again.

"Is someone trying to get a hold of you?" she asked.

He just shrugged and went back to moving his character around the screen. He seemed to be almost doing tricks in time to what he'd noted was a 'pretty sweet set list.' She'd been pleased too that some of the songs that were coming up in the game was music that was even highly recognizable to her – and things she'd classify as actual music. So that made her feel a little less old.

Dealing with Benji didn't make her feel old. But there were definitely moments with Jack that she did. It made her wonder how she'd feel when she was into her mid-50s and Benji was a teen. That would likely make her feel even older. And dumber?

She watched his character on the screen for a moment and then looked back at him.

"You know, Jack, if that's some of your friends trying to get a hold of you – to go out and do something for your birthday, I won't be offended, if you go. You've spent all day with us. And, I'm going to be going to bed soon anyway. Tomorrow night is likely going to be a late one – so I want to try to get as much as I can tonight."

But he just shrugged again. "It's not friends. I'm not going out."

She eyed him for a moment, wondering how much to ask about it or to encourage him to go out and have some fun with kids his age, if he wanted. It was his birthday. He was on Christmas break. If she was celebrating her 19th birthday, she knew she sure wouldn't want to be spending the evening hanging out with some 44-year-old woman and four-year-old boy.

She must've looked at him too long, though, because he glanced her way, considered her for a moment and looked back to the screen. "It's that Gwen chick – from the restaurant. She's annoying," he said.

She snorted a bit at that and looked back at the screen too. "Annoying how?"

"Well, for one, she keeps texting me tonight when I've already told her to fuck off. That's annoying."

"Maybe she's interested in you and wants to spend some time with you on your birthday," she suggested, keeping her eyes on the screen.

"I'm not interested in her," Jack said flatly.

She glanced at him. "No?"

He shook his head. "Nah," he said.

She just shrugged and looked back to the game. She knew better than to push it in that area of Jack's life – and she didn't really want to play matchmaker or mother for him there anyway.

But maybe he wanted to talk about it because he glanced at her sideways and commented flatly, "She came across as like a Betty. But she's a total Poppy."

"That doesn't mean anything to me, Jack," she said, purposely keeping her eyes on the screen and the game.

If he wanted to talk – she'd let him talk, but she got the distinct impression she wasn't supposed to be looking at him when he did. She wondered if this was like using the kids' interview at work – fill it with toys and crayons and slowly work at getting the kids to talk to you, or show you what happened or what help they need.

Maybe that was why Jack was more communicative with her on the telephone. He could talk – but he didn't have to she her reaction to what he said. He could be doing other things to distract himself into speaking to her and talking a little more openly. Maybe videogames – sitting there with him on the couch and sucking horribly at even fake skateboarding – was a window to getting him to speak. He could play his game and pretend like he was doing something else, focused on something else, like she wasn't really there or she was so distracted by playing the game too – that he could talk.

"A Betty is a skater chick but like a real skater chick," Jack said and made his character do a trick that looked rather impressive on the screen. "You know, she like actually skates – and is good. She's not just into it for the scene – she's a skater. A hot skater chick. Barrels are ugly skater chicks."

"That's lovely," she said and rolled her eyes at the television. Maybe she didn't want to talk to him.

He didn't seem to heed her comment, though. "Poppys are chicks who are just there for the scene. You know … they dress like skaters and hang around the parks and go to sessions. Some of them even carry fucking decks with them. But they're just there watching the guys – the street meat. They're posers," he said.

"So Gwen's not really a skater then?" she clarified to make sure she understood.

"Yea," he grunted.

She shrugged. "And that means you can't hang out with her? If she's interested in skateboarding – then you'd likely still have things to talk about. You go to the same university. You have that in common too."

Jack shook his head. "No – Poppys aren't really into skating at all. They're just into skater guys," he clarified more.

"Oh," she said and considered that. She wasn't sure that was too much of a problem either. Jack was a skater guy. Gwen liked skater guys.

"I think she's kind of snorkendork too," he added like that was a grave sin. The nail in the coffin of any potential interest he'd had in her. But again – he might as well have been speaking another language because it meant nothing to her. She didn't say so, though. She figured he'd likely figure that out on his own – since she didn't know what a Betty or a Poppy was either.

He looked at her sideways again. "If I tell you something, you won't be weird about it," he more stated than asked.

She glanced at him. "I guess that depends on what you tell me, Jack," she commented, starting to get a little concerned about where this might be going.

Apparently that didn't deter him, though. "OK, so like a week or so ago, I went over to Gwen's place," he told her.

She gave him a small glance at that. She was starting to think that maybe he was feeling a little too comfortable and too open. Either that or he was about to tell her that something had happened that she'd likely end up having to report, she feared, and she didn't really want to get involved in that ordeal either. She thought about telling him to shut up. But the cop in her – and maybe the maternal instincts that were really starting to ramp up, even when it came to him too, wouldn't let her.

"We weren't doing anything," he clarified rapidly, maybe seeing something flash across her face. "But, I don't know, we likely would've. But whatever. We hadn't yet. Basically. Point, though. We were in the living room watching TV. Chilling. And her one roommate lets this other guy I've seen around since Gwen invited me to the Slappy's skates. So he comes and sits down on like the other end of us on the couch. And is like … whatever. Clearly … trying to … bed her.

"But I'm right there!" Jack blurted exasperated. "Sitting on the other side of her – and I had like my arm around her when he came in. He saw it. But I wasn't going to like sit all draped all over her when other people were hanging out with us so I moved it. But com'on. Still. He saw I was there WITH HER.

"And then there's this totally weird vibe with how they were interacting. Like … she's definitely fucked him before – and now he's there now while I'm over and she's being kind of flirty back to him. So I left – and I haven't talked to her since. But she keeps sending me all these texts and emails and shit like I'm over-reacting. But, seriously, that just wasn't cool, right? I mean … you deal with weirdoes … that's just … not normal?"

She looked at him at that. "Well … it's definitely not the most healthy or respectful behaviour," she told him.

"But its normal behaviour?" he shot back in disbelief and actually met her eyes for a split second.

She shook her head. "It's not something that I would accept as normal or acceptable behaviour in any relationship I was in, Jack," she agreed with him.

He nodded and looked back at the screen and to his game. "'Kay. Because she was making me feel like … I'm the one that … whatever."

"I think leaving was the best decision to make in that situation," she told him.

She was actually really happy he had the sense to leave. Not that she really wanted to think about – or be told any details about Jack's sex life unless something happened that he needed help resolving (which she really hoped was never something she'd have to deal with with either of the boys ever). But she was still glad to hear he had the common sense to get out of there – and the self-respect to know that what was going on there just wasn't acceptable.

"And, it doesn't sound like that's the kind of person or relationship that would be that smart to become involved with," she added.

"'Kay because now she's being super annoying and trying to be … apologetic like she's sorry it happened and shit. But then she's like … basically flat out offering a birthday hook-up … and she's making me feel … like she thinks I'm really stupid or … easy … or that there's like … something wrong with me because I'm not already over there."

She glanced at him again. "There's nothing wrong with you for not going back over to that. I'm glad you aren't," she said flatly.

It was true. She was really glad to know Jack had some commonsense and that hopefully it was Jay who had insisted some self-respect in himself when it came to sex - and respect for women. It sounded like maybe this girl needed a lesson in it.

"It's even stupider because I've been thinking back on it," he said a little more agitated and frazzled and for the first time she saw his character on the screen skid across the pavement and he tapped on his controller next to her until the animation stood back up. "But she's snorkendorking and I just … I hadn't noticed. I guess we roll with different crews or whatever."

She gave him a sideways glance again. "What's snorkendorking?" she asked cautiously. "A threesome?"

"Eww," Jack said and gave her a brief but rather disgusted look.

She wasn't sure if the concept of a threesome was what was disgusting to him or if it was the fact she used the word and knew what it was. Sometimes she wondered how much of a concept Jack actually had of what she did. She thought if he really did understand what her job was, he might blush a bit and probably be even less comfortable around her. But she supposed she didn't really want him to have a complete concept of what she did. She didn't want it to be something that Jack or Benji ever had to think much about. The most she wanted them to know was right from wrong in the eyes of the law – and to pass on some of her own concepts of right and wrong and moral behaviour to them. She didn't want them to ever be exposed to the rest of it – as much as it would be possible to truly protect either of them from it.

"It's … like … people who use the skate parks and sessions to hook-up," he said and sent his character flying off a ramp. She wasn't sure what kind of ramp. Benji wasn't there to tell her that it wasn't a ramp, it was … whatever it was. "It's actually super annoying. When I was doing the weekend skate classes with the Funky's kids last spring there'd be snorkendork going on at the park – and it's like fuck. You've got little kids there trying to teach them a lesson and people have tongues down each others throats and grinding against each other. Seriously. Go do that somewhere else. Snorking is like … making out … and dorking is …"

"Yeah, I've got it," Olivia interjected for him.

She really didn't want or need further clarification. Though, she had decided if she ever did end up having to work a case that involved the skate park scene or players from within it – that Jack would basically be a little treasure trove of information. From what he was describing she was actually kind of surprised she'd had so few run-ins with skater kids over the years on the job.

"I've been thinking about it, though. And Gwen's always around the dudes and I've seen her all … whatever … I was an idiot. I should've clued in. But she was just using me as street meat. And now she's probably going to say shit to people in the scene, at least at school …"

"I don't think you're the one that has anything to be embarrassed about," Olivia told him.

"I know, right? Why'd I want to put my dick in some sort of high traffic area? Gross," he said.

She glanced at him at that and let out a snort. She really wasn't sure how to take the comment. It was kind of a gross comment. It wasn't something she particularly wanted to think about. But at the same time it was almost making her laugh. There was a distinctly Jack sense-of-humour to the statement.

"I'm already worried about what sort of grossness she passed on to me from having her tongue in my mouth," he added and made his character spin and then hop up onto a bench and balance and flip his board around in every-which direction.

She rolled her eyes at him at that comment, though. "I'm sure you're fine," she assured him.

"Girls kind of suck," he commented.

She wasn't surprised he had that opinion. She'd definitely sensed his hostility towards his mother and towards his older sister. There had been women in his life who'd deeply hurt him and deeply disappointed him, who'd likely left him feeling a little abandoned. She could relate to that on some level – both in terms of her mother and even more so in terms of her father.

She knew her own life experiences – her drunk mother and an absent father – had definitely had impacts on her ability to form relationships and to trust people as an adult, to let people in. She didn't want that for Jack. You had to learn to put down the baggage at some point – or else you really could end up alone. Jack seemed to be trying to head in that direction. But he hadn't really had anyone to help him deal with his anger and hurt yet. It actually seemed like more anger and hurt had been building and growing in him since his dad had died, as far as she could tell.

"Back home I was either too smart or too weird," he said a little more quietly. "And, here, it's like I must be dumb or stoned because I'm a skater or because I grew up on a farm. It just kind of … sucks."

She gave him a small smile at that. "Give it time," she said. "You'll meet someone who likes you for you – and wants to be with you for the right reasons."

He glanced at her for a moment. "You don't know that. That never worked for you."

She snorted and looked over at the clock. It was just after 11 p.m. It was getting to be later than she wanted to be up – even though she didn't entirely feel like she'd fall asleep yet.

"Well, I'm not dead yet, Jack," she teased back but then caught his eyes. "Things work out eventually. Some times not how we really envisioned them working out – but eventually things fall into place if we're open to that happening and to what life brings us."

He shot her a look. "You're talking about Benji again?"

She shrugged. "Yes. But you too. I get to spend time with a kid old enough to … have been my kid. And, I will hopefully get to be involved with raising a little boy. That's really more than I would've imagined at this point in my life."

"But you didn't get a dude," he commented, manualing across the entire park area on the screen of the videogame, and moving his thumb around on one of the toggles to keep his balance and direction as he did so.

She snorted again at that and put her controller on the cushion between them. "Oh well," she said. "I think I've got lots of testosterone in my life for the moment. I'll just have to see where the chips fall with the rest of it. I haven't exactly given up quite yet, Jack."

He glanced at her again. "Gross," he commented.

She shook her head at him but he allowed a small smile like he knew he was being a smart ass.

"So how are you doing here?" she asked. "You think you're going to be playing for much longer tonight?"

He glanced at her and her abandoned controller. "You don't want to play anymore? I can put it on one of the challenges rather than free-ride so we can actually do something," he offered.

She shook her head. "Oh, I don't think I'm ready for a challenge yet," she said. "And, it's getting late."

"Thirty more minutes?" he near pleaded, likely thinking she was sending him off to bed.

She shrugged. "You stay out here," she said. "Play as long as you want. I'll sleep in the bedroom tonight."

He gave her a look. "With Benji?"

"In the bed beside Benji," she clarified, in case he was suggesting something she didn't even want to think about. "He falls asleep on top of me all the time now, Jack. Sharing the bed with him for one night isn't going to be a big deal. Unless you want to free up the couch for me now?"

He glanced her again. "Nah. It's cool. Go be … all … touchy-feely … Fox this, Fox that … with him. I'm playing."

She snorted. "OK," she agreed with a nod and started to stand. She went over and checked the lock on the front door and flipped off a couple of the lights that she doubted Jack would. He didn't seem to mind sleeping with all the lights on in the entire apartment.

"Leave the tree lights on," he commented without looking at her as she walked back through the living.

"OK," she said and moved back towards the bedroom. "Night. I'll see you in the morning."

"Yeah," he mumbled, still engaged in his game.

But then she heard him say, "Olivia …" he so barely used her name. It was almost like he purposely avoided calling her by name. She'd noticed but hadn't decided what was behind it. She suspected it was partially him trying to keep his distance from her. Self-learned self-preservation.

She looked back over her shoulder and saw he'd sat up straight enough that she could see him slightly sticking part of his head over the back of the couch. "Yeah?" she replied.

"Thanks …" he said quietly. "For today and stuff."

She gave him a small smile and a little nod. That's about the most she'd ever verbally gotten from Jack – and he sounded so sincere, if not a little wounded and like a small child. "No problem, Jack," she told him. "Happy birthday," she said and moved into her bedroom – not making a big deal out of it. She knew he didn't like when she made a 'big deal' out of things. A 'thank you' was enough for her anyway.


	78. Chapter 78

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Jack let out a loud groan from the couch and rolled over and jammed one of the pillows over his head.

"You guys are being sooooooo loud," he mumbled at them.

Olivia eyed him from over behind the island counter in the kitchen. She actually thought she'd been doing a reasonably good job at keeping their noise levels at acceptable ranges for someone sleeping in the living room. Especially considering that one of them was four – and that it was Benji.

"We're out of the bedroom now," she informed him. "You can go and sleep in there, if you want."

He just groaned at her some more and rolled back over and gazed over at her and Benji's back where he was sitting on one of the stools and loudly crunching on his bowl of cereal, kicking his feet around, maybe almost in an effort to make as much noise as possible.

"How late did you stay up?" she asked when he looked like he was actually going to keep his eyes open and engage in conversation maybe until they left, which wouldn't be too much longer.

But he instead sat up and tossed the blanket aside, just sitting on the couch in his boxer briefs for a moment and rubbing at his eyes. She diverted her attention back to where she was working on putting together a bit of a lunch for the little boy.

"I don't know … like three-ish, maybe," he mumbled and stood. "Why? What time is it?" he asked as he padded towards the bathroom.

"Just after seven," she told his back as he disappeared behind the door and heard him groan again at that answer.

She knew Jack would likely be regretting his decision to stay up all night playing the game by that evening – if he wasn't already. She suspected it would be another bit of a late night. She wasn't really sure how excited Benji was going to be or how up-and-down during the night he would be. She wasn't even entirely sure how long it would take her to stuff stockings and to get Santa gifts set-up. It'd be a new experience. But she wasn't expecting to get into bed before midnight herself. And, really, even if the excitement of Christmas and Santa didn't have Benji up early – on normal days it wasn't uncommon for the little boy to be up and on-the-go by about 5 a.m. And, after he was awake, he sure wasn't going to tolerate waiting around for Jack to get up so they could check for Santa presents – that she was almost 100 per cent certain of. His uncle really should've called it quits on the videogame a lot earlier than 3 a.m.

She looked at Benji and shook her head. "Your uncle is silly," she informed him.

"Too much biff-day cake," Benji suggested.

She snorted at that comment and gave him a smile. "Maybe. Sugar is bad for you."

Benji nodded in agreement. Though, she doubted he knew what he was agreeing to.

Jack emerged from the bathroom and slumped back onto the couch, wrapping the one blanket around himself.

"It Chris-miss!" Benji declared to him happily - and very loudly.

"It's not Christmas," Jack replied a little grouchily.

She smiled at Benji and gave her head a small shake at Jack. "It's Christmas Eve, Benj," she told him. "Christmas Eve Day – tonight is Christmas Eve."

"It Chris-miss EVE!" he corrected himself for Jack. "Santa coming!"

"Yippee," Jack said a little sarcastically and flopped back into a laying position on the couch, though he was still looking at them.

"Not smart, Jack," she told him and shook her head.

He rubbed his face against the pillow. "Whatever," he mumbled. "I can sleep all day."

She rolled her eyes. "You aren't going to sleep all day. I'm leaving $60 here on the counter. I want you to take a look in the fridge and the cupboards – if you see anything we're missing that you'd like to have for the next few days, go down the block and pick it up. And, I don't mean bottles of pop and chips, Jack. Food. Fruit, veggies, cereal, crackers, meat or cheese for sandwiches. Things like that. Not junk food. I want you to pick up something easy for dinner for us too," she instructed him.

"Pizza," he suggested.

"Pee-ZA!" Benji said excitedly.

She sighed at that and looked at Benji and gave Jack a bit of a glare for putting that idea in the little boy's head. "You want pizza on Christmas Eve?"

He shrugged.

She sighed. "Well, if that's what you want – fine – from the pre-made section at the grocery store, not something out of a frozen box. But why don't you see if they have something else in the hot deli section you might like? One of the rotisserie chicken deals? You guys liked that the last we had it. Or a lasagna and a salad or something."

He groaned. "Why can't we get take-out?" he suggested.

"Because this is cheaper," she told him a little more sternly.

He sighed but didn't protest further.

"The receipt for the shirt and hat is also here," she tapped on it on the counter, "if you aren't happy with either and want to try to get over there and switch. You might want to call them first and see if they'd even do returns or exchanges today."

He made no comment at that. She had no idea what he was thinking at that point on either purchase. She could see the hat sitting on the coffee table – and he'd tossed the shirt over the back of the couch. It was a step up over the pile that his cords and socks had ended up in on the floor – along with his dress shirt and sweater from the day before, which he'd never gone and hung up after pulling them off to try on the new item.

She pulled Benji's bowl of left over milk and missed cereal bit towards her as the little boy finished and hopped down from the stool to go running off and retrieve his selected toys for the day.

"And, don't forget that Benji's daycare closes at 3:30 today and you promised me that you'd pick him up," she said as she rinsed out the bowl.

"I know," Jack mumbled.

"And then come right over to the precinct," she said. "I want us to walk home together."

"I know," he said again. "We talked about this already."

"OK," she said and left it be. She didn't want to agitate him.

"What time's mass service we're going to?" Jack inquired.

She looked at him at that from what she was doing in the sink and sighed. "Are you serious?" she asked.

He glanced over at her and genuinely looked confused. "Are we going tomorrow instead?"

She let out a breath. "Jack, I told you to give me a heads up if you decided you wanted to go to mass," she tried to say calmly.

He gazed at her. "But we talked about it and I thought it was just decided."

"How I remember that conversation going is you saying that it would be weird to go to Christmas mass without your Nan – which I interpreted as you not being sure you wanted to go. But I told you to let me know if you decided you wanted to go – because some services need tickets and all the services in Manhattan will likely be VERY BUSY today. You didn't say anything more to me. I took that as – we weren't going."

He gazed at her. "But it's Christmas Eve. We have to go to mass," he said.

She sighed and put Benji's bowl into the dishwasher perhaps a little too loudly. She almost wanted to smack him up the side of the head.

"You were supposed to let me know," she mumbled at him and shot him another look.

He broke the eye contact and looked a little deflated. "Sorry," he said quietly.

She shook her head again. She didn't want to be pissed at him today – and she really didn't want to start the day like this. Not with a confrontation.

"OK," she sighed. "Let me see what I can figure out. More reason for you to get to the station ON TIME. We might be going to an early service."

He gave her a small nod and a bit of an apologetic look.

She picked up Benji's lunch. "Com'on, Benj," she called at him, where he was digging through his milk crate of toys. "Let's get going."

She dropped his lunch bag into his sling-pack and held it open for him as he came over with his usual trio of toys and stuffed them inside. She shook it around until everything settled and fit and then pulled the strings to shut it. She handed him the bag and pushed him gently towards the door. "Go put your boots on," she said and he trotted over and nearly crashed himself to the floor to start that process.

She walked over closer to Jack and looked down at him.

"What did I ask you to do today?" she asked him seriously.

He sighed. "Really?"

She nodded.

He rolled his eyes at her. "To do some groceries, to pick up dinner, to pick up 'Jamin at 3 …"

"Three-thirty," she corrected.

He sighed loudly and glared at her. "To pick up 'Jamin at 3:30 and to come over to your office with him."

She nodded. "OK. Good. Jack, do me a favour …" she said and looked sternly at him.

He crossed his arms a bit at that but let out a breath. "OK. What?" he said.

"For the next 36 hours – at least – drop the attitude … and please, just play along. OK?"

He gave her a small nod. "Yeah, OK," he said quietly and looked away, almost like he was embarrassed that she felt she even had to ask that of him, yet she thought there was some acknowledgement there that he knew he needed to hear it from her too.

She gave him a small smile. "Thank you.

"There's a shopping bag with some things in it under the bed on the far side," she told him quietly at a near whisper. "I want you to take it out – and to put the things out here on the coffee table, before you leave to pick-up Benji. OK?"

She gave her a questioning look.

"Play along," she said seriously – raising her eyebrow at him.

He shrugged. "Yeah. OK. Bed. Bag. Stuff. Table."

She nodded again and started to move towards the tree, grabbing Calvin's present and for once being thankful for the massive purse she'd been toting around with her lately. She was able to find space for it relatively easily – though a little shockingly.

"Who's that for?" Jack asked as she moved back around the couch.

She just shrugged, though. She hadn't mentioned to the boys that she'd be seeing Calvin that morning and she wasn't about to start now. "Last chance I'll have to see someone before Christmas," she said and headed for the door. "I'm going to call you in a few hours – and make sure you're awake and started on your errands," she said.

"Great," Jack mumbled.

She didn't respond, though. Instead she got Benji into his coat and then worked on getting her boots on and zipped up as he did up his buttons. She pulled on her jacket and opened the door.

"See you this afternoon," she called as she nudged Benji out the door and towards the elevator.

She grabbed at her phone as they made their way down the hall and started typing in a text as they waited for a car.

'Jack wants to go to mass tonight. Where can we go that I won't be standing and holding an uncooperative 4 y/o in a crowded church for hours? Liv'

She hit send as the doors dinged open – and she could only hope that Elliot would receive it sooner rather-than-later and have some thoughts on the matter.


	79. Chapter 79

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She gave Calvin's grandfather a thin smile from across the table. She could tell he felt uncomfortable about having been left there alone with her as Calvin had headed off to the bathroom.

"He'll be a bit," Dwight mumbled. "Him and syrup don't go together. Not that that stops him from eating it."

She snorted and smiled a bit wider at that. Maybe too much information – but probably explained why Dwight was fidgeting so much across from her. He thought he was going to be stuck sticking with her alone for a while – not a couple minute pee-break.

"How's he doing these days?" she asked. She never really got much opportunity to hear an update on Calvin from his grandparents' perspective. She wasn't too sure Dwight would tell her much anyway, but she thought she'd try.

Calvin had been fairly quiet at breakfast. She wasn't entirely surprised by that, though. Seeing as his usual topic of conversation was complaining about any disciplinary actions his grandparents had taken against him or indicating how much he hated living with them or how much they were ruining his life. She didn't think he'd say that right to his grandfather's face unless he was riled up and in confrontation mode. She was actually kind of glad to see that he was at least showing some tempered respect to his grandfather, considering he'd given the young teen a trip into the city and a football game as a Christmas gift and seeing as it was Christmas Eve. They didn't need to be fighting for Christmas – especially when the two of them were going to be stuck in a car and holiday traffic for at least a few hours on their drive back up to Hartford.

But, as usual, her visit with Calvin hadn't gone exactly as she would've hoped because of his grandfather's presence. It meant she didn't really get to talk to him or really gauge how he was doing. He looked healthy enough. He'd grown a lot – so much taller and having slimmed down but started to have bulked up too. Puberty was clearly having more than started in the boy between the changes in his look and his changing voice. But he looked a little sad. Calvin always looked a little sad, though, which hurt her. She wanted him to be happier – for it to be easier for him. But the boy had dealt with and seen so much in his young life already. He was more than a little jaded. He was angry. In a lot of ways, he had a right to be.

She wasn't sure he liked his Christmas gift. He'd been appreciative but quiet about it. She didn't necessarily fault him for that either. She'd really just taken a shot in the dark about what he might like. He'd seemed to like Lego before and she was just working on speculation that most boys would enjoy something that was vehicle inspired. But she really probably should've just gotten him an iTunes card or some other gift card … or just put some cash in a card. She wasn't sure that his grandfather would've liked her giving him money, though.

While they were waiting for their breakfast to be brought over, Calvin seemed to take a bit more interest in the gift. He had started opening the box to take a look at what was involved in the set. But his grandfather had snapped at him to not dump it all over the table.

"I just wanted to look at the instructions," Calvin had mumbled but then returned the box to sitting on the bench beside him and slumped over with his elbows on the table in a bit of a scowl until the food did come.

After the food did arrive the conversation all but stopped. Calvin started mowing through his pile of pancakes and sausage. He'd said a couple more things to her – talking about the football game the day before. But his grandfather had again barked at him about talking with his mouth full and Calvin again fell silent – no longer speaking at all for the rest of the meal. So none of them had. It had been awkward.

"He's defiant," his grandfather told her now. "He's report card this term was dismal. And, he's hanging around the wrong type of boys. It's why we're trying to encourage this football thing. We're hoping he can make it onto a team and we can get some discipline into him – and have him hanging around some new kids. We don't see some change soon and he's going to end up like his mother … or in jail like his father."

There was disgust in Dwight's voice on so many levels – and she could see anger gleaning across his face. She wasn't sure who he was most upset with … Calvin, his mother or his own son. She hoped he recognized that most of the anger and frustration shouldn't be placed on Calvin. He was just a child reacting to what he'd been brought up in and the situation that he was having to cope with now. Calvin was still salvageable. He still had a chance and deserved that chance.

"Maybe I can talk to him," she offered. "For what that's worth…"

She wasn't sure it was worth much anymore. Or how much it ever was, in retrospect. But now she saw Calvin so infrequently and even the email, text and phone communication was becoming more and more sporadic. She knew as he pushed further into his teens – and the time they'd spent together faded more and more into the past – that all that communication and connection would become even less. He'd be less interested in maintaining any sort of relationship with her – and even less interested in hearing any advice or words she had for him.

"Talk to him all you want," Dwight almost spat. "He doesn't listen to anyone, though."

She gave him a bit of a sad smile at that and examined the table for a moment – and then reached and pulled a small piece of paper out of her purse.

"I let Calvin know already in an email – but here," she handed Dwight the piece of paper. "I'm moving next week. I know we don't really exchange things by mail – but just in case you ever need my address for some reason. It's the same building – just a different apartment."

Dwight looked at it for a moment and then shoved it into his shirt pocket without comment.

She gave him another thin smile at that and sighed. She always felt the mistrust radiating off Calvin's grandparents when she had to be around them. She wasn't sure what they thought she was going to do to their grandson or their family – especially when they knew she was a cop. She'd actually helped their family. Things could've ended up a lot messier than they were. But they didn't seem to appreciate that. Or maybe they just thought because she was a cop she had some sort of magic strings she could be pulling that would end up sending their family life into further disarray. She sort of wished she did in a way. But if she had those powers – they would've been pulled years ago and Calvin wouldn't have ever been taken away from her. They sure wouldn't be having awkward, silent, angry Christmas breakfasts like this, if she had things the way she wanted.

"I was actually hoping that I could see Calvin again early in the New Year," she said cautiously. "If you think you'll be back into the city? Or maybe I could come up to see him one weekend? There's something I'd like to talk to him a bit about – but wanted us all to get through the holidays first, not add extra stress."

She saw Dwight's face change a bit at that too – like maybe his worst nightmares were coming true, and he needed to get on the phone with the family's lawyer immediately.

"It's nothing like what you're thinking," she sighed – and examined the table for a moment. She shook her head. She might as well just say it. She wasn't going to tell Calvin now and she hoped that Calvin's grandfather would respect that too and let her talk to him about it. But she couldn't very well pull back her comment at Dwight now.

"I have temporary guardianship of a little boy right now – on a set-term parental designation," she said flatly. "And, all the documentation is before the courts for me to become his permanent guardian. My lawyer says that everything will likely be through by sometime in February."

She was forcing herself more and more to believe that it was all going to work out. It wasn't a question of if it was going to work out – it was a question of when the paperwork would go through. That's what she was telling herself. She didn't want to focus on the possibility that the court may say 'no' or they may send her wading through a bureaucratic and judicial maze that could take months or even years for her to emerge from. Right now – she was just telling herself that this was going to happen. Benji would be her son within the next two months. Jack would be her dependant. She'd have a family – finally - and, two people who needed her and for her to care for. She was going to keep telling herself and believing that until someone told her otherwise. Focusing on the otherwise now was just too heartbreaking. She couldn't do it. She didn't even want to think about it.

"I just want to let Calvin know. I just didn't want to drop it on him today," she sighed, "just before Christmas. But, it's something I need him to be aware of too. I know our communication and visits are … sporadic at best now. But it does mean that … my availability to him … will be different. There might be a little boy in the background on our telephone calls and there will likely be times that I'd have to bring him along for our get-togethers, if I can't make other arrangements."

Dwight remained quiet for some time but was examining her. She tried to gauge what he was thinking. She could see some surprise in him. The desperate woman who tried to steal his grandson had stolen someone else's child, maybe?

"How old is the boy?" he finally asked.

She rubbed the table a bit, almost steadying herself in it. It was strange to talk about this with a virtual stranger.

"He's four," she said with a little nod and a little smile. Thinking about Benji made her smile. It was a little strange – but she'd noticed it more and more. Even when Nick just asked her a passing question about the kid, she'd notice herself stopping to think about it and having images of the little boy and his absurdity paint across her mind's eye and bring a little smile to her face, even when her answer to her partner would almost always just be 'he's good.'

"I'd really appreciate if you let me talk to Calvin about it myself," she said.

Dwight nodded at that – but offered no verbal response. But she didn't get the sense that Calvin's grandfather was a man of many words. She thought that might be part of Calvin and his conflict. Maybe they were a like in some ways.

She tapped on the table a bit and before meeting Dwight's eyes again. "If after all of this goes through, if any of it changes your opinion of me … or my life situation … and if it's something Calvin is able to accept and cope with … it might be nice to talk about the possibility of him coming down on the train some weekends for a visit," she offered. "It'd be nice to see him more – and if I can help you two get him through his teens … I don't mind trying. I'd like to help."

Dwight seemed to be examining her again at that. "We'll see what happens. We'll think about it," he allowed after some time. "I'll talk to my wife about it."

She gave a small nod. "Thank you."


	80. Chapter 80

"Look who I got to ride the elevator with," John declared as he came back into squad room and she glanced up at him, as he gestured behind him. "McPukey-Puke returns!"

Jack and Benji were trailing a few steps behind the detective – but she rolled her eyes and shook her head at Munch.

"John, com'on," she said a little disgusted. "Leave him alone. It's Christmas."

Jack was giving John a strange look – likely wondering what the hell was wrong with the guy. She didn't think John's sense of humour … or comedic timing (or lack-thereof) would sit that well with the teen.

"What? Does the discussion of vomit on Christmas offend his gentile sensibilities?" John asked her and then spun around to look at Jack.

"Ah … no …" Jack offered cautiously and gazed at her like he wanted to be saved from the weirdo that was speaking to him.

Benji had already made a break for it and had run over to her desk and waiting arms while Jack continued to get interrogated. She wondered if Jack even remembered that Munch had been in the squad room when he'd first been there looking for her and sick in the restroom.

John nodded at him. "That's good. Because I've seen some vomit over the years – and I have to say that was a pretty impressive amount of puke. The stench you left in the men's room had me going to the next floor to take a crap for the rest of the week."

"Ah … sorry …" Jack offered again, and glanced around the rest of the squad like he was trying to figure out how to get away.

Benji apparently grew tired of listening to that conversation and moved over to the edge of Nick's desk and stared at him, as Olivia started to pull her things together to get the hell out of there while the getting was good.

The little boy gripped onto the edge of the desk and rocked a bit – clearly waiting for the detective to look up from his work and acknowledge him. Olivia wasn't sure that was going to happen. Nick was in an awful mood. He'd hardly spoken to her – or anyone else all day.

Even with it being a precinct and them still having to deal with crap, there was some holiday spirit in the air and some eggnog, nicer coffees and teas and treats around. Everyone seemed a bit more relaxed than usual and seemed to have a bit of enthusiasm about making it through the day and hopefully getting out of there a bit early – or at least on time. Not Nick, though, he was being the Grinch. About the most she'd heard him say was to bark 'I've got work to do' at a young officer that had brought an envelop up for him.

She understood he wasn't happy about what was going on in his home life and that it must be incredibly hurtful and upsetting. But she thought he could take the anger down a notch or two - at least around them at the office. Though, she supposed all of them in SVU had a habit of taking things that were happening in their personal lives out on each other in passive aggressive ways … and sometimes in some not so passive aggressive ways.

The detective finally glanced at the little boy, though. "Hey Ben," he offered quietly.

"It Chris-miss!" Benji declared with a lot of enthusiasm.

Nick gave him a thin – and really sad – smile. "It is," he agreed.

"NICK! Did Zara viz-it Santa?"

He nodded, maybe looking a little sadder at that question. "She did."

"Did she ask for princesses? Becuz Nick I think 'bout it. I think you go ask Santa for dragons. Then you don't have to play princesses. Dragons eat princesses. So then you never have to play princesses. After your dragon eat her princesses."

Olivia couldn't hold back a small laugh at that assessment. The things Benji thought about never really ceased to amaze her. He came up with the most random things. He'd clearly put a lot of thought into coming up with a solution for Nick's princess predicament.

Nick glanced at her and allowed a more real smile before looking back to the little boy.

"I don't know, Ben," he said, "Zara's my daughter. It might be kind of mean to get a dragon to eat her princesses."

"BUT YOU A BOY! YOU DON'T WANT TO PLAY WITH PRINCESSES!" Benji told him loudly enough that Olivia saw other people in the squad room glance at him - and even the Captain come to his door and poke his head out to see what the hell was going on. Spotting Benji, though, he shot a small smile in her direction and disappeared back inside.

"Well – I don't have to worry about that this Christmas," Nick conceded. "Zara asked Santa for Teacup Piggies - not princesses."

Benji scrunched his face up at that. "So she make you play tea party?" he demanded to know.

Nick shrugged. "Likely."

"She make me play tea party. Girls at ner-suri school play tea party. It boring. You should not play tea party."

Nick smiled a bit more at that – and glanced at Olivia again, with a look that kind of said he partially agreed with the kid.

"This tea party will have pigs, though," he said.

"DOES NOT MATTER!" Benji almost yelled at him.

Nick shrugged. "Oh well. Some times parents have to play games with their kids they don't really like to play that much. Do you think Olivia likes playing robots?"

Benji nodded vigourously at that. "Yeeeeeeeeeeees!"

"I love playing robots," she interjected.

Nick looked at her and shook his head – before glancing back at Benji. "She is revising previous statements that I have on the record."

They both knew that wouldn't mean anything to the little boy. He could keep going on thinking that she liked playing robots – and in a way she really did – A LOT. She'd take robots over no robots or no Benji any day.

Jack had apparently managed to escape John and moved over to her desk, still giving her a look like he really wanted to get out of there NOW – and for her to please hurry up.

She glanced up at him and gave him a small smile. "I'm almost ready. Just give me a second," she told him and nodded towards Nick. "This is Nick Amaro. My partner. I don't know if you've met? Nick – Jack, Benji's uncle."

"Hey," Jack offered.

Nick nodded. "Yeah. I was around when you were in a few months ago. You probably don't remember."

Jack just shrugged at him. She wasn't really sure how much Jack remembered from that day. He was nervous. He was sick. He likely was probably trying to forget it happened – if not still questioning if him coming into the precinct had been a good idea. Things had changed a lot for him – for all of them – over the past few months.

"How's it doing out there?" Nick asked.

They lacked in windows in the squad room but from chatter of people moving in and out of the area, they'd picked up on that it was really starting to snow out. Nick seemed kind of anxious about that. She'd already heard him curse about it a few times when people had made reference to a 'White Christmas' rather excitedly.

Olivia had noticed too that both of the boys had big fluffy flakes on their jackets and hats that were still working at melting when they'd come into the squad. She'd brushed a few off Benji when he'd smacked into her for a hug. Jack, though, looked like he was happy to let them melt right through his light-weight jacket. If that didn't have him looking cold enough, he hadn't even zipped the jacket up and she could see the melting marks of the flakes on his shirt. Though, she did note that the shirt he was wearing was his birthday gift - and he had the cap on too. She supposed that meant he'd decided he was keeping both – and even though she wouldn't have really been hurt if he'd exchanged them, it still made her feel good to know he liked the gifts she'd picked and he was using them.

"It's snowing pretty good," Jack told Amaro.

"It staying on the ground?" Nick asked.

Jack nodded. "Oh yeah. There's lots on the ground."

Nick sigh out a huge sigh at that.

Jack shrugged. "White Christmas," he offered, like it was some sort of consolation prize.

"I'm sure that's great for people who aren't trying to get somewhere tonight," Nick almost snapped at the teen – and Olivia stared hard at him. She didn't need her partner getting the kid into a mood.

Nick apparently caught her drift and glanced up at Jack and shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "I'm driving down to D.C. tonight. The roads are going to be bad."

Jack sort of examined him but didn't say anything. She wasn't sure Nick should expect a teen to say much of anything to that, though.

Olivia looked at Nick, as she stood from her desk and started to get her jacket on. "Maybe you should use the storm to your advantage," she suggested. "Call Maria. Tell her you can't get out there."

Nick shook his head at her. "I put Zara on a plane on Saturday. If I want to see her tomorrow – I need to try the drive."

She gave him a sad look at that and a little sigh. He hadn't told her how he'd ended up dealing with the Maria and Christmas situation – and she hadn't pushed it. Not when the initial call from Maria had apparently caused such a commotion in the squad room. If Nick wanted to talk about it – or rather rant and vent about it, she knew he would. He hadn't. Though, it had been more than apparent that it had been eating at him. Now she really knew why.

She felt for him. He'd missed bits of his daughter's early childhood while he was undercover. But then he'd really stepped up while his wife had been back-and-forth from overseas for the better part of three years. That was nearly half of Zara's life where Nick had basically been a single parent. He'd done Christmases with her alone before – birthdays alone, Halloweens alone, her starting school alone … so many milestones alone. And, then he and his wife split. He seemed to just assume he'd get Zara. Maybe it had been a fair assumption. Technically, he'd raised Zara more than her mother had. And, really, after that first couple months of the separation and move – and Maria deciding she couldn't handle being a single mother and not having a support network in D.C. yet – sending the little girl back to be with her daddy. You'd think that would be enough for the courts to see where custody should be? You'd think that Maria would've decided on her own that maybe that's where custody should be? But that didn't seem to be how it was playing out. It was a bit of a mess. And, Olivia knew all too well when they said that courts favoured biology, they didn't just mean parents, in general – they meant biological mother. Nick might get screwed over in his relationship with his daughter just because he hadn't given birth to his little girl. But as far as Olivia could tell, he'd done most of the parenting and that he was a good father.

Still, she knew he was now treading carefully as things worked their way through the courts – so that meant playing ball with Maria. She wanted Zara at Christmas and he was letting her have his little girl. She knew that would be killing Nick. He'd already done his Christmas shopping. He'd taken her to see Santa. Put up the tree with her. Taken her to craft days and Advent masses and the Detective Association holiday gathering. He'd celebrated the season with her – in a way he had other years. He'd talked about some of it with Olivia. And now the pinnacle of the holiday season – getting to watch the magic paint across his little girl's face on Christmas morning - was being taken away from him.

She was glad he was going to try to get there. That he was going to still try to be part of his little girl's Christmas. He deserved that. But if what Jack was saying about the weather was accurate – she knew that getting down there would be a challenge. The roads would be slippery and wet. The ploughs and sanders might not be out in full-force because of the holiday. But the roads would be clogged with more than just snow – lots of other people would be trying to get somewhere too. It could be a minor disaster. There'd be lots of accidents. It'd be a long drive – and it would be a long enough drive as it was.

"You should try to get going soon, Nick," she offered. "Cragen told us all to take off hours ago."

"You all are still here," he mumbled at her and looked back to his work.

She shrugged. "I'm leaving now. John? You taking off soon?" she called at him.

"What? To mark the birth of the world's favourite Jew?" he questioned from his desk. "Well, I do have a Chinese buffet to get to. So I better get going soon."

Olivia shook her head at him again. He was in fine form today. But Munch always had smart-ass comments around any of the Christian holidays. She supposed, though, he had just as many little barbs on the Jewish holidays as well. Or … really … any day of the year.

"Fin?"

He looked up at her – and glanced over at Nick. "Take off, Serpico. I'm going to be leaving in like 20. Got spiked nog and mistletoe waiting for me – unlike this joker."

"I'll have you know that going for Chinese is a fine Jewish Christmas tradition," John interjected.

"Olivia gets Chinese on Christmas too," Jack offered.

She sighed and shook her head at him. He didn't need to provide John with any material.

"I always knew there was a little bit of Jew in you," he quipped at her.

"John …" she groaned.

"What? There's a little bit of Jew in all of us," he said. "We are the chosen people."

She shook her head. "I'm leaving," she informed them, grabbing a hold of Benji's hand, and pushing Jack's shoulder to get him moving towards the elevators. "Merry Christmas guys."

"Have a good one, Liv," Fin said. "See you Thursday … hopefully …"

She gave him a thin smile at that.

"Drive safe, Nick," she said as she passed him. "I hope everything goes as well as it can."

He nodded. "Thanks. You too. Have fun."

She gave his shoulder a small squeeze and then walked over and stuck her head in Cragen's office.

"Just letting you know I'm out," she said.

He nodded. "Merry Christmas."

She gave him a thin smile. "You too."

"MERRY CHRIS-MISS!" Benji declared.

Cragen gave the little boy a smile. "Thank you, Benji," he said, but apparently him actually acknowledging the child was enough to turn him shy again, even though he'd met the captain a handful of times now. "I hope Santa is good to you."

Benji peaked at him a bit more at that. "He bring Transformer or fire truck," Benji informed him.

"Wow," Cragen said, none too enthusiastically. "Pretty exciting."

Olivia gave him a small nod for his efforts, though, and tugged at Benji's hand to go.

"See you later in the week," she said.

"On-call," Cragen called after her as she started to move away. "Phone on."

She glanced back over her shoulder. "Yep. You know how to get a hold of me."


	81. Chapter 81

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

When she came out of the fitting room area with Benji, they found Jack standing over by a table covered in ties.

She took the little boy by the hand again and walked across the busy walkway over to where his uncle was standing. Jack seemed pretty focused on examining the ties and didn't seem to notice that they'd re-appeared right away. He gave a bit of a start when he realized she was standing next to him at the table.

He glanced down at the set little suited vest set, with a red shirt and striped tie, that she still had in her hand.

"It fit?" he asked her.

She gave a shrug. "It will do," she allowed.

It didn't fit him perfectly. The pants were a little long. In any other circumstance, she'd be getting it hemmed for him. But in this situation it was just going to have to do. She didn't have a lot of options or time at this point.

It had taken a while – enough of a while that she'd already started Googling around to see their other options – but Elliot had eventually texted her back.

"Got Eli, twins tonight. Join us?" it'd said.

It took a while for what he was offering up to really sink in. It had taken her a little off guard. Elliot hadn't ever invited her to anything before – much less something his children would be at. It actually had kind of felt like he'd tried to keep her away from his children as much as possible. Maybe he'd felt like she was a little desperate for a family too and if he'd allowed that exposure she might've gotten too clingy and too close. Really the only one of his children she'd had a small opportunity to form a bit of a relationship with had been Kathleen and that hadn't really been something that had been left to Elliot's decision-making process.

But, here he was, offering up a chance to spend some time with him and some of his kids on Christmas Eve. Not just that, but on an evening that classified as real family time and while he had access to his children away from Kathy, she assumed. At least, she hoped that Kathy wouldn't be at the service too. She thought that would take what might already be a strange situation for her to new heights of discomfort. She could help deliver the woman's child but she couldn't sit in a church with her? But Olivia really didn't think she could. She knew how Kathy felt about her. She wasn't on Elliot's wife's favourite person list – or coming anywhere near making it onto that list.

Stranger still was that it wasn't just Eli who would be there. Her and the boys joining Elliot and Eli at church might be able to be their little secret. It was probably a 60-40 chance that it would get back to Kathy in that situation. But with his grown twins there, it would definitely get back to his (soon-to-be ex?) wife. He either didn't care – or he was just prepared to deal with it. Dealing with Kathy's perspective on her and their professional relationship hadn't really seemed to have been something he was willing to do before. So it was an offer she hadn't expected from Elliot. She'd expected something along the lines of "Try the 6 p.m. at Christ the Redeemer."

She felt some stirring discomfort about the prospect of attending church with Elliot and his children – about spending holiday time and family time with someone she'd seen as family for so long but who had always held her at such arm's length when it came to inviting her into that side of his life. But, still, it wasn't something she could turn down. She knew if she said 'no', that opportunity – or ones similar to it – wouldn't ever present themselves again.

Maybe this was a step in them trying to re-establish a relationship and build a friendship outside of their work and partnership? Maybe it was a cautious step for him too? Or maybe he was just impressed that Jack was Catholic and didn't feel that she would be able to properly accommodate that on Christmas and was trying to rectify that for the kid?

Whatever it was, she texted back: "Sounds good. When? Where?"

"St. Anne's off Jericho," he'd responded after another while had passed. "Carols 9:30. Mass 10. We'll be there by 8:30. Don't be later than 9 or I'll have trouble keeping space in the pew."

Her initial reaction was that that was a little later than she had in mind – especially if she was having to truck the boys all the way out to Queens. But as she sat thinking about it, she supposed it was better than a Midnight Mass. Likely having both of the boys out and doing something would be better than being coped up in the apartment - with Benji bouncing off the walls and Jack stewing about Christmases gone-by and how much he missed his Dad and Nan and how her efforts just weren't measuring up. Hopefully church would distract Jack – not make his emotionality worse. Maybe getting to be around Elliot's twins would be a good distraction for him too? They must be 19 too now, she thought. And, as for Benji, if he fell asleep at church, he fell asleep at church, she decided. She was sure he wouldn't be the first kid to do that – or the last.

She hadn't had much of a chance to even respond, though. It had only been seconds after she'd said, "See you there" that another text had come through with Elliot advising, "Don't let them wear jeans."

She almost had to shake her head at it – like he thought she was that ridiculous, that she'd let the boys go to Christmas Eve mass in jeans. She knew Elliot well enough to know that him and his family wouldn't be at a solemn ceremony in casual clothing. It also wasn't like she'd never been to church before – or completely lacked any sort of common sense. She'd gone to a Catholic college, for Christ's sakes. She may have only ever attended the masses at the beginning of the academic year and her graduation ceremony – mostly because they were basically mandatory. But she wasn't a complete heretic. And, even if she was, she had some respect for other people's beliefs.

She actually started to wonder if Elliot had made the comment for her to pass on to the kids or if he was actually concerned that she'd show up in something inappropriate. What? God knows. A cocktail dress or work pants? She wasn't sure what he might be implying.

She'd eventually decided she was reading too much into the comment – and didn't even reply. She wasn't sure it deserved any sort of reply or reaction. But she had dwelled on it long enough to decide that she really doubted that Elliot would have Eli in cords and a sweater, which was about as fancy as she had for Benji. And, she had no idea what Jack had to wear. Cords and a sweater – what he'd worn the day before? That would have to do for him. She wasn't going to have a fight with him about it. But she should at least try to fix Benji up to Elliot's liking, she'd decided – and dragged them all over to the department store before heading home.

She'd actually be surprised at how little commentary Jack had provided about the trip to get Benji something to wear. There was no mocking, no moaning – no nothing. She'd wondered if it was him just honouring her request that he play along with things over the next while – or if maybe he thought that Benji needed more than what she'd had him in the day before too? She thought if it was the latter, and Jack thought that Benji didn't have appropriate church clothes, it was likely a good thing she had dragged them all out in a crunch-time rush to get something.

Jack just kept fingering at one of the ties on the table now, though, even though she'd selected her purchase for the little boy and was ready to go pay and get home for at least a little bit of downtime before they headed back out. It was almost like he hadn't seen a tie before. Or maybe he just hadn't seen that many in one spot? Or maybe he just liked the feel of the silky material?

She watched him for a moment longer and thought about it. She looked at the one he was touching at. It was a little ugly – stripped metallic red and white like a candy cane. But she offered him a small smile at that.

"Would you like a tie for tonight, Jack?" she offered.

He glanced at her and shrugged. "Nah. It's OK."

She pulled out the one that he was looking at from the display and draped it across some of the other ones on the table.

"It's Christmas-y," she said, "but if you're wearing your shirt from yesterday – it's likely going to be a little loud. You'd probably be better going with a solid black or maybe a green."

He looked at her again at that and shrugged some more. "I'm not wearing the shirt from yesterday."

She gazed at him and raised an eyebrow. "No?"

He shook his head. "I brought my portfolio review suit for mass."

She examined him at that comment. Jack had a suit? And he'd thought to bring it? It pissed her off in that he'd clearly known since at least Friday – when he'd arrived at her place and brought all his clothes - that he'd wanted to go to mass and hadn't given her any sort of update on where he was at with that. She didn't express that to him, though, as much as she was still frustrated that she was apparently supposed to have had read his mind. Instead, on another level, it sort of impressed her that he'd thought to bring something to wear to mass. It gave her a glimpse of how important this was to him. Jack wasn't the kind of kid who'd be putting a suit on lightly. She got the sense that this was for his Nan … and maybe for his dad.

"What's a portfolio review suit?" she asked, just trying to get some clarification before she moved the chess pieces with him some more. She wanted to make sure it wasn't some sort of funky new fashion or turn-of-phrase that she was unaware of.

He shrugged. "Ah … in winter term we're going to have to start doing all these portfolio presentations and then have this big review at the end of the year. And we'll be going into some firms and stuff for visits and presentations. They told us we're supposed to be all professional about it. So I got something to wear, I guess. I didn't get a tie, though …"

She gave a small nod at that, wondering a little bit how Jack fared on his own in picking a suit. What he could afford? If it was sized properly?

"What colour is the suit?" was all she asked though.

He shrugged again. "Just black. It's like that," he pointed at Benji's little outfit.

She looked at it for a moment, struggling to decide what he meant. "No blazer?" she asked. "A vest?"

"Yeah."

She nodded again. "And it's just solid black? Not pin-stripped or anything?"

He gave a little nod and then looked a little embarrassed. "It's actually … Volcom too. Like … the shirt you got me."

She smiled a little at that. She thought it was a little funny but somewhat appropriate that Jack had purchased his suit at a clothing store that catered to skaters, it seemed. But that had likely made the process a bit more familiar to him. Though, they definitely wouldn't have had someone there to help him make sure he was picking an appropriate size and that concerned her a little. Still, she hoped since he appeared to own cords that fit properly, he would've known not to pick a suit that was three sizes or more too big on him.

Him saying it was Volcom helped give her some perspective of what he actually had in his possession too. She'd seen the dress wear at the store while she'd been in there getting his birthday presents. She hadn't taken a close look at it – but it had been enough of an oddity in there that she'd definitely noticed it.

"What colour's the shirt?" she asked.

"White," he said flatly.

She nodded and looked back at the table of ties again and the one he'd been looking at. "Well, you could likely get away with this one, then," she offered. "But I'm not sure how much re-use you'd get out of it. It's not a Christmas tie – but it's pretty … loud. Christmas-y," she told him. "Is it the red you like?"

He shrugged at her.

She gave him a small smile and pulled out another one that had small red and white checks on it. "What do you think of that one?" she asked. It still wouldn't have been her first choice – but it was something she could see him wearing to something other than Christmas Mass and having the ability to be paired with a few different coloured shirts.

"I don't know," he told her.

"I think it's better than the candy cane stripes," she tried.

"OK," he said softly and took it out of her hand and looked at it.

She gave him a small smile and then gently pulled on his elbow. "Let's go look at the shirts for a minute," she said. "See if we can get you something more interesting then white."

She thought white shirts were a little boring. But she also knew that where he might have some sense in what fit him for pants – he didn't seem to have much of a clue when it came to shirts. This green plaid one the day before had also been rather large on him. And, even beyond that, she thought if he really was going to be needing some more professional clothes for school the coming term – he would need more than one shirt to make it through.

He stopped in his tracks, though. "I'm OK," he said.

She gave him a thin smile. "We'll just take a look. There's lots of sales right now – and if you're having presentations this term, you're going to want more than one shirt."

"I'll get something later then," he said and looked at the ground.

It was a half-assed protest. So she pressed a little harder. "Just come look with me," she said. "If you don't see anything you like – we won't get anything."

He didn't immediately follow her, but she still took Benji by the hand and directed him over to where the men's shirts were. She gazed around the section for a moment going over in her head what might work with the suit Jack had picked – or with black, in general. Really, with black he could get away with just about anything. At least with the pants – and if he did go out and get a sports jacket rather than just the vest. But she thought with the vest he likely needed to keep the younger look going and she moved over to the block of one shade of colours and started looking through the options, prices and available sizes.

It had taken Jack a few minutes but eventually he came over too and stood looking without saying anything. She glanced at him. Benji was trying to mimic her sorting through the shirts, which she was sure the clerks would love having to clean up. She was trying to be as low-key as possible about this, though. She knew if she pushed too hard, Jack would really recoil.

"You can get away with pretty much anything with black," she told him and gestured at the wall and tables of shirts. "But I think with a vest suit, you'd look really smart in a grey."

Jack sort of looked at the three options she'd pulled out and tossed onto the table.

"If you didn't just want to go with a solid, these might be good choices," she said.

"They look solid," he said from where he was standing, maybe a little cautiously a few feet back.

"Come over here and take a look," she encouraged and he closed the gap. "See? They're patterned. It's just been done in a way that's not too in your face, Jack. So you've got checks, this one has little squares sewn into it – and if you touch this one … it's a textured material. See the little pinstripes?"

"How do you know this stuff?" he mumbled at her.

She wanted to give some sort of smart-ass comment along the lines of 'I take the time to look in a mirror before I go out' or 'I've been dressing myself for years'. But she could see the cautious co-operation the teen was giving her. She wasn't going to lose it. So she shrugged. "I work with a lot of men in suits," she offered. He glanced at her again. He was still touching at the textured shirt – which with its discrete pinstripes would've been her first choice for him. "It's a nice material, isn't it? Soft."

He shrugged. "I guess."

"You want to try it on and see what you think?"

He glanced up from the shirt and looked at her but shrugged again.

So she nodded. This was just Jack. She didn't get answers from him. The shrug was a 'yes'.

"Do you know what size you are?" She decided not to wait for him to respond, though. "Take off your coat," she instructed him and took it, gesturing towards a clerk standing over at one of the service counters in the section. "Go ask that man to measure you. Be polite. He's going to have to sort of touch you."

Jack have her a look at that – somewhere between disgust and reluctance.

"He'll just have you hold out your arms and wrap a measuring tape around you a few times," she said, shaking her head. "Come back and tell me what numbers he gives you."

He bit on the inside of his cheek for a moment and she was pretty sure he was about to tell her that he was fine and wanted to go but then he walked over and she watched for a moment as he rather awkwardly waited for his turn to speak with the clerk. The store wasn't as insane as she thought it might be – she supposed with the snow even the last minute shoppers were wrapping up their purchasing early and getting to where they needed to be.

"Mommy this boring," Benji whined at her, and she glanced at him.

"Benj – we're almost done," she assured him, knowing it was just a partial truth.

"Boring," he whined again. "HURRY UP!"

"Hey," she said to him sternly and met his eyes. "Jack was very patient while we picked your clothes, wasn't he?" Benji just looked at her with big eyes. "So, now you're going to be very patient while he picks his. Remember Santa is watching – especially tonight. He knows if you're being bad or good …"

"I good," Benji informed her quietly.

"I know Little Fox," she said. "So you need to be my good little boy now – and be polite and patient while we finish getting Uncle Jack some clothes for tonight too."

Jack came back and told her his measurements and she shuffled through the pile of shirts before sending him to try his size on, instructing him to come out and show her after he was ready. She wanted to make sure it actually did fit. But she wondered if he'd listen to her. She was sure that teenaged boys didn't much want to have their attire assessed by their mother – even if she wasn't his mother. That likely made the concept of letting her look at him even less appealing, though.

She took Benji back over to the tie display by the fitting rooms while he was in there and looked at them again while they were waiting, pulling out a second tie that wasn't quite as loud. It seemed to take Jack quite a while but eventually he did appear and she gave him a small smile. Even with the shirt hanging out of his jeans and the sleeves hanging off him unbuttoned – he looked nice.

"What do you think?" she asked him and moved a bit closer to him, just inside the entrance to the fitting area.

He shrugged. "I guess it's good."

She gave him a thin smile at that. "I think it looks pretty good," she agreed and nudged his shoulder so he was facing the mirror there and held up the red checked tie to his neck. "I think that will work OK. What about you?"

He examined himself – or rather by where his eyes were in the mirror, it looked like the tie. "I like the tie," he mumbled softly.

She smiled a bit on the inside about that and moved to hold up the other one. "How do you feel about this one for when we get past Christmas?"

He looked down at it and she could tell he liked it. It clearly hadn't just been the red he'd been attracted to – it had been the stripes on the candy cane one that she'd kind of vetoed.

"The other ones a Christmas tie?" he asked.

She shook her head. "No. You can get away with those checks anytime of the year. But I think this one would be a good everyday sort of tie. It will give you a second option – for now."

He looked at her in the mirror and looked sort of sheepish and examined the ground.

"You don't have to spend all this money," he said a little sheepishly.

She shook her head. "Don't start at me about how I spend my money again," she told him. "I'll spend it the way I want. Let's get you suited up for these presentations, reviews and meetings this term – give you an edge in getting an internship or summer job?"

He snorted. "I doubt it."

"Positive attitudes can do a long way, Jack," she said. "Com'on, go get changed out of that. Then I want us to go downstairs and for you to look at the shoes for a minute."

"I've got shoes," he groaned at her.

She shook her head. "You need a pair of dress shoes or something to go with your suit. And, you're going to look at winter boots."

"My shoes are fine," he shoot her a look, "and I can't skate in boots."

"How much skating do you do in the winter, Jack?"

He shrugged. "I don't know – depends on how much snow there is. There's indoor parks."

She shook her head. "Well, for right now – you're wearing shoes that have holes in their soles and we have almost half a foot of snow on the ground out there. No kid of mine is walking around like that. Com'on, hurry up, we don't have time to argue about it tonight. I want to get home …"

She didn't give him a chance to react or respond – walking away and leaving him to get changed and catch up with her and Benji.


	82. Chapter 82

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She watched Benji carefully as they got back into the apartment and as he finished taking off his boots – and throwing his jacket at her and nearly to the ground to go tearing off into the living room.

In the week the tree had been up, he could hardly contain himself after getting in the door to go and claim some of the ornaments to use as his playthings for the evening. But he'd also been sure to inform her that he was checking to see if Santa had come. It didn't matter how many times she told him that Santa only came on Christmas Eve and only came after everyone was asleep. He seemed determined to check under the tree and make sure that Santa really hadn't been there yet.

That day, though, someone had been there and she wanted to see how long it would take him to notice what all was on the coffee table in the living room. She was poking her head around the corner and gazing at him as she finished pulling off her boots. She could see Jack glancing into the room too as he shucked off his shoes and tossed his ratty jacket at the hook. But for the moment Benji was just over at the tree assessing some of the ornaments before flopping onto the floor to do his inventory of the presents – searching for a From: with an S at the beginning of the name. "Becuz Santa name an S. But Mommy Fox and Peedg not S names," he'd informed her when she'd asked at one point what he was up to in manhandling the gifts. At first she had thought it was the bows he was fascinated with and trying to pull off – not that he was trying to actually read the tags.

She just left their bags next to the door for the moment and headed into the kitchen – half-ways pretending to get together something for them to drink and have a bite to eat. Really just waiting for him to finish at the tree and hopefully plop himself on the couch wanting to watch a Christmas special. If he decided he was going to sit on the floor behind the couch and play – she might have to give him some gentle nudges to get him to make the discovery – or else they might be waiting a long while.

She could see Jack still loitering in the doorway too, even though he'd gotten his outside clothes off. He likely didn't feel like he could go anywhere in the apartment without disrupting the event – and that he particularly couldn't go and sit on the couch.

"Come in here," she nodded at him. It was likely they were people gaping at some sort of monkey in the zoo. That made her feel a little ridiculous – and maybe a little bad for Benji. But it was what it was. "Do you want a glass of pop or something?"

He shrugged and came the few feet into the kitchen and worked his way around the island the long way to take a seat on one of the stools but then hung awkwardly off it so he could still watch his little nephew.

She pulled her eyes away from Benji for a moment and opened the fridge to grab the bottle of Coke for Jack – and did her own quick inventory of the fridge. He had followed her request and gone out and picked up some extra groceries for them to add to their holiday stock, which had mostly just been treats and sweets that morning. But now she could see some fruit in the drawer and a box of mixed greens, a bag of baby carrots and an onion and tomato. There was a baggie of shaved roast beef from the deli section and some Swiss cheese slices. There was a slab of bacon and some eggs – which assumed meant she was expected to make that for breakfast in the next couple days. She'd noticed some corn chips on the counter and there was a large jar of salsa inside the fridge now too. It looked like Jack had liked her lasagna suggestion because there was a tray of premade cannelloni waiting to be reheated. She pulled it out of the fridge too and glanced at the sticker on the front before setting the oven to preheat.

Alex had called her the day before to excitedly update on her Christmas dinner efforts. She thought it was a little funny that Alex was excited about cooking anything. She thought Alex's cooking attempts likely numbered about the same as hers – if not less – at least before Benji had entered her life. Now Olivia was cooking almost daily. She hoped that Alex's Christmas dinner efforts weren't too exhausting or frustrating for her – that it all burned out the way she hoped. Olivia appreciated the effort that was going on from her colleague.

She'd told Olivia, though, that she'd gotten a smaller ham.

"You're oven is only so big. I need to have room for the green bean casserole and the maple-baked squash too. Do you think there will be room to get some scalloped potatoes in there too? Or time? I'm sure there will be enough ham for everyone, though. Lots of food."

She'd agreed with her that it sounded like lots of food. And it did. But she'd also thought that Alex had no idea how much Jack – or any teenaged boy could pack away. Jack could likely eat that whole tray of cannelloni himself and hardly put on an ounce of weight because of it. She was actually almost surprised that there wasn't a second tray there – one for her and Benji and one for him. The $60 she left mustn't have stretched that far. Oh well, she thought. She'd put out a couple treats and maybe some cheese and crackers for them after they got back from church – assuming Benji was still awake and raring to go.

She grabbed a glass from the cupboard for Jack's glass of Coke and it was as she was turning back around that Benji finally was making his way towards the couch to sit down.

She smiled a bit and watched him. He made a bit of a stop and looked at the coffee table questioningly – scrunching up his face and then creeping over a bit more. She saw him scan over the presents – his lips puckered in thought and then he grabbed the pewter key off the table and examined the Santa head on top and the velvet red ribbon.

He spun around holding it high above his head. "'LIVIA!" he screamed at the top of his lungs. "SANTA WAS HERE!"

She gave him a smile and started to move around the island. "Santa was here?" she said questioningly. "That can't be right Benj. Santa comes Christmas Eve after everyone is asleep. We haven't gone to sleep yet."

Benji shook his head hard and held up the key at her. "HE FORGOT HIS MAGIC KEY 'LIVIA! HE FORGOT IT! THERE PRESENTS!"

He hopped down onto this knees and examined the three wrapped packages on the table. He looked harder at the tags. She purposely had written just each of their names on the tags and not "From: Santa". But Benji still examined them.

"This one B," he declared. "This one mine," he pulled it towards him and gazed up at her.

She smiled. "This can't be right, Benj," she said and sat down next to him. Jack had come around slowly and sat down on the couch to watch the show. "Who are the other ones for?"

Benji sat up higher on his knees again and looked at the boxes. "J. That Peedg!" he said and pushed it towards his uncle. He examined the last one carefully. "It O," he said and looked at her.

"Olivia's an O name," Jack said.

Benji looked even more excited at her. "Santa leave you present too 'Livia!"

She smiled at that and sat herself down on the floor next to him. "He did?"

Benji nodded vigourously. "Do we open them now, Mommy? Or we wait 'til Chris-miss?" he demanded to know.

She shrugged. "I don't know, Benj. I'm really confused. Santa shouldn't have been here yet. But did you see this?" she asked and held the key back out at him. "I think there's a note on the key."

Benji crawled over to her and into her lap, pulling the key towards him to look at and lifting the tag to examine it. "Wazzit say?"

She looked at it again and held it so he could see it while she read to him. "It says: If a house has no chimney for Santa to come in …"

"We have no chimney!" Benji interjected.

She smiled and put a kiss on the top of his head. "We don't, do we? You want me to finish reading it, Little Fox?"

He nodded.

"If a house has no chimney for Santa to come in, or the chimney's too small – since Santa's not thin; There's nothing to worry about because Santa can see how to get inside if you leave out this magical key."

Benji grabbed at the key again and looked at it. "It tis Santa's magic key!" he declared and examined it. He held it up at Jack. "Santa magic key! To come in and leave presents!"

"But what are all these presents already here then?" Olivia asked, still playing confused, "If we're supposed to leave out the magical key for Santa tonight?"

Jack reached over onto the table and lifted up an envelope. "I think there's a note for you 'Jamin," he said. "It has your name on it. Maybe it will tell us."

Benji sat back upright onto his knees from having rested his bouncing butt on his heels. He snatched the envelope for Jack and examined it.

"Hey, hey," Olivia said and gave him the smallest pat on the butt. "Don't be grabby. It's for you. Jack was just giving it to you."

Benji glanced at her and started ripping at the envelope. He loved opening her mail. She usually gave him the junk mail envelopes for him to work at shredding to pieces to get open and then examine the coupons or credit card offers inside. Apparently that was pretty thrilling for a four-year-old. She should really put something in the mail that was actually addressed to him. That would likely blow his mind, she thought.

"Be careful, Benj," she told him as he worked at ripping it open. "Whatever is inside is likely important – you don't want to tear it."

He finally managed to get the piece of paper out – only slightly mangled – and held it above his head to show them and then pulled it protectively back to his body and unfolded it. The note was on a piece of paper illustrated with a scene from Santa's workshop at the North Pole – not too unlike pictures he'd seen in Jack's children's treasury they'd been working through.

He glanced at her and considered the paper before holding it out – almost like he was afraid she might not return it to him if he did let go. "It from Santa too," he told her very factually but rather solemnly.

He crawled over to her again and held the note up to her face. "Read," he near demanded, none too politely.

She snorted at him and pulled the paper down and out of her face. "Manners, Benj," she said. "Why don't we let Jack read it for us, since he found it?" she suggested.

Benji scrunched up his face at that and looked at his uncle. "It mine," he said. "It had B on it."

Jack rolled his eyes and stuck out his hand. "Whatever," he said.

But Olivia shook her head at both of them and pulled Benji into her lap again. She put her mouth to his ear. "Benjamin," she said softly but sternly. "I know you're very excited – but you're also being very rude. No grabbing, no mine-ing. We're all looking together and seeing what's going on. No one is going to take anything that belongs to you. You need to be polite tonight – and tomorrow. You say please and you say thank you. You ask. You don't just take or grab. OK, sweetheart?"

He looked up at her and flopped his face into her breasts. "Now I get k-oil?" he asked.

She rubbed his back. "No, sweetheart. Now we're all going to try to be politer – no matter how excited we are." She put a kiss on his head again and wrapped her arms around him. "What are we going to do, Benj?" she coached.

"Say pleez and tank you and no grab," he said quietly.

She shook him a bit in her lap. "Very good, Benj," she said. "Give me a hug and kiss and then let's see what your note says."

He looked up at her with his big beautiful blue eyes and she gave him a smile and stroked at his cheeks with her thumbs. "There's my Amazing Little Fox," she said. "Do I get a hug and kiss?"

He seemed to think about it for a moment – like he was still concerned he was in big trouble. But he slowly stretched up with puckered lips and planted one on her cheek and wrapped his arms around her neck. She returned the hug and rubbed him firmly up and down his back – putting her own kiss on his temple.

"OK," she said, as he started to loosen his grip. "Let's give the letter to Uncle Jack to see what says."

Benji let go of her and held it across the table to his uncle who'd quietly watched the minor discipline and hug-and-kiss exchange without any comment. She'd avoided looking at him to see any potential rolling eyes or disapproving body language, though. She didn't want to see it if it was happening. She wanted all the cuddles from her Little Fox that she could get. She wanted to absorb as much of the next 24 hours as she could – and tuck it away and be able to remember it and look back on it, no matter what the next couple months brought them.

"Pleez Jee-Peedg wazzit it say?" Benji asked, having at least momentarily absorbed what she was asking of him.

Jack took the now rather battered sheet of paper from him and looked at it.

"Dear Benji," he read. "Santa was so happy to meet you. He asked me to stop by to make sure you are ready for Christmas this year and for his visit. Please leave this key on your doorknob so Santa can use his magic to get in and deliver your presents. Santa also wants you, Jack and Olivia to open these gifts now. The special magic dust in them will help you all sleep well tonight so Santa can make his visit. From, Santa's Elf Dandy."

"Santa elf viz-it?" Benji asked after thinking about the note for a moment.

Olivia held out her hand to take the note back from Jack and look at it. "That's that it says, Benj," she agreed. "You remember Dandy? We met her when we went to see Santa."

Benji looked at her some more and seemed to consider it blankly but then nodded hard. "Dandy take pitch-ers and give candy!"

She smiled. "She did. Wow. It was pretty nice of her to bring these things here for Santa – and for us!"

Benji looked back to the packages on the table again and picked up his and shook it hard. There wasn't much to shake in it. But it made a swishing sound back and forth. He moved it closer to his ear and shook it hard again.

"Wazzit?" Benji asked.

Olivia looked at the note again and considered it. "Well, the note says it's something that's supposed to help us all sleep tonight. But I think we'd have to open them to find out what's inside. Do you think we should?"

Benji looked at her and back at the presents and considered it more. "Dis one mine?" he asked.

She leaned over and examined the tag. "That tag says 'Benji'," she agreed. She looked at the one in front of Jack. "That one says 'Jack' and this one says 'Olivia.' I'm pretty sure they're for us. That's what Dandy says in the letter too."

"We open now?" Benji asked again and looked more at the present. She could see his eagerness intermixing with his questioning and reluctance. He was so excited but still so unsure.

"The letter says we should," Olivia tried to start pushing him towards ripping the paper off it.

Benji thought about it some more and looked at Jack. "You open now Peedg?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah. I'm going to open mine."

"Me too," Olivia said. "Maybe we should all open together? On the count of three?"

She looked at Benji and watched him consider that again – but she also saw his little fingers start to pick at the tape.

"One …" she said and Benji glanced at her and back to the present. "Two …" she said and Jack picked up his off the table, so she reached for hers as well. "Three!"

Benji glanced at her and then looked at Jack who started ripping the paper off his in a way to make sure nothing was salvageable from what was left after it got off. So the little boy started searching for a spot on his box to do the same – while she went a bit more slowly, more watching Benji than what she was doing with her box.

Benji managed to get his paper off and sat up on his knees to look at the box and then flipped the lid open and pushed aside the tissue paper to examine the contents.

He looked like he wasn't sure what to make of it for a second but then he pulled them out and held them up in front of her.

"Santa on a skateboard!" he declared of the little cotton-knit PJ set, with a graphic of Santa ollieing over some presents on the green shirt and red, green and white stripped pants.

She looked at him and gave him a smile. "They look like jammies, Benj," she said. "Magic jammies to help you sleep tonight so Santa can come."

Benji looked harder at the pajamas. "Magic jammies?" he asked with a touch of wonder at that. Then he examined her. "What you get?"

She opened her box and looked inside before pulling out a pair of sleep pants with some snowflakes printed on them and a tank. "Jammies too!" she declared. "What about you Jack?"

Jack held up a pair of red flannel plaid pants and a green shirt with the Grinch on it. He shook his head a bit at her but had a small smile on his face. "I got PJs too," he said.

Benji jumped up. "I put on magic jammies now so Santa come!" he declared. "PUT ON JAMMIES SO SANTA COME!" he seemed to order them.

Olivia laughed and grabbed at him again and pulled him to her into a hug and shook him a bit. "I think you should wait to put the magic jammies on until after church, Little Fox. We don't want you falling asleep just yet."


	83. Chapter 83

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She rapped on the door with her knuckles before going back into the bedroom, but Jack had it open already, so she didn't really wait for a response. It was more just meant as a warning that she was coming back in.

Her and Benji had ended up with the bathroom for changing while she let Jack have the bedroom. Really, he probably would've fared better in the bathroom – so he could fiddle around endlessly with his new haircut in front of the mirror.

She got the sense that he hadn't had his hair that short in a long-time – and perhaps really hadn't used hair product before. He seemed rather fascinated with playing with the shorter strands on his head and swishing it around. It wasn't that unlike Benji - when she'd first had his haircut and he couldn't stop playing with his faux-hawk and wanting her to fix it. Really, she still couldn't keep her hands out of his hair when he was lounging with her on the couch, even though Benji fidgeting with it had calmed significantly most days, likely because it was starting to get a bit longer.

She really needed to add another trip to the barber to the list of things to do. Though, she'd also considered that if she bought a trimmer – managing Benji's hair while he was a little boy was likely something she could do. She wondered how badly she'd mangle it, though? Maybe it was worth paying someone else to do something she thought she could likely do herself?

Jack, though, definitely needed to keep going to a barber. She actually thought he'd benefit from a trip to just a stylist. She was sure when they'd first cut his hair and fixed it up for him before he left – he must've been happy with it. But he also must've seen them use product and was now trying to duplicate whatever they'd done.

He clearly needed a bit of a crash course on what the different hair product options were, what brands wouldn't leave hair a greasy crusty mess – which seemed to be what he was going for at the moment, and how to actually use the product. She'd contemplated giving him a lesson. She'd used enough kinds of product over the years and had spent enough time with her hair short – that she thought she could sort of tell what he was trying to do and knew how to better achieve it than him. But she also thought her offering to touch his hair – and products that he'd likely classify as hygiene products or toiletries, would completely set him off. So she'd just left it.

Though, she was happy to see he hadn't yet started gobbing the stuff into his hair that night. She didn't think helmet-head and crusty-spikeys were the best look for Christmas Mass. She might try to nix his hair adventures if she did catch him headed to the bathroom to apply vast amounts of the gunk to his head. She thought the biggest problem what likely that from what she saw on the counter in the bathroom, it looked like he'd bought about the cheapest gel he could find. He'd probably be better with a wax or pomade. She thought about putting the product she had for Benji's hair out on the counter to see if maybe Jack would take an interest in trying it instead of his goop.

The fact she was even thinking about all that, though, gave her another wave of relief about the move. She knew that the actual moving part was going to be a pain in the ass. She knew Benji was going to have some difficulty accepting it at the start – even though she was talking to him about it and trying to prepare him. She'd take him up and start getting him adjusted to the place as soon as she got the keys – even though it'd take longer for them to get moved in. But even with Benji's trepidation – getting into a bigger place was the right choice. Not just that – it was a necessary choice. And, really, she was so, so, soooo looking forward to having a little bit of personal space again.

She knew that Benji would still likely come barging into her bedroom on a whim even after he had his own. He'd have something to tell her or something to ask her. Or he'd want something – or rather, he'd demand something of her. But at least she'd have a space she could technically call her own. A place to change (she so hated getting changed in a bathroom in her own home). A bed to sleep in. A closet and dresser that didn't have little boy's clothes shoved into every available space.

It'd be nice to have back at least some of that previous normalcy that she'd become so accustomed to in years of being single and alone. She wouldn't trade having Benji in her life now – but she also really wouldn't mind having back a few of the things she'd likely taken for granted. It was funny how now a bed, bedroom door and your own closet space was starting to seem like a luxury.

Oh! And, a bathroom! She hadn't expected the apartment to have a master en suite in it. But, God, she was looking forward to that. Not having to share a bathroom with Benji – or with Jack on weekend! – was going to be so nice. It almost made the price jump from the one bedroom up to the two bedroom worth it all on its own. Her own toilet, her own sink, her own tub.

Both of the boys were disgusting in the bathroom. She was used to disgusting bathrooms. The locker room and cribs and shower stalls in police stations weren't exactly cleanly. But before, she got to go home – and could use a clean toilet without a dribbled-on floor in front of it, and a wiped down shower that she didn't feel like she should be wearing flip-flops in and stocked with her own toiletries, and a sink that wasn't filled with stubble and caked on toothpaste and shaving cream and God knows what else. Or at least that was what it had been like before Jack and Benji had waltzed into her life. Now she couldn't really decide who was more disgusting in the bathroom – Jack or Benji. She did think, though, that she was likely a little more forgiving of Benji's dribbles and splatter and water all of the floor and damp towel balls left in his wake than she was Jack's.

She'd already decided that she was really going to strive to make the en suite bathroom a 'no boys zone'. They'd have their own bathroom – the apartment bathroom. The one in her bedroom could be hers – a few square feet of space in the place that she could get a little bit of privacy and me-time in. Or at least spread out her toiletries and not have to wipe up pee off the ground or check to make sure the seat was down. She knew the bedroom likely wouldn't be completely salvageable as hers – but that bathroom … she was sure going to try.

Jack glanced at her as she re-entered the bedroom. He was in his mass clothing and standing in front of her mirror clearly struggling with his new tie. It sort of looked like he knew what he was doing – just like he hadn't done it in a long time and was trying to remember. But he didn't ask for help – or say anything to her for the moment – so she let him continue what he was doing.

She gave him a small smile but had to move over to where he was standing too. At the mirror, she reached behind her neck and undid the clasps on each of her necklaces – lifting the lid on her jewelry box and slowly letting them slink down into their defined spaces. She could feel Jack watching her and gave him a small sideways glance –but neither of them said anything. So she looked back to the box for a moment and considered some of her other necklaces. She pulled out something a bit more formal and put it around her neck and did the clasp up before moving her hair back into place. She leaned forward again and picked the matching earrings from the set that went with the necklace and stayed leaned slightly more forward at the mirror while she put each of the little studs on. In the mirror she could again see Jack looking at her.

She looked at him again as she straightened back up, giving a final adjustment to the second stub.

"Everything OK?" she asked him, as he continued to examine her with almost too much intensity.

"You look like a girl," he muttered and the turned his attention back to the mirror and his fumbling efforts with the tie.

She snorted at that comment, though, and very nearly rolled her eyes at him. "Ah, thank you," she offered.

She wasn't going to spend money on herself to get some sort of Christmas Mass outfit. That was fine for the boys. But she had a closet full of clothes at home that she hardly ever got to wear. She figured there would be something in there that would be appropriate.

She hadn't gotten too worked up about it. She'd almost immediately ruled out most of her dresses – they were for evenings out with men, not church. So she'd just flipped through the few skirts she owned until she found a black one that was on the longer side that she thought would likely be appropriate. Looking through her tops and blouses, she'd eventually decided she'd really please Jack by being tacky – and since the two boys had red in their outfits, she might as well too. So she'd pulled a long-sleeved, top with a nice neckline and almost a faux-wrap look to it out. It'd be good enough. Not overly fancy – but not jeans, like Elliot's request – and definitely not work clothes or date clothes either. Hopefully that met all the unstated requirements of Christmas Mass attire.

"I just meant that you don't usually wear stuff like that," Jack mumbled at her again.

She gave him a small smile and shook her head. "Well, I don't really work in a job where I'd be wearing a skirt in to the office, do I?"

She could see him looking up at her in the mirror but he shrugged.

She shook her head again. "And, a big tip, Buster … women like to be told they look good or nice or pretty or beautiful or something along those lines. Being told they look like a girl … it makes it sound like your dad didn't get a chance to sit down and have 'the talk' with you."

He snorted a bit at that and glanced up at her again in the mirror. "You look nice," he offered.

She gave him a smile. "Thank you, Jack. So do you," she said and gave him a small nod. "Do you need help with that?"

He looked at her in the mirror again. "I think I've got it," he said.

She allowed a thin smile. "It looks like you might need a refresher course," she told him.

He just shrugged. So she nudged his shoulder until he turned to face her and she worked at undoing his mess and then getting the tie into position to make the knot for him. Jack kept watching her hands while she made the movements.

"Why do you know this?"

She let out a small silent laugh at that. "I don't know. One of those life skills you pick up," she said.

But he glanced up at her and she shrugged.

"There's a tie with our dress uniform that I may have occasionally had to put on over the years," she offered. "And, I may have had one or two men in my life that I've tied ties for over the years."

"Dad?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Likely. I don't remember specifically tying his tie – but I'd say that's a reasonable possibility."

"Did you date a lot of people after my dad?" Jack asked as she finished and she tucked the tie under his vest and patted the knot down a bit.

She shrugged again at his question, though. "Well, Jack, I dated your dad over 20 years ago. I haven't exactly lived like a monk since then."

"So lots," Jack said flatly.

She shook her head. "I haven't exactly kept a running tally, sweetheart. But I've dated. Obviously there hasn't been anyone that special, though. Because here I am …"

Jack glanced at her while he worked at threading his tie and flattening it a bit better against his stomach under the vest.

"So when's the last time you dated?" he asked.

She snorted. "This is some great Christmas conversation, Jack," she said. But he glanced at her with questioning eyes. "I was in a relationship in the spring," she said flatly. "It didn't work out."

He looked at her again. "Why?"

She snorted louder at that and shook her head. "Why don't any relationships work out?" she said. "Things happen. It's a long story – and one I'm not going to get into with you."

"So he was a jerk?" Jack offered.

She snorted again and looked at the ceiling. "Jack …"

"You did it in the bed you have me and Benji sleeping in, didn't you?"

She snapped her head back at him and gaped at that. "Jesus Christ, Jack …" she started. But he smiled and looked away – clearly thinking he'd won because he'd gotten a reaction out of her or taken her a bit off guard with his comment.

"So who's this guy we're going to church with?" he asked, examining himself in the mirror and starting to fidget with his hair a bit.

"A friend," she offered.

"A friend?" Jack asked, with an eyebrow raised.

She shook her head at him. "Elliot was my partner for almost 14 years. He's married and has five children. That's who we're going to mass with."

Jack glanced at her again. "His wife and kids are all going to be there? That's a lot of people."

She sighed – more for Elliot than Jack's question. "Ah, no. Him and his wife are … separated right now. So it will just be Elliot – and his three youngest. His one little boy is about Ben's age and his twins. I think they're your age."

"Age gap," Jack said flatly.

She nodded. "Yeah. A bit."

"Friend, though, huh?"

She nodded and caught his eyes and gave him a stern look. "Yes, a friend. And, Jack –this aspect of my life – it's not something up for discussion between us right now. You want to ask questions about your dad and me - or talk about your dad, I'll talk. But the rest of my love life – my relationships, my sex life – is off limits. Understand?"

He shrugged and looked back to the mirror. "Like I want to think about you having old people middle-aged sex. Gross. I don't want to hear that shit."

She shook her head and made for the door. The kid drove her fucking crazy in so many ways. How the hell did she get stuck with a teenager as part of the deal to get a chance to be a mom? Seemed like just her kind of luck.

**Got stuff on the go this week, people. So this may be the last update you see for a while. Anything more this week will likely be intermittent at best. So hope you enjoyed - and now you can wait on pins-and-needles for Christmas.**

**As always - any feedback, suggestions or thoughts via reviews or PMs are greatly appreciated**


	84. Chapter 84

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

It had seemed to take forever to get over to the church.

She'd decided to just put them in a taxi since they were in nicer clothes, and even beyond that, she didn't want to compete with transit on a holiday evening and in the weather. But she'd almost decided that transit might've been faster – and safer.

It was like their taxi driver – or any of the other drivers on the road – hadn't seen some snow before. She'd been in some high speed chases in her time. But at the low speed, dodging crawl their cabbie had taken them on, she thought she'd seen her life flash before her eyes more than any of those chases. She kept gripping at Benji as their car skidded around and Jack was giving her his trademark "what-the-fuck" look. But there was only so much she could do. Really what was she supposed to do? Have the driver drop them off in the middle of the turnpike and walk the rest of the way?

The boys weren't helping what should've been about a 25-30 minute trip seem any shorter, though. Benji had decided that Jingle Bells would be an appropriate theme song for the ride over. And, Benji had a repeat button that couldn't be turned off. Even Olivia thought she could do without ever hearing the song again after the little boy sputtered, stumbled and slaughtered his way through the song for about the seventh time. But Jack's groaning and demands that his nephew 'SHUT UP!' was only making the serenading that much worse. Though each 'SHUT UP!' did seem to prompt him to switch songs. Benji's repertoire, however, was somewhat limited. If it wasn't Jingle Bells, the choices seemed to be Away in the Manger, Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (which he seemed to know even fewer of the words to than the rest of his set).

It was turning into a moment where she found herself momentarily wondering what the hell she was thinking wanting to give up her quiet life – or at least quiet home life – for this: shrieking, yelling, headache-inducing never-ending singing. But then Benji would look at her with those eyes that were so excited that night and declare 'IT CHRIS-MISS!' or 'SING MOMMY FOX!' or 'WE GONNA SEE THE BABY JEZ-US' or 'SANTA COMING SOON!' before starting into his next round of battered Christmas carols. Then she couldn't help but smile at him wonder why the hell she even had these moments of questioning what the hell she was getting herself into: if she was truly ready, if she could truly do this – raise a child on her own and not just a child … a boy into a man. She'd figure out how to do it because she wasn't going to just give up moments like that – his glowing eyes, his excited comments and his horribly off-key little voice that he wasn't the least bit embarrassed about.

By the time they did escape the cab, she swore about another two inches of snow had accumulated on the ground – and they were running later than she had wanted to be. She hoped that Elliot would understand about the weather they were contending with. She'd been texting him about their backup on the turnpike but he hadn't responded. She didn't really expect him to have his phone on in church, though. Especially when he wasn't a cop anymore and always expecting the call-of-duty to potentially interrupt his family time.

She almost prayed that his comment about him having trouble saving them space in the pew if they got there after nine wasn't too ominous. They were already a few minutes past that cut-off. She really didn't want to miss getting to sit with Elliot and his family. Or worse, end up having to stand somewhere in the church with Benji. It would basically defeat the whole purpose of trekking all the way out to Queens in a virtual blizzard if that happened.

After they got inside the church they stomped off the snow they'd had to walk through. It would've been an impossible effort it would've been for the parishioners to try to keep the path and steps up to the front entrance clear that night – and they'd waded through the mounds of snow because of it. Though, thankfully, they were running late enough that lots of other people had blazed a bit of a trail. Mother Nature, however, was doing her best to cover up those efforts with each passing minute.

As they got inside the doors, though, there was a giant line of people. She wasn't sure what they were doing, so she moved to step aside them and head into the chapel. But Jack grabbed at her arm and remained standing in the line.

"You need to bless yourself with Holy Water," he hissed at her. "Cleanse your spirit."

She looked at him but made no comment and remained in the line – letting him take the lead, since he seemed to know what he was doing. Though, she somewhat anxiously looked through the doors into the chapel – trying to see if she could spot the back of Elliot's or any of the kids' heads. The placed looked full already. She wondered if she should leave the boys in line and go inside and let him know they'd arrived. But the line was moving pretty fast and she thought Jack might have a bit of a fit if she stepped inside the chapel without them having cleansed her spirit first.

They got up to the font containing the Holy Water, Jack dipped his fingers in and made the sign of the cross. He then took Benji's little hand and dipped it in too. The little boy moved to splash in the water but his uncle quickly yanked his hand away and then kept hold of his wrist and moved Benji through the motions of the cross across his front. He then looked at her expectantly.

But she just shook her head. "I'm not Catholic, Jack," she said quietly. "I'm here for you guys."

He gave her a small glare but said nothing and started to move towards the door. So she took a hold of Benji's hand, before he could start playing in the water that he was eyeing with a bit too much interest, and followed. Jack had stopped a couple feet inside the chapel, likely realizing that he didn't know who he was looking for.

She moved a little ahead of him and glanced around the place. It was pretty packed already. She really didn't have a clue where Elliot might be sitting. But she thought they should likely start at the front since he'd indicated he was going to arrive with the kids more than an hour before anything started.

They started to move down the aisle. The church was decorated to the nines. There was a beautifully, huge tree up near the altar and a giant wreath hanging from up in the rafters. She could see a near life-sized crèche off in the one corner that she knew she'd be taking Benji over to when she got the chance. And, even though Elliot had indicated that a carol sing-along wasn't scheduled to start until 9:30 the organ was already going with the religious music building up. She could see some of the parishioners quietly singing along, though the choir and its director hadn't yet emerged to lead the whole congregation.

She wondered how many people participated in the singing or if most just sat quietly and listened. Would she be expected to sing? Would Elliot be singing? Would the teenagers? She knew Benji wouldn't hesitate to if he recognized any of the songs. She knew there'd likely be a few.

Jack had chastised the first Christmas album she'd downloaded as being 'too Santa-y'. Whatever that meant. It was Raffi. She didn't know how much more children's Christmas music album you could get than that. But Jack had other ideas and found something that he thought was more appropriate. Or what she would classify as 'religious-y' to his 'Santa-y'. Either way, it had definitely taught Benji the words to Away in the Manager and The First Noel … or Now-L. She'd had to counter his choice with some Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra Christmas albums – just to balance it all out.

She thought that now having three Christmas albums on her computer was hopefully enough for a lifetime. The albums had been on near repeat for over a week now – and she thought she may have heard the songs enough for the rest of her lifetime too.

They hadn't gotten too far down the long main aisle in the nave when a hand caught a hold of her elbow. She spun and looked down, expecting Elliot had spotted them first. But instead it was Mark who was looking up at her with a smile.

"You guys the reason El is taking up a whole pew and refusing to move over?" Mark teased.

She snorted and gave him a smile, though a little embarrassed. "Ah, yeah," she admitted. "I guess so. We're a little late. Still trying to spot him."

Mark stood up from his seat and nodded up to the aisle. "They're up at the front. About six rows back. You'll see them."

She was finding it a little strange to see Mark there – just out of context. She supposed it wasn't entirely unexpected, though, if she'd stopped and thought about it. She knew he lived on Elliot's street. It would make sense that this was his parish too. She hadn't really considered if Mark was the religious type of not. But, again, she knew that even lax Christians seemed to find their way to church at Christmas and Easter.

Mark glanced at the boys and gave them a nod. They were still in their coats – though hanging open at that point, giving a bit of a preview of their Christmas attire.

"Looking good guys," he said and specifically gave Jack a thin smile. "Hey Jack."

"Hey," Jack allowed quietly and started examining the ground.

In some ways the teen and Benji were so similar. A lot of Benji's mannerisms when he was playing shy almost manifested themselves in Jack when he was feeling uncomfortable, Olivia had noticed.

Olivia gave Mark a small smile. "It's good to see you, Mark," she said and shot his family a bit of an apologetic smile. She knew his wife wasn't a fan of him talking to clients in family time – not that Olivia blamed her – and the woman was eyeing them and her husband with a bit of distaste. "But I don't want to keep you from your family – and we should find Elliot before he loses our spots."

Mark nodded but took a step closer to her and grabbed her arm again. "Hey, just before you go …" he said quietly. "I tried calling your office near the end of the day – but was told you'd already left."

She raised an eyebrow questioningly at him. "Ah, yeah, I got out of there a couple hours early today. Did you try my cell?" She hadn't heard it ring all evening and last time she'd looked at it she hadn't seen any message indicators.

He shook his head. "Nah, I didn't want to interrupt your holiday time – but since you're here … got your court date in at the end of the day today."

She gazed at him more at that. She really hadn't expected to hear back on that until after the New Year at this point. She wished he'd called her cell. That was something she would've wanted to know immediately.

"That wouldn't have been interrupting, Mark," she said, maybe with a bit of an edge to her voice. Far from interrupting, that might as well have been a Christmas present.

He just shrugged, though. "January 22nd," he said. "It's a Tuesday."

She let that sink in. That was less than a month away. In less than a month, if they ended up with an agreeable and co-operative judge, she could be Benji's mom … Jack's temporary guardian as he got a couple more years leeway to finish growing up.

"Who's docket is it on?" Olivia asked a little cautiously as she was continued to process this new information.

"Mosley," Mark told her. "You been through her courtroom before?"

Olivia gave a small nod and rubbed at her eyebrow at that. She wondered if she would've preferred to have a male judge. Technically it shouldn't make a difference. But no matter how you cut it – judges were still people. They still had biases and subjectivity built into them no matter how objective or by the word-of-the-law they were supposed to be. She wasn't sure if having another woman look over her petitions would ultimately work in her favour or not.

"Yeah. A couple of SVU cases have ended up in front of her," she allowed.

"I think she'll like us," Mark offered.

Olivia let out a little sigh. "She's a bit of a hard …" she stopped, realizing her language choice wasn't going to be appropriate for the setting they were in. "… a stickler," she said instead.

Mark gave her a thin smile at that. "I'm sure you like that any other time. It will be fine," he said, and gave Jack a small punch on the shoulder. "What do you say, Big Guy? Get you guys in a couple times in January. Go over what's going to happen. Make this family all official like."

Jack just shrugged and gazed at her. "Whatever," he said.

She gave him a bit of a sad smile at that. He wouldn't talk about any of it with her. He'd hardly said anything about the entire situation. She wished he would – so she could better gauge where he was at and what he needed from her. She knew he wanted it on some level – or else he wouldn't have signed the papers. But he was still so unwilling to acknowledge it was actually happening or to have expressed any sort of relief that he wouldn't have sole responsibility for his little nephew now or that he'd get the opportunity to be part of something that hopefully vaguely resembled a family … or at least a community … or somewhere safe … for him.

So Mark just turned back to her instead and gave a small shrug. She got the sense that in the end, the lawyer didn't much care what Jack thought. Though she understood where Mark was coming from – she was his client, not Jack. Jack was a bit of a legal obstacle for Mark to overcome and work-around – not necessarily someone to cater to or please. But she also sort of wanted a bit more understanding from the attorney about the situation with the teen. She might have to talk to him about it again – but not now: on Christmas Eve in the middle of a church.

"So – I'm glad I caught you," Mark said, "because I'm not going to be answering my phone much until January 2nd, unless it's an emergency. But you can catch me by email if you need to reach me. I'll be checking."

She nodded. She'd already received that repeated memo from Mark several times. He was taking family time. Must be nice. She supposed that was a bonus to practicing in your own firm. To an extent, you could make your own schedule. Mark seemed busy – but he also really came across as a family man. It was a little funny that his career was built around tearing down other people's families and reorganizing them. Though, he seemed to look at it as bringing together families in more functional ways. She supposed he had a bit of a point there too. But she didn't think the losing side of a custody battle would feel quite the same way.

"OK," he patted her on the shoulder and smiled down at Benji. "So keep in touch. We've got some things to talk about before the end of the month then. We'll get you in a couple times."

She nodded again. "Sounds good."

Mark gave her another little smile and moved to sit back down. "Well, tell El all is forgiven about making us sit all the way at the back. Merry Christmas."

She snorted. "Yeah, thanks, Mark. Merry Christmas."

That court date could potentially be the biggest Christmas gift of the season for her. But hopefully it wouldn't lead to the biggest disappointment of the year when she reached it.


	85. Chapter 85

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She tapped Elliot on the shoulder as they finally reached where he and his family were in the pew. He glanced up at her and she gave him an apologetic look.

"I'm sorry," Olivia said, "… the weather."

He stood and shook his head. "Figured," was all he said and wrapped his one arm half-ways around her in sort of a half-assed hug and gestured for them to go in.

"This is Jack," she offered before moving into the pew.

But Jack barely acknowledged Elliot. He had already dropped to his one knee to genuflect and headed into the pew, where the twins were shuffling their asses over to the far end to make space for them and pushing towards their dad jackets that had clearly been laid across the seating space in an attempt to ward off other parishioners trying to get into the spots.

She shook her head a bit at Jack's rudeness but as soon as he got into the pew he'd pulled down the kneeler and dropped onto it – gazing at them expectantly. So she gave Elliot another brief look and he just wordlessly gestured again for them to claim their spots.

Olivia shuffled Benji in ahead of her and Jack immediately tugged on the little boy's sleeve and very nearly demanded, "Kneel."

The little boy squinted at him and then turned to her with that angry defiant look that she'd decided only a four-year-old could truly pull-off. But she just got down on her knees too and look at the little boy.

"Listen to your uncle," she said. "Let's kneel."

Benji gazed at her some more so she wrapped her arm around his waist and nudged him closer to the kneeler. He did his pulled-back-thoughtful pucker but did get down on his knees too. It wasn't an ideal position for the little boy. He was far too short and his face was smacked against the slots holding the hymnals, which he gripped on to keep his balance.

Jack didn't seem to notice or care, though, and instead leaned over to the little boy's ear.

"Now say a prayer," Jack told him.

Benji squinted at him some more and then started to say grace out-loud, a prayer that he'd likely heard his family say on the farm – and one that she'd even heard Jack recite at the table when he thought she wasn't really listening. "Bess us Oh Laword for des eye gifts …"

"Not that kind of prayer," Jack groaned at his nephew.

Now Benji really glared at Jack and glanced again at her. She sighed and shuffled over to him.

"Stand up, Benj," she encouraged and placed him in front of her so he could at least just peak up and over the pew in front of him. She wrapped her arms around him and pulled his hands up onto the pew and clasped them for him to pray before bringing her own hands together. "Pray with me."

He rocked against her and rubbed his head against her shoulder. "What we pray Mommy?" he asked.

She glanced at Jack – not wanting to instruct the little boy in a way that might gain his disapproval or even wrath. Jack caught her eye and moved along the kneeler to be a bit closer to them and leaned in to whisper a bit more quietly – hopefully eliminating a bit of the show that they were putting on Elliot and his family. Though, Olivia could feel them all half watching and listening. She was doing her best to not be self-conscious about it and to try to let this moment be what Jack wanted … or maybe more what he needed.

"Tell God you miss Mama, Pops and Gramps and ask him to say hello to them," Jack whispered at him. "Ask God to take good care of Nanny and London for us. And, thank God for Christmas, Baby Jesus and for Olivia taking care of you."

She was surprised at Jack's inclusion of her in the list of things that apparently Benji was supposed to be thankful for. She wondered if that meant she was on Jack's list too? But it was not the kind of thing that needed to be commented on. Any comments would likely just cause a back-track to any progress she was making with the teen.

Benji squinted at Jack's list of insturction. But his uncle just turned back to bowing his head – maybe trying to set an example for his nephew. So the little boy looked up at her questioningly again.

She put her lips against the side of his head. "OK, sweetheart, let's say a little prayer, like Jack," she told him quietly.

"Gawd I miss …" Benji started a little loudly.

She wrapped her arm around him a bit more tightly and pulled him against her so his ear was closer to her mouth again. "Sweetheart, just stand and think quietly about what Uncle Jack told you for a few minutes."

He looked up at her. "Qui-et-ly?"

She nodded. "Let's say our prayers in our heads," she whispered to him. "Think the words, OK?"

She got quiet and hoped he'd follow by example. Though, Benji being quiet and still for any length of time could be a challenge – especially when there was nothing happening in front of him to absorb his attention. Still, he did fall quiet – for the most part. He hummed a little off-key to the organ music and bounced a little against her – pushing most of his weight into her chest in a way that if she were to stand up or even move, he'd likely fall.

After a few minutes out of the corner of her eye she saw Jack bless himself again and move to sitting on the bench, beginning to slouch his jacket off his shoulders. So she returned to a seated position as well and worked at getting Benji's coat down off his arms. She shuttled him to the other side of her so he could sit next to Eli and Jack moved a bit closer to her and held out his jacket like she was supposed to do something with it. Elliot stuck out his hand, though.

"Here," he said. "We've got everyone's on the ground over here."

She glanced at him and passed the three coats down, where he worked at folding them and putting them on top of what was a rather large pile at the end of the pew. It was a good thing they were the only people in the pew or else it would likely be a rather large inconvenience for anyone trying to get around them.

"Elliot," she tried again with the introductions, "This is Jack. Jack – Elliot Stabler."

Jack looked over at the man and actually leaned over her and the two little boys – sticking out his hand. "Hey," he offered.

Elliot gave him a thin smile, which was about as much as anyone could ever hope for from the man. "Hi," he said and firmly gripped the teen's hand in a shake.

"El-it a dick-tech-hive," Benji interjected, clearly proud of himself for knowing more in this particular situation than Jack. "But now he not. El-it a REAL army man. But now he not. Dat Eli," he said and pointed at the little boy next to him. "El-it Eli dad." Benji eyed down the pew. "I do not know who 'day are."

Olivia snorted and gave Benji a smile before meeting Elliot's eyes at the comprehensive introduction he got. She looked down on the other side of Jack.

"That's Lizzie and Dickie," she offered.

Jack looked at the other teens next to him and Lizzie, who was sitting next to him, gave him a small smile.

"Hey," he offered again.

Dickie leaned across his sister and held out his fist for a fist-bump. "Yo," he said. "Rich – NOT Dickie," he stressed.

The correction caused Elliot to look down the pew and he snapped his fingers at Dickie until the kid met his eyes.

"Put the phone away," Elliot demanded at the kid who was visibly typing away on his cell.

Dickie barely looked at his father, though. "I'm just texting Kathleen," he muttered.

Elliot leaned over further. "I don't care," he hissed. "You'll see your sister all-day tomorrow. Put away the phone. You're in church."

"Whatever," Dickie mumbled some more and clearly finished what he was doing before shoving the thing into his pants pocket where it buzzed with another received message almost as soon as he got it in there. "Fascist," the teen added, just loud enough that they could hear it but quietly enough he could pretend he hadn't said a thing.

Olivia looked to Elliot after that exchange and she could see the change in his face – the slight flush of anger and the vein in his one temple becoming more prominent as he clenched his jaw. He was clearly upset with the disrespect his son had shown him – but he made no comment. He still glared at the teen (who ignored it) for several seconds before settling his back back against the pew again.

Olivia didn't want to think about what sort of politics or negotiations went on for him to get three of the kids for Christmas Eve and to be able to attend that particular service. She assumed that him having the kids that night meant he wouldn't have them Christmas Day. She wondered if he'd get Eli for Christmas morning, though – or at least the Santa discovery moment? Eli likely didn't have many Christmases left where he believed in Santa. This was likely nearing his last. She was actually starting to wonder if maybe Mark's presence at that particular service was more as chaperone than just a pure coincidence.

Still, even though she didn't wish further conflict on the family, hearing Dickie's tone and the teen catch-all phrase 'whatever' almost made her smile and feel some relief. Twenty-nine years of parenting experience and Elliot was still getting tone and attitude – and 'whatever'. It made her feel a bit better about the lip Jack gave her.

She already knew it was normal. He was just being a kid. He was acting his age. But knowing that even after raising four kids Elliot still hadn't surmounted that hurdle – made her feel better about not having made a breakthrough with Jack in just three months. Maybe she wasn't doing quite as badly with him as she sometimes thought.

"'LIVIA! I WANNA SEE THE BABY JEZ-US!" Benji demanded at bellowing levels, causing some people around them to turn and for others to stifle some snickers.

She looked at him and shook her head. "Benjamin," she said sternly. "Indoor voices. Respectful, church voices. No yelling."

He squinted at her. "Mommy Foooox! Where the away in the manger? Where Baby Jez-us?"

Eli piped up at that. "He's not born yet," the other little boy informed Benji.

Benji glared at him at that and then snapped his head back to her. "I wanna see the Baby Jez-us, Mommy!"

"He's not born until Christmas!" Eli added with a bit more force.

"It Chris-miss!" Benji protested, jerking his head from Eli to her, almost like he was unsure where to look.

"It's Christmas Eve!" Eli corrected. "He's not born yet. You have to come back tomorrow to see him."

Benji's mouth hung open at that and he gaped at Olivia. "He not BORN YET?!"

She almost had to grit her teeth at that. This might cause a fit. She rubbed at her eyebrow and considered how to answer that and pulled him a bit closer to her in an attempt to calm him.

"Baby Jesus' birthday is Christmas Day, Benj," she tried.

His mouth hung wider and his eyes got bigger. "MOMMY!" he protested. "You said we see Baby Jez-us!"

"They have a couple kids bring him up at the offering of the gifts," Elliot interjected. "You'll be able to see him in the manger after mass."

Olivia almost let out a sigh of relief at that. She nodded her thanks to Elliot and looked at Benji.

"Hear that, Benj?" she asked. "Baby Jesus is going to be in the manger after mass. We'll go over and see him then."

"Wheeeeere?" he whined out.

"Mmm," she said and stood and then hoisted him up and onto her hip and pointed off towards the crèche set up in one of the little vestibules. "You see over there, sweetheart? You can see Mary and Joseph are already there – and the stable animals."

"Where the sheep-herds?" Benji asked and put his head on her shoulder. She could tell some tiredness was starting to dampen his excitement.

"I guess they haven't gotten here yet," she said, and adjusted her hand under his butt as he slipped a bit in his squirming to see. "The angel still has to tell them to follow the star to Bethlehem to find the baby."

"Dis Bethlehem?"

She smiled and rubbed his back. "No, sweetheart. This is just done up make-believe so we can see what it was like when it all happened."

"The angel bring a choir to tell the sheep-herds to go," Benji told her.

"She does," she agreed.

"Where the angel?" Benji asked.

She juggled some more as she glanced around the church and then turned him towards the altar were a giant one was standing guard high above. "There," she said and pointed for him.

"She gonna sing?"

She put her temple against his and smiled again. "No, Benj. She's pretend too – a reminder for us about what happened the First Christmas. So we can see what it was like. But a real people choir is going to sing for us soon."

"We go look at the manger Mommy?"

She nodded. "We will. But after mass, Benj. The Christmas carols are going to start soon and we don't want to lose our seats. So com'on, let's sit quietly and listen."

She managed to get him seated back down and chattering at Eli – without them fighting on one side of her. Meanwhile on the other side of her, Jack seemed to have settled into quiet conversation with the twins. Though, she could see him leaning over and talking to Dickie, who again had his cell phone out, showing Jack something on the screen. She sort of wanted to pull Jack back and keep him out of that potential conflict between Dickie and his father. But Elliot either hadn't noticed or was trying to ignore his son's behaviour – so she just tried to ignore it too.

"So you're 'Mommy' now?" Elliot asked after a bit of silence.

She glanced at him and gave a small shrug. "Intermittently," she said.

She still wasn't entirely sure where he stood with what she was doing with the boys. She knew he was trying to be supportive but at the same time she still sensed some disapproval there. So she really didn't want to get into it with him about what her title was with Benji. She knew what she was to him. For now that was enough. She didn't need Elliot's approval for her little boy to call her whatever he wanted. But the reality was that in just a period of days, she was hearing just 'Mommy' more and more. Mommy Fox and 'Livia were still coming out of his mouth too. But it was the 'Mommy' that she was hearing and registering even when it was the other names he'd found for her that came sputtering out. Benji wanted a Mommy. He needed a Mommy. And she so wanted and needed a Benji.

Apparently Elliot wasn't going to push her on her response. And, apparently, it wasn't expected that she sing during the carol sing-along. Even after the choir began their repertoire her ex-partner continued to quietly engage her in small-talk. It still felt a little awkward and strained – but they were slowly working at it, figuring out things to talk about as friends and not as partners. Questions about preparedness for Christmas: she thought she was ready and he just said he had to be. She commented on the weather, mentioned her new partner trying to get down through the thick of it and into D.C. – that she hoped his drive was going OK. He had the kids until 8 a.m. – so he'd get Christmas morning with Eli, technically. The twins were making their own decision about where they'd be spending the day. Lizzie had arrived back into the city from Cornell on Saturday morning and had stayed with him thus far. But she planned to spend most of the rest of the week with her mom. She'd already said she'd be heading to her grandmother's when Kathy came to retrieve Eli. Dickie hadn't appeared from just in Manhattan until that afternoon and he hadn't told anyone what he was doing. But was displaying equal distaste about this Christmas to both of his parents. Elliot wasn't even sure if he intended to spend any of the holiday break with his family or if he'd be moving back-and-forth from the city.

"Move your legs, Dick-Weed," came from the opposite end of the pew and the kneeler bounced up.

Elliot and Olivia both glanced down to see what the commotion among the older – supposedly better-behaved children – was now. Kathleen was standing at the end of the pew and Dickie was defiantly blocking her way with a shit-eating grin painted across his face about the inconvenience he was presenting.

Elliot leaned forward again and snapped his fingers even louder and glared at his son. "RICHARD," he barked in a voice that was definitely louder than a respectful church voice. "Let your sister in – and PUT THAT PHONE AWAY," he said of the spotted electronic.

Dickie again didn't even look at him but set his feet down onto the floor. Though, he didn't sit up from his slouch to pull in his knees to make a real path for his older sister. So instead she stepped around him - very clearly purposely kicking at his shins and batting his knees together as she moved by.

If this was what dealing with grown children at 19 and into their 20s looked like, Olivia was starting to really realize that she was signing up for a lot longer than 14 years of parenthood with Benji. It looked like a lifetime of dealing with children and antics. She wondered if Jack's interactions with Benji would be as immature as he got older. Though, they might have a different dynamic since they technically had an uncle-nephew relationship - and a significant age gap. Elliot's older children did seem to be leaving Eli be.

How Eli just seemed so content to stick next to his father and chatter at Benji actually had her wondering how well any of Elliot's kids actually knew their younger brother? How much of a roll they played in his life? She was fairly certain, though, any roles they played were likely also becoming further strained and more complicated by their parents' current separation.

"Oww!" Dickie protested.

"Jerk," Kathleen spat at him.

"Yeah! Merry Christmas," Dickie mouthed at her back sarcastically as she got by him.

Kathleen rolled her eyes and continued making her way down towards their end – giving Lizzie a smile and briefly examining Jack, who thankfully was polite enough to sit up straight and make space for her to get by.

She stopped next to Olivia, though, and gave her a smile. "Hi," the young woman offered.

Olivia could tell the only Stabler child that she'd ever really managed to get to form something that resembled a relationship with was waiting for a hug. She wasn't sure that Elliot would approve – but hoped he'd be forgiving, seeing as it was Christmas. So she stood and accepted the loose embrace from Kathleen.

"Hey," she greeted and gave her a smile. "I wasn't expecting to see you here."

Kathleen shrugged as she let her go but gave her Dad a bit of a glare. "Dickie told me you were here," she said and stepped on past her and around the two little boys who were both standing and rocking back and forth on stretched arms on the back of the pews ahead of them, belting out the Christmas carols along with the choir. "Hi, Dad," she offered and planted a small peck on his cheek before claiming the currently vacant space between him and Olivia.

"You're supposed to be with your mother tonight," Elliot commented and eyed her.

Kathleen rolled her eyes and shook her head. "I needed a break from Maureen and Tim. They'd be driving you crazy, Dad. You aren't missing anything – but rising blood pressure. I'll go back after mass. Besides, I wanted to see this," she said and looked back to Olivia and nodded at Benji's back. "Is this him?"

Olivia smiled a bit wider at that and nodded. Maybe she didn't feel that Dickie was being quite as disrespectful in church and to Elliot, if he'd been texting his sister to let her know they were in attendance and that she had Benji in tow. It was nice to see someone in the Stabler family look excited for her – or at least wanting to meet Benji. Kathleen was really the first person to express any interest in meeting the little boy at all – besides maybe John. Though, introducing Benji to Munch had been terrifying for everyone involved. She didn't think meeting the young woman would invoke the same kind of shyness and clinging from Benji.

She wrapped her arm around Benji's belly again while he did one of his sways backwards on his out-stretched arms.

"Ark-ed, the heard-ed angels sing!" he was bellowing.

She pulled the little boy towards her until he was leaning against her side and he gazed up at her questioningly.

"Mommmmmmieeeeee Fox," he whined. "Chris-miss carols!"

She smiled at him. "Let's give the people in front of us a bit of a break, Little Fox," she said. She was sure that between the rocking movement and the little boys singing, the family sitting in front of them were really regretting their choice in seating. "There's someone I want to meet."

Benji squinted at her and she nodded towards Kathleen next to her.

"This is Eli's older sister Kathleen. Can you say hello?"

Benji considered the girl for a moment. "'Ello," he offered but pushed his back more firmly into Olivia's chest. She smiled and put her cheek against his head and brushed back some of his floppy faux-hawk that night up and off his forehead.

"This is Benji," Olivia told the girl.

Kathleen smiled. "Hi Benji," she greeted and then looked at Olivia. "I love his outfit."

Olivia snorted at that. She didn't really like being one of those people with her kids at mass in new clothes that were clearly just off the rack – not washed or hemmed or anything. Still wafting that new clothes smell and holding that overly-pressed firmness to them. She might as well have just left the tags on everything. But there hadn't been much she could do about it. And, really, both of the boys looked quite smart. She sort of liked having two young men with her all dressed up. Maybe more importantly, Elliot hadn't made any sort of backwards comment about what she'd put them in – so that was a good sign that they were all dressed just fine. No commentary was good commentary from Elliot Stabler.

"What happened to your arm, Benji?" Kathleen asked and tapped on the bright florescent green plastic that was sticking out from under his one red sleeve.

"It broke," Benji stated simply.

Kathleen made almost a mock-horrified face at that. "Oh no. How'd it break?"

"I ollie," Benji said.

Kathleen looked at Olivia questioningly.

"He was skateboarding and tried to jump up on top of a bench and did a bit of a face plant instead. Right, Benji?"

He nodded hard at that. "I broke my head too but it fixed-ed now."

Olivia smiled and shook her head at him. "He had a concussion – and surgery on his wrist."

Kathleen winced. "Ouch," she offered to both of them.

"Then Mommy Fox stay with Little Fox 'til he wake up for long time and then Little Fox get to go home!" Benji declared and flopped harder against her.

Olivia clarified that with, "He's been living with me for a couple months now." She motioned behind her, turning slightly. "This is Benji's uncle, Jack."

She pulled on the sleeve of Jack's shirt a bit. He was talking to Lizzie at the moment. She hadn't caught what he'd said but it had garnered a smile from the younger girl and Jack seemed hesitant to break away from that conversation. So Olivia pulled on his sleeve again. "Jack, this is one of Elliot's other daughters – Kathleen."

Jack leaned around her for a moment and offered a "hey" but then returned to his conversation with Lizzie, which Dickie seemed to have taken an interest in at that point too.

"Hey," Kathleen said and rolled her eyes at the half-assed greeting she received. "High school?" she asked.

Olivia shook her head. "Just turned nineteen. He's second-year architecture and urban design at City."

"Uh-oh, don't let him befriend Dickie then," Kathleen said. "There's trouble waiting to happen."

Olivia raised her eyebrow at that. "Dickie's at City?"

Kathleen nodded and then shot a look at Elliot. "Good job at updating Olivia on everyone's lives, Dad," she said sarcastically.

Elliot gave a dumbfounded look like he didn't have a clue what his daughter was talking about. But Olivia almost appreciated having someone – especially one of Elliot's outspoken older daughters – say it to him. The man had told her next to nothing about what was going on in his children's lives since they reconnected. They used to be about all he talked about. Now, apparently that was private information. Really, all of his life seemed to be private information. They hadn't done much more than make small talk or talk around in circles about what she was doing in relation to Benji. It had meant she'd been guarded in providing many details about her life or thought process since he wasn't sharing any of his. She hadn't wanted to lay out her life – as usual – for his critique and criticism, for his disapproval and judgment, and not get anything in return. She'd hated that about their partnership before. She didn't want to do that in friendship now.

"Dickie's at City too," Kathleen confirmed and leaned around her to look at her brother. "I know it's shocking. The best we can all figure is that he absorbed some of Elizabeth's smarts while in the womb."

Dickie heard the comment and Olivia noticed he was sure to lean forward so his sister could see and scratch his cheek with his middle finger. She rolled her eyes and shook her head a bit at that. Getting a chance to watch the Stabler children interact with each other was a bit of an eye-opener. She'd never really had that opportunity before – at least not for an extended period of time and not since they were much littler.

She'd always considered Elliot to be a good father – a flawed father, maybe an absentee cop father – but a good father, a good parent. He tried his best. He wanted the best for them – and he was almost fiercely over-protective of all of them. But if this was the dynamic that he could produce while being a good parent, she didn't think she had too much to worry about … maybe? She hoped.

Elliot had his challenges and his struggles and his kids were far from perfect. But they were healthy and survived into supposed adulthood – at least four of them had so far. She assumed Eli would make it too.

If Elliot could accomplish that while doing the job and raising five children – she could manage with one … or one and a half-ish? She actually thought she might manage to get hers through with a bit better manners, maybe? She'd only have one to deal with, after all. So maybe at least there wouldn't be as much bickering. Age gaps and a lack of sibling bound might help that too. But she did know that her two boys weren't the ones in a pew at Christmas Mass giving each other the finger, calling each other names or telling her 'whatever' when she spoke to them. So maybe she had more than a few things to be thankful that Christmas.


	86. Chapter 86

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Benji seemed to be surviving mass OK – and so was she. She'd kind of wondered how the little boy would do through it. She'd maybe been even more anxious that she wouldn't keep up with the motions enough to suit Elliot – or Jack. That she'd be too clueless. But she thought she was doing OK.

The choir was nice and the readings were familiar enough that it didn't feel like a hammer-to-the-head religious experience. Even the sermon had been rather short and to-the-point. Though, the priest had made sure to welcome the 'Christmas and Easter Catholics' and to encourage them to make more regular appearances at the church than just the holidays. The regular attendees seemed to see some humour in that little jab. Olivia wasn't sure how Christian or Christmas-y the comment was and it'd clearly made some of the attendees uncomfortable. She'd even seen Jack gawk down at his feet almost like he was embarrassed and she'd reached out and given his elbow a small squeeze and a thin smile when he'd glanced her way.

As for the regular attendees, she couldn't help but feel like some of them were just robots going through the motions. Elliot and his kids included. Not that she'd ever say that to him. But with some of the ways they were snapping upright when it was time to stand and zombie-like moving down to the kneeler when it was time to kneel – gazing off into space as they repeated the various refrains and responses – it might as well have been some sort of cult. Even Dickie who seemed about as disinterested and disengaged from the entire service as he could get was mumbling out the responses almost on auto-pilot – likely the result of years of being dragged to church by his parents and indoctrinated in the faith.

But that auto-pilot mode that so many people seemed to settle into when it came to religious services was one of the things Olivia had always hated about organized religion. It became unquestioning mouthing of ideals that weren't necessarily your own and it reached the point that it seemed many weren't even thinking about what they were saying. She really thought that faith – and a relationship with God, whoever or whatever their God was – should be a bit more personal. That was something she hoped she could instill in Benji along with any faith Jack wanted to bring into his life. Maybe it was something she could get the teen to think a bit about too. She thought that quiet moments of reflection could be just as healing for the soul and could bring you just as close to whoever or whatever your God was – could be just as meaningful spiritually, if not more so – than standing unthinking in a church and mouthing memorized words.

Benji had seemed interested in the fanfare, though. He got frustrated every time everyone stood.

"Can't see!" he whined at her, even though there weren't much to see. Still, she grabbed him under the armpits and pulled him up and onto her hip each time so he could see the altar. She saw Elliot glance at her the first time she did it and she assumed the look she got meant it wasn't acceptable church behaviour. He left Eli with his feet firmly planted on the ground. But Eli also seemed more interested in examining his feet and re-arranging the hymnals than he did about what was happening up on the altar. It was likely old-hat for him.

She didn't much care what Elliot thought about it anyways. Acceptable or unacceptable behaviour in church – she thought she knew her kid well enough at this point to anticipate some of his behaviour. If Benji couldn't see and he wanted to see – he was going to create a much larger disruption if she left him on the ground than he would while she was holding him.

Beyond that – she liked holding him. She missed four years of holding him. That was time she'd never get – and she knew the time where he'd let her pick him up and cuddle him was on a ticking clock now. A year – maybe two. That would be what she'd get – assuming everything worked out the way she wanted. She wasn't going to pass up the opportunities as they presented themselves.

And, really, the only disruption he was causing while gazing up at the altar and trying to understand everything that was going on was to her. She wouldn't have even considered church as an event to bring a change of shoes for him. But as he kicked and gripped his still slightly damp and dirty boots against her each time she pulled him off the ground – she realized that maybe indoor shoes would've been a good idea. Her skirt was definitely showing that she was toting around a little person. But she was telling herself that the wet and dirty marks all over her front and ass were marks of motherhood. However, undignified they might be in church on Christmas Eve.

As it came time for Communion, Olivia drew Benji onto her lap, meaning to allow everyone else to get by them.

But Elliot nodded at her. "Come up with him and get a blessing," he said simply.

She thought about that a moment. She wasn't sure how she felt about that. She hadn't even taken part in the Holy Water blessing entering the church. She thought actually going up to the altar and getting a blessing from the priest was taking it several steps beyond dipping her hand in some water.

"El…" she started.

But he cut her off. "It's just a blessing," he said. "We could all use some of that."

She looked down at Benji and he gazed back up at her. He was a blessing. She wasn't sure she needed more. But maybe this could make it a bit more official in the eyes of the powers that be. So she shuffled him off her lap and they both stood.

"You go like this," Eli declared with some enthusiasm – almost like this was his favourite part of mass. It likely was. It meant he could move and get out of the pew. The little boy had seemed rather restless and really hadn't settled even with Kathleen and Elliot both grabbing at him throughout the service to get him to stop playing with the hymnals or kicking the kneeler or to just sit down and be still.

Eli crossed his arms in an X over his chest and bowed his head. Olivia gave him a little smile and copied the motion, to which Eli nodded his approval. So she reached down and helped Benji do the same – before they started to shuffle out of the pew.

Elliot was standing to the side waiting for everyone to get out and into the line up to the front altar. But she could see his sights set intently on Dickie again and his body language tensing. While everyone else in their pew had stood up at that point, Dickie not only remained seated but had pulled his phone out of his pocket again and was fiddling with something. If having a phone going in mass wasn't a big enough no-no, she knew that Dickie was likely purposely testing his father's patience drudging it out at the holiest and most solemn part of the service – the blessing and distribution of Communion.

"Richard – com'on, let's go," Elliot said sternly.

Dickie glanced at him. "I'm not going up," he said flatly and then looked back to his phone.

Olivia saw Elliot clench his jaw at that and this face again take that slight flush of anger that he'd never gotten good at hiding even after years of dealing with perps in the interrogation room. But he'd never much felt like he had to hid his anger in there. It had always been part of his problem.

"Dickie – move it," he demanded again, this time even more firmly.

"I'm here. But you can't make me go up there," Dickie replied without even looking up this time. "Asshole," he added under his breath but loud enough that Olivia caught it from where she was standing and waiting for Jack, so she was sure Elliot had heard too.

Kathleen touched her father's bicep. "Just leave him, Dad," she said. "It's not worth it."

Elliot continued to clench his jaw, though, and to stare down his son. It was starting to seem like there might be a scene in the middle of Christmas Mass.

Olivia saw Jack glancing behind him at the other teen. She'd noticed Jack give Dickie some looks when the kid had shot other bits of snark at his father throughout the evening. She could anticipate what was going through his head. Jack was missing his dad so much right now. Likely seeing someone who still had their father treating them so poorly was rubbing him the wrong way. But she hoped Jack recognized that Dickie was also just being an immature teenager – much like him. A young man trying to challenge his father's authority while finding his own place in the family and in life. If Jack's dad was still around, he'd likely be giving him just as much tone and attitude. Their father-son relationship would likely be just as complicated. Jack wasn't a perfect teen either. She saw his immaturity – his tone and attitude, his confrontational nature, the way he wanted to push things. He could hand it out just as good at Dickie – even if he wanted to think that he'd never treat his dad that way, especially at Christmas.

"Jack," she called softly, trying to get him away from any pending situation that was developing. He glanced her way from where he was still gazing behind him at the Stabler teen. She gestured for him to come on and he finished coming out of the pew and got into the line with them.

"Why's he treating his dad like that?" he asked quietly.

She just shook her head. "Let's mind our own business," she instructed him at a whisper and tapped the back of his head into a bowed position. "You focus on you."

But when they returned to the pew, she still caught Jack glancing over at Dickie from his kneeling in supposed prayer. The other teen still had his phone out likely trying to send some sort of message to his father in a passive aggressive manner – really, basically, just being as rude as possible to his family and everyone else around him. That wasn't really Olivia's problem, though, and she wasn't about to get involved in that. She was more concerned that in the few minutes that it had taken to get up to the front of the church and receive their blessings and return to their seats to pray, Jack's entire body language had changed. Where before she felt he was coping with the evening and not dwelling on things he couldn't do anything about – or that she couldn't do anything about for him – now, she could feel the sadness radiating off of him again.

She shuffled her knees across the kneeler to be flush beside him and put her one hand gently on the top of his arched back. He glanced up at her from where he had his head resting on top of his arms over the back of the pew in front of him.

"I think your dad would be really proud of you for coming here tonight," she offered him quietly, "and really proud of you for bringing Benji. I'm proud of you. Both of you. For your behaviour tonight."

He gazed at her for a moment longer and then returned his head to its resting position.


	87. Chapter 87

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She followed Elliot's gaze to where the group of teens was standing off near some of the pews on the far side of the church.

The older kids hadn't had any interest in going to look at the nativity scene, though Elliot and Eli had accompanied her and Benji over to check it out. They'd likely been standing there for longer than Elliot was interested to. But Benji and Eli had taken to trying to out-do each other in their knowledge of the Christmas Story. It wasn't much of a competition. Eli was older and more well-versed in the Biblical passages. That wasn't stopping Benji, though, from interjecting his usual 'YOU WRONG' and providing his version of events.

She was keeping out of it and just watching the boys interact. She was finding it sort of nice to see a little boy who she hoped would soon be her own playing with her former partner's child. Elliot didn't seem quite as taken with it, though. But maybe it was the kind of thing that just wouldn't really catch a man's interest in the same way it would a woman's. Or maybe it really just wasn't the kind of thing that Elliot cared about at all. She thought that it could be a nice aspect to build the foundation of their friendship on – both having little boys in their lives at the same time. But she didn't get the immersion that Elliot had given much thought to how he wanted to establish some sort of relationship again – or what would make sense at this point in their lives with where they both were.

"I'm not sure I like the way that kid has been looking at my daughter," Elliot commented in the direction of the teens and not so much at her.

She watched the kids for a moment. Dickie and Jack were laughing and smiling about something and clearly talking rather excitedly on whatever topic they were on. She could hear bits and pieces of words but not enough to make out what they were actually saying. Lizzie didn't look quite as impressed with them and was standing with her arms crossed almost protectively against her. Olivia could actually almost feel the girl's eyes rolling from where she was standing halfway across the church. And, Kathleen had apparently tired of them, because she reached out and gave her sister a small hug and then said something to Dickie and held up her hand in a small wave, which he returned, mouthing something back to her that seemed to garner another laugh from Jack and more annoyed body language from Lizzie. At that point, Kathleen started to walk across the church towards them.

"It's nice to see him smiling," was all Olivia replied, though. "He doesn't seem to do it that much."

She didn't think the context of Elliot's comment warranted a response. In less than a week, Lizzie would be headed back up to Cornell – 250 miles away from Jack - and the chances of them seeing each other again, or at least anytime soon, were slim-to-none. Besides, from where she was standing, it looked like Lizzie didn't have much interest in Jack. And Jack sure looked more interested in forming some sort of bromance with Dickie than he did his twin sister.

Kathleen reached them. "I'm going to take off, Daddy," she informed Elliot.

"Mmm," he said, his eyes still on the group of teens. "What are they talking about over there?"

"Oh," Kathleen rolled her eyes. "Some sort of disgusting food web series that the guys seem to think is hilarious. I think Elizabeth is ready to kill them."

Olivia watched as Dickie pranced into some sort of Karate Kid move at his sister and Jack followed suit with a wide ninja stance and flowing arms. Both of the boys broke out into laughter but Olivia could almost her the girl huff from across the church and she turned and looked over at them with pleading eyes. Olivia was pretty sure if any of those little smiles the two had been sharing during the service had been stirrings of attraction towards Jack in the girl, he'd pretty much killed any chances he had right there.

Kathleen leaned in to give her father a hug and a kiss on the side of his still tightly clenched jaw.

"So, I'll see you tomorrow, Dad," she said and looked at him until he finally met her eyes.

"Mmm, yeah," he nodded, still keeping any eye on the twins and Jack.

"Merry Christmas, Dad," Kathleen tried again.

That time Elliot actually met her eyes and gave her a thin and rather sad smile. "Merry Christmas, Kathleen. Say hi to your sister and Mom for me."

She nodded and held onto his hand by just curled fingertips as she turned towards Olivia.

"It was nice to see you, Olivia," she offered with a smile, "and to meet Benji … and that one …" she snorted towards the rest of the kids.

Olivia gave a small smile at that and looked down for a moment, maybe feeling slightly embarrassed by Jack's behaviour for the first time that night. But she met the girl's eyes then. "I'm glad I got to see you too. Have a nice Christmas."

Kathleen smiled and patted her Dad in the middle of the chest and then walked over to her little brother, giving him a small hug and kiss, wishing him a Merry Christmas and assuring him she'd see him in the morning. She told Benji Merry Christmas as well and then turned to start to go. "Tomorrow," she called back at Elliot, as she made her way to the front of the church and in search of her mother's parked car, which she'd likely end up having to dig out from under a small snow pile at that point in the night.

"I should get going too," Olivia told Elliot. "Get him home," she nodded at Benji who was still hanging over the railing and looking into the nativity scene. He was rather excited that a cow was among the stable animals. 'We have cows at the farm', he informed her and Eli. 'They go moooooooooooooooooo. They make milk.' Eli, thankfully, didn't challenge him on that point.

Elliot nodded at that. "Yeah. Should start working at getting him to bed too," he agreed, glancing over at the two littler boys for a moment. But then he looked back to the teens. He gave a rather loud whistle – which Olivia thought might be inappropriate behaviour for a church, even though the building had pretty much cleared out at that point. Lizzie looked over at her dad and he gestured towards the main door. The girl nodded and punched her brother in the shoulder, saying something and all three of the kids started heading up the aisle and towards the exit.

"You sure you don't want a lift?" Elliot offered again as she finished gathering up Benji and they all started moving for the doors too.

She shook her head. "No, we'll be fine in a cab. Go spend some time with your kids while you have them."

He shrugged. "He'll be in bed within an hour of us getting home," he said, patting Eli's shoulder. "And, them …" he jutted his chin up to where she could see the kids already pushing the doors open and heading outside into the wintery weather. "Lizze will likely go to bed too and Dickie … won't even look at me. He'll be in front of the TV or videogames or his phone."

She snorted at that and examined the floor for a moment not sure what to say to him. He always told her she'd never understand until she was a parent. She'd heard it over and over through the years. It had consistently hurt – even before she had started really feeling the biological clock ticking She was sure now, even though he was being polite, what she was doing was still just playing Mom in his eyes. She didn't have the years of experience, or knowledge, to have a right to have any sort of opinion or to provide any sort of advice to him – a father of five. She'd likely never understand in quite the way he found acceptable - since Benji would never biologically be hers and Jack was an already-grown part of the package. Her working with kids her whole career – having taken courses and training and studying about dealing with child witnesses and victims and suspects. Having wanted to be a mother for so long. Having gone through the parenting training courses in her failed adoption attempt. It didn't count for much in Elliot's eyes, she thought. It likely never would. But eventually she allowed him a thin smile.

"You could play with him?" she offered.

Elliot shook his head at that and clenched his jaw more.

"I played some videogame with Jack last night," she tried. "It was awful. But he actually formed real sentences and spoke to me when we were actually in the same room – for about the first time."

Elliot snorted at that and looked at her. "He have anything interesting to say?"

She shrugged. "When you broke it all down, the general gist of it was that he's still trying to find his place in the city. And that 'girls suck'."

Elliot snorted more at that and glanced at her again. "Sounds like you got more out of him in one night more than Dickie's said to me in over a year."

"You'll figure it out," she tried to reassure him. "You did with the girls."

Elliot shook his head. "It's different with boys. Fathers and sons."

She snorted. "That's not comforting. But I've heard people say the same thing about girls."

"When I was 19 …"

"Kathy was pregnant with Maureen," she finished for him and looked at him. "Dickie's not you, El. And you've made clear to him before you don't want him to follow in your footsteps. Let him figure it out on his own – grow up at his own rate."

Elliot gazed at her at that comment as they stepped outside of the church too. But he didn't have a chance to comment. They were barely outside the door when a snowball exploded against the side of his face. Even the sound of the impact made it sound like the strike smarted.

"Oooooooooooh," Olivia heard Jack's voice declare. Follow by Dickie in near hysterics. She was happy to see, though, that Jack was still bouncing his own snowball in his hand and hadn't been the one who'd thrown it.

Elliot looked at her some more and shook his head and then reached up and swiped off the surplus snow and wet dripping down his cheek. "Excuse me," he said and dropped Eli's hand and went tearing down the steps and after Dickie.

Dickie's jaw dropped at that. "Oh shit," he declared. He started to try running through the deep snow - the soles of his dress shoes slipping and sliding out from under him until he tumbled to the ground.

Elliot got over to him and started shoveling snow with his hands up and onto his son. Dickie was squirreling around and cursing a bit in his efforts to get away but Elliot kept grabbing his shoulder and pushing him back into the white fluff. But Olivia could see they were both smiling and laughing too. The first time she'd seen that between the two of them that night. Lizzie and Eli apparently felt it was an appropriate time to get in on the efforts and made their way over to the scene. The girl pelting her brother with snowballs from above and Eli galloping after his father through the snow to start throwing the wet-white-stuff on top of Dickie too.

Jack turned back from watching and looked at her and tossed the snowball up-and-down in his hand a couple times, giving her a sly grin.

She shook her head at him. "Don't think for a minute that just because I'm in a skirt, if you throw that at me, I wouldn't be over there in a second doing the exact same thing to you," she warned him with a nod at the snow-covered drenching Dickie was still enduring at the hands of his family. Though he did seem to have managed to at least gotten to his knees and was trying to quickly pack together snowballs to fend them off.

"You aren't that fast," Jack contended.

She snorted. She may not be 19 years old but she'd chased after enough suspects through the streets, ice, rain and snow – often in poor choices of footwear – that she knew she could take down Jack easily. Probably more easily than he even thought.

"You willing to take that gamble?" she asked.

Jack's grin grew wider and he tossed the ball in the air again.

She wasn't going to wait for him to decide, though. "Go get him Benj," she told the little boy and gave him a little nudge. Benji didn't need to be told twice and he went running at Jack, nearly falling all over himself to get into the snow on the church's lawn.

Jack looked at her at that and whipped the snowball in her direction. It whizzed by her, though, missing making impact. So she smiled and shook her head at him and started to make her way over where Benji had wrapped himself around Jack's waist.

"I hold him for you Mommy," Benji cried out.

His efforts weren't really working. Jack had wrapped his arms around the little boy's shoulders and was whipping around Benji's weight in little half-circles, the dragging toes of his boots leaving marks in the snow.

"You going to run?" she asked Jack as she started to close the gap in her slow walk and bent to pick up her own handful of snow to wad into a ball. "I think I'm a better shot than you – and at this range …"

"Oh com'on," Jack protested and tried to whip Benji off his waist again. "You wouldn't snow me?"

She raised her eyebrow. "Wouldn't I?"

"No way," he contended.

She bounced the snowball up-and-down in her hand the same way Jack had done – and that was apparently enough to make him think she was serious (and she was) and he tried to move and drag Benji along with him. It sent both of them tumbling into the snow, though. Benji clambering up on top of Jack's back and sitting on him and bouncing.

"I got 'im! I got 'im!" Benji cried.

"Good job, Benj," she smiled and came and stood above Jack and smacked her snowball into the back of his head.

"Oh com'on guys," Jack winged. "We were just playin'."

Olivia smiled and bent down to toss a bit more snow on top of him. "Now we're all playing," she told him.

Benji flopped his full weight on top of his uncle. "Snow angel!" he demanded.

"Get off me," Jack said.

"Snow angel!"

Jack groaned and moved his feet and arms back and forth in the snow – face down in the cold. She thought that was the end of it – but apparently not. In one of the swipes of his arms, he grabbed her ankle tightly in his hand.

She looked back down. "Don't you dare," she told him. But it was too late. He gave a firm tug and in the slippery grass under the mounts of snow she lost her balance and tumbled into the white powder too. She gaped at him. But he just laughed and pushed up to his knees, sending Benji tumbling into the snow too.

"Com'on 'Jamin," he said. "GET HER!"

Apparently Benji didn't need any convincing of that either – because he quickly joined his uncle in tossing the snow in her direction, while she went between trying to wade together snowballs and finding her footing to get back up without doing another face plant into the snow. It was going to be a long, wet, cold drive home for all of them.

But then a snowball struck the side of head too and she grabbed at it and looked in the direction it had come from. Elliot had a big shit-eating grin on his face as he packed together another handful of snow and tossed it at her again.

"Merry Christmas, Liv," he said as it once again impacted her, this time smack in the face.

"You …" she stuttered and then did find her footing, grabbing one of the balls she'd managed to get together while the boys tossed snow at her. "Guys – get them!" she demanded.

She didn't have to tell them twice and her kids started tearing after the Stablers – likely very inappropriate church behaviour. But no one said anything.


	88. Chapter 88

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"These are pretty cool," Jack told her from across the table, where he was working at getting the stickers on the interior of the giant transforming fire truck.

She looked up from her work at getting together the fire station for Benji. She gave the teen a small smile.

"Yeah?" she asked. "You think he'll like them?"

Jack nodded. "Yeah. I'd play with them."

She snorted. "Well, that's good. Because I imagine we'll be recruited to play with them too."

She was still feeling so uncertain about how Benji was going to react in the morning. If he'd be able to deal with the uncertainty. If he'd actually open any of the presents – in a timely fashion without her having to beg. If he'd like anything he got. If the toys she'd picked would actually be fun. If they were age appropriate - or too grown-up or too babyish for him. It felt like so much could potentially go wrong.

She'd had a brief moment of fear that it was all going to go wrong about 20 minutes ago as Jack got the fire truck out of its box and after briefly glancing at the manual and sorting out the stickers that needed to be added to the mission control, he hit the button to make the thing transform and pop open. She hadn't realized that the button actually sent the sirens blaring on the thing and some sort of robot mechanical noise as the truck opened up. Benji would love that. But she didn't need him to hear it right then – after she'd finally got him to bed and asleep.

Her jaw had dropped and she'd gapped at Jack for several moments. They'd both kind of sat in their places – so still – just waiting for the patter of Benji's feet to the bedroom door and out into the living area, right in the midst of them sitting with his Santa presents spread on the little dining table in full view. There wasn't any stirring, though. And, she'd breath a sigh of relief.

"Find the batteries," she'd whispered at Jack, even though it wasn't likely entirely necessary. "Take them out until you're done."

She was thankful that they'd lived in a city where Benji had become accustom to hearing sirens go by. But she was more thankful that Benji could likely sleep through a fire truck moving through the bedroom with its sirens blaring after he was actually really asleep. She wasn't sure what she would've done if he'd come out and caught them at the table.

She was actually still a little concerned about it. She felt like they should be rushing through things to just get them out and under tree – the stockings stuffed and hung, before they were caught in the elaborate illusion. Jack, though, didn't seem to be in any hurry in working on the one toy. And, really Olivia was a bit of a perfectionist too and was being a little anal about making sure all her stickers for the fire station were lined up just right before pressing them down onto the plastic.

"So why's Rich's dad not your partner anymore?" Jack asked after a while of them sitting there working on their projects.

She glanced up from hers and shrugged at him. "He retired," she said flatly.

Jack made a face at that. "But he's not like … old," he said.

She looked at him again and rubbed her eyebrow briefly. "Ah, the NYPD has a pretty decent pension package after you've put in 20 years."

"But 20 years wouldn't be anywhere near like normal retirement age," Jack commented.

She shrugged. "I guess not. He did more than 20 years on the job, though."

"How many?"

"Hmm. I think it was 26," she said.

"How many years have you been a cop?"

She glanced at him again and then looked back to press down another one of the stickers. "About 18," she said flatly.

"That's long," Jack said.

It would be long to him. Almost as long as he'd been living. She supposed it was long to her too. Some days it felt so much longer than others – like she'd been doing it forever or like she'd barely even started. But she thought Jack's comment was better than him saying she was 'old'.

"Are you going to retire at 20 years?" he asked.

She shrugged again. "I don't know. Maybe. I'll cross that bridge when I get to it."

"And then you'd just be retired?"

She shook her head. "No. I don't think that would work for me. I'd find something else to do with my time."

"So then you'd have a pension and like an income?"

She glanced up at him again. "Yeah," she nodded.

"That sounds kind of sweet," he said.

She snorted. "I guess," she offered.

"So what's he do now?"

She shrugged at that too. "I don't think he's really doing much yet. He does some contract stuff."

"Why retire if you aren't going to do anything?" Jack asked.

She looked at him again and tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. "Ah, something happened at work. He decided it was time for him to move on. He's still dealing with it all."

"What happened?" Jack asked and gave her a curious look.

"A shooting," she said even more flatly. "A teenaged girl died."

"Like he shot her?"

She shifted her gaze up to meet his eyes again and gave a small nod. "Yeah."

Jack was quiet at that for a moment and seemed to consider it. "Was she like … a criminal?"

Olivia shook her head. "No. She was a civilian. But she was … committing crimes at the time. Elliot likely saved several people's lives."

"So then shouldn't they have given him a medal or promotion or something? Why retire?"

Olivia offered him a small smile at that. "It's complicated, Jack. A shooting incident is just an 'oops' or a 'we took down a bad guy'. There's a lot of paperwork. There's statements and investigations and counseling and forced leave. There can be reprimands. That's actually more likely than a medal or promotion. It's a really stressful experience. And that's just the work aspect of it. There's a whole other … mental and emotional aspect to it. You've just taken another person's life."

"But you've shot people and you didn't quit," Jack said and looked back to what he was doing.

"I've never shot a kid," Olivia mumbled and gazed at the fire station for a moment. She'd looked at a lot of dead kids over the years. There'd been some kids … teenagers … who'd done awful things that she really thought maybe should die. She'd hated that she'd thought it. But there had been times she'd thought it. She'd never shot a kid, though, and she hoped she never would.

"Would you quit if you shot a kid?"

She glanced up at Jack and shook her head. "I don't know, Jack. I don't really want to think about it. Not tonight. This is a really depressing topic."

Jack examined her silently for several moments, stopping his work on the fire truck. But she broke the eye contact and went back to her work – trying to pull her mind away from where he'd sent it wandering.

"So is his family like people you get together with a few times over the holidays?" he asked, changing the topic.

She shook her head, still not looking at him. "No. Not really. Why?" she asked and gave him a small glance.

He shrugged. "His daughter. Elizabeth. She goes to Cornell, eh?"

She let out a small snort at that and looked up at him a bit more. "Yeah, she does."

"That's kind of near Horseheads. Ithaca," he said cautiously.

She nodded. "Sort of. But you don't live in Horseheads. You live in New York, Jack. And, beyond that, you don't want to … date one of Elliot's daughters."

Jack gave her a look and looked back to the fire truck. "I didn't say I was interested in her," he said.

She snorted. "Ah. You're just asking about her – just because?"

He shrugged. "Yeah."

"Ah," Olivia said. "Well, Jack, even if you were interested in her, I don't think you made the best first impression tonight."

Jack looked up at her with that. "Did she say something?" he asked with some shock in his voice.

Olivia shook her head at him with a small smile. "No. But her body language sure did. You and Dickie were … acting like teenaged boys. It wasn't winning her over."

Jack looked like he was processing that but must've acknowledged that there was some truth to the statement because he didn't say anything more and turned back to working on his toy.

Olivia watched him for another moment. "It seemed like you and Dickie had some good conversation going," she commented and watched him.

He shrugged. "Yeah. I guess. Why do you call him that? Dickie?"

"Mmm, because I've known the twins since they were about five years old and their dad always called them Dickie and Lizzie. So I guess that's still how I think of them."

"Yeah, well, I can see why he wouldn't want to be called Dickie anymore. Seriously … who names their kid Dickie?"

She snorted. "Apparently Elliot." She let that sit in silence for a minute or so but then tried again with the Dickie conversation. "So Dickie … Rich … goes to City too? Lives in rez?"

Jack shrugged. "Yeah. I guess."

She knew Jack didn't have a lot of friends. He had other employees at the skateboard shop that he was friendly with and she was sure he had classmates he chatted to while at school. There were likely other kids at the skate parks that he hung out with while he was there too. But she definitely didn't get the sense he had people inviting him out for dinner or a movie or a party or clubbing or under-age drinking – or just the expected university-kid shenanigans. She supposed the previous year he was likely hung-up about keeping his scholarship and so far this academic year he'd had a lot on his plate with Benji and dealing with the rapid changes that were happening in his life. It wasn't exactly conducive to establishing a friend group or a social life.

"Seemed like you two maybe shared a bit of a sense of humour," she tried. "Might be someone good to hang out with if you're both on campus or in the same rez?"

Jack just shrugged again. "He's from here. He has friends and a life and shit."

"I don't think Dickie has a lot of friends," she said and met his eyes for a moment. "At least he didn't in high school. Maybe that's changed in university."

She saw Jack glance up at that.

"A lot of cop kids struggle a bit with friends after they're teenagers," she told him, trying to keep the eye contact but Jack looked away. "A lot of classmates sort of end up avoiding the cop kids. Means those kids sometimes live at opposite ends of the spectrum. You've got the ones that become … rebels just looking for trouble and then you've got the kids who feel the burden of trying to live up to these self-imposed or family-imposed, job title expectations. They feel like they have to live to a higher standard … and maybe they do, fairly or unfairly … so they sort of overcompensate. Either-way, it usually means they don't end up having a lot of friends, it seems.

"You know how you cringe now when I come over to the skate park or into Funky's because I'm a cop? Imagine dealing with that going through high school while you've got classmates trying out pot or ecstasy or whatever, under-age drinking, partying, bullying, sexting and social networking crap, sex – all when your parent is a cop. And not just a cop – a sex crimes cop. And, our unit isn't exactly low profile. Whether we like it or not – our names appear in the papers and the news. People knew who Dickie's dad was."

"Is that why Rich hates his dad so much?" Jack asked.

Olivia caught his eyes at that. "He doesn't hate his dad," she said firmly.

"Didn't seem to like him very much," Jack added.

She shrugged. "They're just working through some things. They're all in a rough family spot right now. It's hard on all of them. And, I'd say the kind of attitude that was being handed out there was pretty normal as kids are finishing out their teens and entering adulthood. Still sort of dependent on Mom and Dad and wanting their support – but society, the law, you – is saying you're a grown-up now. That last year or so of high school and first couple of post-secondary is kind of a weird period, I think. It's a transition for everyone."

Jack just looked down at that, examining the little figure that came with the fire truck.

"Didn't you show me a tshirt yesterday that said if your kids hate you, you're doing something right?" she asked a little teasingly.

He gave her a glance. "That was a joke."

She shrugged. "I think there's some truth to the statement, though."

He eyed her again for a moment. "Izzy hated my dad and I don't think that worked out so right for anyone."

She watched him and sighed. "Well, I didn't know your sister. But I know you – and I'm pretty sure your dad did something right."

He bit the inside of his cheek and considered that comment. "But I didn't hate my dad," he finally stated.

She gave him a small smile. "I bet there were moments that you really hated something your dad said or did, though," she suggested. "And, if your dad had gotten to be around for all your teens, Jack, I can say with almost 100 per cent certainty that there would've been points where you hated your dad or told your dad you hated him. It's part of growing up – of being a teenager."

"Did you hate your mom?" he asked.

She snorted at that and bent down to start digging through the bag of stocking stuffers she had sitting at her feet.

"I definitely I had moments that I hated my mom and I made sure to tell her so. But that's not really something I want to think much about on Christmas either," she said.

She really didn't. Thinking about her mother in general made her feel either very sad or very angry. She didn't much feel like dealing with either of those emotions when it was after 1 a.m. on Christmas morning. She also didn't much want to think about her Christmases with her mother growing up. Trying to organize something nice for the boys had really brought into an even starker reality how little effort her mother had put into the holidays too. She'd always known that her Christmases weren't what most families of their income bracket would've classified as normal. But looking back on it this year, it just seemed that much worse and depressing. It likely would've been better if her mother hadn't even bothered. It was like the minimalist approach made it that much more hurtful than if they hadn't marked the holiday at all.

She pulled out a couple things out of her bag and pushed them across the table to Jack.

"Can you try to fit those into my stocking when you get around to doing it?" she asked.

He examined the Terry's Orange and the three-pack of Ferrero Rocher - and the couple sandwich cutters.

"What are these?" he asked holding up one shaped like dinosaurs.

She shrugged and started sorting out some of the stocking stuffers she'd picked up for Benji onto the table to work at getting them shoved into his sock. "Something Benji thinks Santa should bring me. Apparently I've been making his sandwiches wrong."

Jack looked at the cutters more. "Seriously? These are to make sandwich shapes?"

She nodded.

"Wow. And, my dad thought he was doing us a big favour when he cut the sandwich into four triangles."

She snorted at that and gave him a small smile.

Jack looked like he was done with the fire truck but just sat there eyeing the loot she had across the table for Benji's stocking. She was going to need him to relocate himself soon so she could do his. And, she really hoped that he'd start moving a little faster too so he could head to bed and they all could get a few hours sleep.

She actually was surprised Jack still seemed functional after his previous all-nighter on the videogame system. Maybe he was slightly more excited about Christmas than he was letting on. But she was more concerned about when Benji's excitement would have him awake. She wanted to have everything done before he started to stir and she also wanted to at least get a bit of sack time so she could enjoy the experience as well.

"That's a lot of stuff," Jack commented. "Are you going to be able to fit it all in there?"

She shrugged. "I guess we'll find out. I'm taking some of it out of the packaging," she said and started picking at the back of one of the Cars die casts.

Jack reached across the table and picked up one of the items and examined it more closely. She glanced at him.

"It's supposed to hatch some sort of growing reptile or something after you put it in water for a couple days," she commented at him. "We'll see if it works. It's just from the 99 cent store."

Jack nodded. "They used to work. I had one when I was a kid. An alligator. We kept it in a giant pickle jar for ages."

She gave him a small smile at that and returned to stuffing the few items of chocolate down into the toe of the sock. Jack just closed the fire truck, flipped it upside down to return the batteries and then rolled it to the end of the table before lifting it and setting it on the floor next to where she'd put the fire station. But then he sat there watching her work again. She mostly just ignored him at that point, though. She was in work mode and was working towards getting to bed too.

"Olivia …" he said cautiously after several minutes.

She glanced up at him from what she was doing. "Mmm…" she offered in response.

"Don't be weird in the morning," he said, "like about your stocking or presents and stuff."

She looked up at him a bit more at that and stopped what she was doing. She wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that. What being weird would be defined as? What he could have possibly bought that he thought she might be weird about? But she gave him a small nod.

"OK, Jack," she agreed. "You don't be weird about your presents or stocking either."


	89. Chapter 89

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"'Livia," was what she first stirred to in waking up. But Benji's little call from off behind her quickly got more urgent. "Mommy!" he called out next followed by a vocal whine of "Mommmmmieeee Fooox! Please! Mommy! Wake up!"

She stirred more as consciousness tugged at her and told her the little boy was calling out for her.

"I'm coming, Benj," she mumbled and forced herself to sit up on the couch and rub at her eyes. She hardly felt like she'd even laid down. She knew she'd been sleeping but she had trouble believing that she'd actually had the opportunity to sleep. This had to be too early for Christmas morning. There must be some sort of cut-off on what's a reasonable hour for the kid to get up. She'd been thinking 5 a.m. – that was a typical Benji wake-up time. This definitely wasn't no 5 a.m. wake-up call from the little boy, though.

She was still rubbing at her face as she padded over her bedroom door. At the moment she wasn't feeling particularly excited or in the seasonal spirit. She felt like she needed at least a couple more hours' sleep. Or more like six or seven more hours sleep if she wanted to get anywhere close to hitting the eight-hour mark. She couldn't even speculate when the last time would've been that she'd gotten the recommended eight hours. Not before Benji and definitely not after Benji.

Benji was standing in the doorway, his one hand grabbing at his crotch while the other was gripping near urgently at the doorframe. The little boy was crossing and uncrossing his legs and near bouncing in his discomfort.

"Mommy, I gotta pee. But I don't wanna Santa to leave becuz I up. I gotta go," he whined out as soon as he saw her.

She gave him a smile as she closed the gap between them. She was pretty sure him moving the about three feet from the bedroom door to the bathroom door wasn't going to scare Santa away anymore than the magnitude of his cries for her to come to him. But she wasn't going to argue with him.

"OK," she said and stuck out her hand. "Let's go to the bathroom."

He shook his head. "I can't Mommy. He not come if you get up!"

She sighed at him. "That's not exactly how it works, Benj. Santa will still come if you have to pee. Com'on."

He shook his head harder and seemed to grab tighter at his crotch for further emphasis, re-crossing his legs again.

"OK," she said. "How about we cover your eyes so you can't see Santa or any of his magic? Just in case he's here right now. But I'm pretty sure he's not here right now."

Benji grabbed more at himself and bounced again. "I gooooottttaaa goooooo," he whined without responding to her proposed solution to the dilemma.

She didn't let him think about it anymore and stepped forward and put her hands over his eyes and started nudging him through the doorway and hustling him to the bathroom.

"Com'on," she urged.

She removed her hands as they got inside the door and positioned him in front of the toilet.

"Hurry, hurry," she encouraged, and flipped up the toilet seat with one hand while tugging his PJ bottoms down for him with her other, as he pulled his shirt up and tucked it under his chin.

She really wanted to get him in front of the toilet in time. She didn't want any potential accidents in his Christmas pajamas. She so wanted to get some pictures of him in the morning in them while he was opening presents. And, she just didn't feel like dealing with a pee clean up and changing him at the moment. She was tired. It'd been a long, late night. She probably just shouldn't have laid down. That likely would've been better. Some times no sleep is better than a couple hours.

She moved over to lean against the counter as he started to trickle out about the longest pee ever. She didn't realize she'd let him drink quite that much before bed, though they had had some treats after they got home from church. She rubbed at her face more as he went about his business – trying to encourage herself to wake up and get into the moment.

"It Chris-miss yet?" Benji asked while still taking his pee.

She glanced at the little clock she kept next to the vanity in an effort to stay on time in the mornings. It was barely past 4 a.m. She hadn't been laying down for more than two hours and she knew she hadn't been asleep that long. She'd laid on the couch staring at the ceiling thinking for what had seemed like a long time. She really suspected she'd only been out for about 30 minutes or so with the grogginess she was feeling at the moment.

"It's the middle of the night, Benj," she sighed. "It's not morning yet." She sort of hoped he'd buy that and it might buy her at least an hour more of sack time after he was done in here.

"You hear Santa yet, Mommy?" he asked. "He come yet?"

"I haven't heard him, Benj," she said. "My magic jammies are making me sleep right through him coming. I'm not sure if he's been here yet. Maybe not. It's not morning yet. You need to give him time. He has lots of kids to visit tonight."

Benji turned towards her a bit at that. She sighed.

"Sweetheart, please watch what you're doing," she nodded at him. "Aim down," she encouraged and made a motion at her own crotch.

She wasn't sure if Benji's no-hands peeing was a Benji thing, a broken arm thing or just a little boy thing. But it was definitely a mess up her bathroom thing. She was pretty sure more pee was spraying across the back of her toilet seat and the floor than it was making it into the bowl.

She'd mentioned it to Jack previously but he'd looked at her blankly. Likely wondering what the hell she wanted him to do about it. She'd initially thought he was better qualified to deal with that department. But that hope had faded quickly.

"Maybe you could give him a reminder to … use his hands …. to aim," she'd suggested.

"What? You want me to give him a demonstration?" Jack had asked.

She'd looked at him. "Maybe. Whatever works. I'm sure he's seen you pee before."

"Not purposely," Jack said – and looked away.

"Maybe he could sit down until he grows a bit more," she'd further suggested. "Is taller? Has more control over his body?"

Jack had just glanced at her like that she was being completely ridiculous and offered her a snort. And that was the end of that conversation.

She was sort of happy she'd missed diaper duty and potty training in a way. She knew that was part of being a mom and would've meant getting to have a baby. But it also seemed like a lot of work, expense and mess. Still, she was definitely picking up the slack in the tail-end of Benji's potty training – or maybe it was more any regression he was having from the death of his mother and all the bouncing around and trauma he'd been through over the past several months.

Beyond cleaning up his pee and having to give him pee-tactic reminders (which wasn't hard to do since he never closed the door while he was in the bathroom so she often ended up bearing witness to her floor being urinated on), she was also having to work with him in the wiping department. They'd gone over that whole procedure after he'd complained of 'itchy butt' and she'd been a little too disgusted with dealing with his crusty underwear during laundry. He was still a little fumble-y with everything with the cast anyway. But the retraining lessons had also now sometimes prompted him to call out to her for help wiping his ass. Add that to the list of things that if you'd asked her three months ago if it was something she thought she'd be doing any time soon and she'd had thought it was pretty ridiculous … impossible.

It had taken some further chats and convincing with Benji for him to believe that he really did know how to wipe his own butt, that he was a big guy at nursery school now and he didn't need to be calling her to help him with that task. He just needed to do it right … to get rid of itchy butt and crusty undies. About once a week, though, he was still calling her to be bathroom for help. It was usually for what he called 'the biggest poop ever'. Those seemed to surmount the previous most epic poops at least once a week. She thought maybe it was amazing what getting some fruit and vegetable fiber into the kid was doing for him rather than the bunged up processed crap that Jack – and likely his mother – had been feeding him. She got the sense that him calling her to the bathroom those days, though, was less about wanting help wiping his ass and more about him wanting to show off the magnitude of his crap. Apparently it was something to be proud of. She wasn't entirely sure she'd ever fully understand little boys.

Sometimes she really did feel like interacting with Benji was like having this strange little creature in her life. He was still so little and so dependent. And, he was just so random in his thoughts and the things he said to her. What he wanted help with one day and then the next he was far too big of boy for her to help out. The things that would send him into fits of giggles – where he was usually laughing so hard he couldn't even form enough words for her to firmly grasp what was so funny.

It was strange to think that this little person suddenly thrust into her life would grow up and become a man. She could only imagine what a strange feeling it must be to look at a little newborn baby as a new mother and come to that slow realization. It felt so surreal even thinking about it with Benji - and he was four. A little person who still needed to be told to wash his hands, who left every door in the place open so she was in his line of sight or at least within shrieking distance. A little boy who needed help with zippers and cutting up his food. Who wanted to be read to and sung to and hugged and cuddled. Who thought Bob the Builder and Diego were still pretty fascinating television. Who could become so absorbed in a bottle cap for seemingly an endless amount of time only to bounce between his other toys like he had no attention span at all. Who wanted his sandwiches shaped like airplanes and butterflies and who had to be bribed into eating fruit though he'd chow down on most veggies.

But some day in a future that would likely be there all too quickly – he'd be a man. She knew that was part of the deal of raising – of having – any child. Still, part of her felt like she'd waited for this so long that she didn't really want it to happen. At least not quickly. She thought she kind of liked four. Old enough that he was fun and definitely his own person but still little enough he was devastatingly cute and needed her so deeply.

She wondered what kind of man Benji would grow to be. She supposed she had some sneak peaks about what was likely in store for him physically and personality-wise through Jay and now Jack. There were genetics there that were already showing. She could see bits of Jack in Benji's features. Benji was more fair than Jack – his hair, his eyes. But she could see in the structure of his face, the shape of his nose and his mouth, his smile. Benji was a Lewis. Just like she could see bits of Jay in Jack. Benji could've done a lot worse than those genes. He'd likely grow up to be as tall, trim and handsome as his uncle and grandfather. Personality-wise – there might be some room for improvement. But she could already see bits and pieces of Jay and Jack there too. The defiance. The stubbornness. The slyness behind the little grins and dancing eyes. She supposed, though, those weren't necessarily bad traits to have.

There were so many unknowns about him, though. She barely knew anything about his mother – and she'd likely know nothing about his father. She supposed that wouldn't be that different than some of her other options in adoption or in-vitro. But she almost felt like in going through the bureaucratic and rep-tape of both those possibilities, she might've ended up with a bit more of a glimpse about what the child had come from than she was getting with Benji. Still, she knew what it was like to have questions about where you came from and to wonder about those genetics – to stew over nature versus nurture. She'd turned out OK, though … more or less.

She wondered how much Benji would remember his mother. He would've barely been three and a half when she died. That was little. As they moved further and further away from that the young woman was likely going to become that much more of a faded memory … if not more like a shadow from his past. She wasn't even sure how much Benji really remembered about his mother now. He remembered events or little rituals. Things that he'd deemed as right or wrong. Things he related to Mama. But she wasn't entirely clear on how much he remembered about Mama. What Mama actually meant to him when he said it … what he was seeing in his head, what he was actually thinking about, any memories attached to that.

Would it reach a point where Olivia could be … or would be … the only person he'd really known as a mother? She wasn't even sure that's what she wanted. He deserved to know where he came from – who he was. It had hurt her to not know. She wouldn't want to repeat that pain … or pass it on … to Benji. She wanted to always be honest with him about his past. But she never wanted him to question how much she'd really wanted him … from near the moment she'd stepped into that hospital and seen how scared and alone and confused him and Jack were. She wanted him to know how much she had wanted to be a mother. How happy she was that he'd come into her life. How much she needed him – as much as he needed her, she needed him too. How long she'd been waiting for him. How long she'd been hoping to finally have a family – and to no longer be alone. For him to know what a gift and blessing he was in her life and that he was making her very happy, in a way she wasn't sure she'd ever truly felt before.

Her mind was starting to spin again in much the same way it had started going after she had laid down on the couch. She was starting to think Christmas prompted a little too much thinking and reflection. This year in a different way than previous years - perhaps a little bit more intensely than usual. It all felt a little bittersweet.

She glanced over at Benji as he flushed the toilet and worked at awkwardly hiking his pants back up.

"Get some toilet paper and clean up your dribbles too, please, Benjamin," she instructed him.

He gave her a little huff but pulled out a bit more toilet paper than he needed and wiped at the upturned lid that he'd sprayed all over and then tossed the wad of paper into the bowl.

"The floor too, Little Fox," she nodded at him.

He squinted at her but again complied and gazed at her to see if it met her approval. He hadn't done the best job on the floor clean up. But it was good enough for the moment – so she gave him a small smile.

"Good boy," she praised him and he trotted over to the sink and stuck out his hands.

She turned on the faucet for him and then squirted some soap into his waiting hands. She still needed to get a little step stool for the bathroom. It would make some of their bathroom routines and rituals that much easier. She'd noticed in the new apartment that the family residing there had a stool in the kids' bathroom. She wondered if they might leave it – and she should hold off a bit longer before going out and making that purchase.

"Mommy, should we check to see if Santa been here yet?" Benji asked and looked up at her with those big, questioning, hopeful eyes.

She looked at him and considered that for a moment. It was still so early. Jack had barely gone to bed too. Though, he must've been sleeping soundly to have avoided this disruption. She really wanted to try to get a bit more down time … just a bit.

"Benj, I really think we should give Santa a bit more time to get here before we check," she allowed.

Benji scrunched up his face in some disappointment at that. She sighed. She knew he likely wasn't going to sleep if she tucked him back into bed.

"You want to come and sleep with Mommy Fox in the living room until morning?"

Benji's eyes got bigger at that. "That where Santa come!"

She nodded. "He will. But your magic PJs will make you sleep through it – if he hasn't been here yet."

"What if he see me and leave tho? Becuz you can't see Santa and his magic on Chris-miss Eve MOMMY! IT NOT ALLOWED!"

She shook her head. "We'll be on the couch – and we're going to sleep. Santa will still be able to visit."

She dried off his hands on the towel and then drew him up to her chest. He wrapped his legs around her mid-section and his arms around her neck, resting his head on her shoulder. Maybe she would be able to get him to close his eyes for a little bit longer. He'd had a late night too. She could feel the tiredness still in his body even though he was buzzing with excitement and curiosity.

"Com'on," she said and rubbed his back, trying to calm him and start easing him back to sleep. "Close your eyes. No peaking. We're going to go lay down on the couch for a bit longer and than we'll check for Santa."

She hoped she'd sleep during that lay down time. But somehow she thought now that her mind was churning again – and now that she'd have this little boy laying against hers, she was just going to be thinking more. She needed him in her life. She could do better than her mother did for her. She hoped she could do better than his mother would've been able to do for him. She couldn't let this little boy – her little boy - go.


	90. Chapter 90

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia heard some movement from the bedroom and could almost feel Jack looking into the living room but he didn't say anything at first. She could hear him shifting his feet – almost like maybe he was looking back to the bed and deciding if Benji really wasn't there.

"You guys out there?" he said at a near whisper. If she had been asleep the chances of her actually hearing him probably would've been pretty slim.

But she was awake. She wasn't really sure she'd slept at all since getting Benji on the couch. He'd cuddled right into her nearly as soon as they'd laid down and she'd actually been a little surprised at how readily he'd closed his eyes and drifted back to sleep – laying completely flaked out on top of her.

She made a small sound and stretched a bit – sticking her arms over the end of the couch so Jack could see.

"We're right here, Jack," she said at a normal voice level. She figured if Jack was up-and-about, they were likely reaching the point of it being an acceptable hour to really start with the Christmas morning to-do.

She heard him move again with that – his soft padding footsteps moving towards the couch.

"Did you guys start without me?" he asked a little hesitantly before he got into her line of shift.

She sighed. "No, Jack. We're just laying here."

He rounded the end of the couch and kind of looked down on them. She gave him a thin smile.

"Hey," she said. "Morning. Merry Christmas."

He gazed at her a little questioningly but then sat his ass down on the corner of the coffee table and looked more at his little nephew sleeping on top of her than he was at her.

"Why's he out here?" he asked.

She rubbed Benji's back a bit. He wasn't even stirring with the conversation going on around him - still completely dead to the world. A tired little boy. Today would wear him out too.

"He was up to use the bathroom around four. I didn't think he'd go back to sleep if I put him back in the bed – and I thought you could use a few more hours, so I kept him out here."

Jack gave a small nod and sort of lifted Benji's arm that was hanging closest to him and then let it drop back down. The boy still didn't even move. Though, Jack moved and stuck his finger in the little boy's curled fingers and he seemed to grip it a little bit, almost like an infant – and snuggled his face more against her chest.

"What time is it?" Olivia asked.

Jack glanced at her. "Like quarter to seven."

"Really?" she asked with some surprise and the teen gave her a small nod.

She had trouble believing that she'd been laying there just watching Benji sleep for almost three hours. She supposed maybe she'd been drifting in-and-out of consciousness a bit. But she didn't think she'd logged too much more time in the sack since the bathroom break.

She'd really just been watching the little boy's breathing and feeling it against her chest. Feeling his slow sleeping heart rate and the little sounds he was making. She was finding it strangely comforting to watch Benji sleep. Though, she'd again become lost a bit in thought. Then he'd stir or mumble or make a little noise, though, and it kept bringing her back to the present. She liked the present better than where here mind had been going.

She examined Jack a bit in the dim lights from the Christmas tree that were dancing across his face from off in the corner. There was more of a frown on his face than any sort of excitement about the day. But what was really catching her attention was a strange swatch up near on his right eye.

"I think you've got something on your face," she commented at him and rubbed her fingers up at the same spot near her own eye.

He glanced at her and then reached up and rubbed at it, bringing his fingers away and looking at it questioning in the strange light in the room at the moment too.

"Come here," she said and gestured for him to come closer. He considered her for a moment but then moved his butt to the floor so he was sitting near her head and within reach from her laying position on the couch. He actually let her touch his face a bit and she tilted his head slightly to examine the mark and the substance there, swiping at it a bit with her fingers.

"It's caked blood," she said and looked at him a little concerned.

"Huh?" Jack said and moved his hand back up, but she swatted his fingers away and tilted his head some more in the light. She was viewing it from a strange angle with laying on her back and him sitting on the floor. But as she fingered at his temple she could feel the abrasion.

"I think it's just a scratch," she told him eventually and dropped her hand away, letting him finger at it himself.

"He whacked me with his cast thing in his sleep but I didn't think it did anything," Jack mumbled and rubbed his fingers up and down along the scratch that he'd found for himself now.

"One of the fasteners must've caught you," Olivia said and pulled his hand down to get him to stop rubbing at it. "Does it hurt?"

He shook his head. "Not really."

She nodded. "Just wash the blood off then, and put some aloe from the cabinet on it."

He returned the nod like he'd registered the information but didn't move like he was headed for the bathroom to take care of it. Instead his attention had shifted back to eyeing Benji asleep on top of her.

"He just lays on top of you like this?" Jack asked after a bit of a silence.

Olivia watched him and gave as much of a shrug as she could in the position she was in. "Sometimes. He seems to think I make a good mattress or pillow or something when we're watching television."

Jack made a small sound at that. She wasn't sure if it was amusement or mild disgust.

"It's weird how much he likes you," Jack said quietly and shook his finger in the little boy's grip some more and Benji again made a sound and rubbed his face a bit against her but didn't open his eyes.

Olivia gave Jack a small playful bat across the bat of his head, which caused him to shift his eyes from his nephew to her.

"Are you saying I'm not likeable?" she teased, but gave him serious eyes.

He snorted at her a bit. "No," he said a little more quietly, and shifted his position so his back was against the base of the couch, pulling his knees more to his chest and resting his chin on them, keeping his face out of her view.

She watched him for a moment. She knew that day with Jack was going to be a bit of a minefield for her to navigate too - for different reasons than Benji, but the teen would still have a lot going on in that head of his. A false step and the day could blow up just as easily with Jack as it could from a meltdown from the little boy.

She really didn't want to deal with one of Jack's emotional explosions and swearing fits – his anger. She didn't necessarily want to have to comfort a teary 19-year-old boy either. But she'd likely take that over one of his rages. Though, she really hoped she'd be able to direct the day well enough that they'd all be able to avoid both – and they could just all try to have a nice Christmas together.

"Why'd my dad talk about you but never talk about my mom?" Jack asked quietly after some time.

Olivia sighed inwardly. If this was how they were starting out the morning, it didn't bode well for how the day might play out. But it wasn't entirely unexpected. She'd been watching Jack carefully over the weekend and had seen his reflection and contemplation in his face. She could see the hurt there and him thinking about his dad. The little comments and the little looks.

She knew something about his father – or his family life – would come up over Christmas. She just hadn't been sure how it would manifest itself. Him speaking seemed a bit better than some of the other scenarios she'd run through her head in trying to plan how to deal with them.

She placed her one hand up on the back of his head and ruffled his hair just a bit with her fingers. He didn't move. He just settled his chin more onto his hands, which were resting against his pulled up knees. He'd seemingly been cautiously accepting the few small touches she'd offered him over the course of the weekend – so she was cautiously continuing to provide them. She wanted to keep trying to establish some sort of connection with him and for the teen to know she was there for him too.

"I don't know, Jack," she told him. "That's not something I can answer for you. I could only speculate - like you."

"What do you speculate then?" he said.

She did let her sigh come out a bit at that question. "I would guess that maybe whatever happened between your mom and your dad really hurt him and he didn't really want to think about it. So maybe he tried to focus on happier times."

It made her uncomfortable in a way, the more she thought about it too. In a way, it felt like maybe Jay hadn't ever really moved on from their relationship and break up. It made her wonder if she'd really hurt him that badly too – not just this other woman who'd born his children. It made her wonder why Jack knew more about her than he apparently knew about his own mother. They weren't questions she'd likely ever get any kind of real answer for.

She could only imagine how confusing it all must've been for Jack when he was little – and then angering after his father was gone and he didn't have any answers. Actually, she didn't have to imagine too hard. She'd experienced a lot of that confusion and anger herself. That search for answers and never really liking what you found – and the difficulties in accepting what you did find. Maybe it would've been better if she never went looking. She wondered if Jack was already feeling that way too and he hadn't even gotten as many answers as she had.

"When I was little I used to think …" his voice cracked a bit and he shook his head and he put his face more against his hands.

She ruffled his hair more and placed her hand full against the back of his head. He didn't need to say it. She'd known from the moment he told her that his mother had left and the kid was still toting that picture around with him in his back pocket.

"I know, Jack," she told him. "It's OK."

He shook his head more. "It's not. It's stupid. Dad and his fucking stupid picture. His stupid stories."

She moved her hand down to his neck and gave it a small squeeze in a light massage. She could feel him shaking in his struggle to hold back tears.

"It's not stupid, Jack," she told him. "When I was little I had lots of ideas about who my dad was and where my dad was. I made up all sorts of fantasies. I told myself that some day he'd come back and it would be better. I'd wonder at Christmas and on my birthday if he was thinking about me. It's normal, Jack. It's very normal when you don't know."

"It wasn't fair of him …" he spat out. "It wasn't fair that he told all his stupid stories and then never told me anything real about what happened or who she was or where she was. It wasn't fair of him."

She felt him shaking more and she rubbed his shouldered, while glancing at where Benji was sleeping against her and rubbed at his back with her other hand. She understood Jack's pain all to well. But she didn't want him to be this angry at his dad or hurting this much – especially not today.

"It may not have been fair of him, sweetheart. But I think he likely was doing the best he knew how in the situation. He likely thought he was protecting you. He probably planned to talk to you about it when you got older – and he just didn't get that chance."

He shook a bit more and she put her hand back in his hair.

"It's OK, Jack," she assured him. "I may not be your mom, but for what it's worth – I'm here now and I do care about you."

"Until you get Benji," he sputtered.

She flattened her hand against his head at that. "You know that's not true, sweetheart. I'm here for you too. I met you first. I was just as excited to get to meet you – Jay's son – to get to know you. Even if you hadn't had Benji in your life – if you had wanted to have a relationship with me – we would've had one, Jack. I'm not going anywhere. I'm not going to just disappear on you now. I'm here when you need me."

"Why'd she just leave? How come she didn't care?"

Olivia shook her head. He was making her so sad for him. This kid had been hurting and questioning his whole life and it wasn't getting any better at the moment, it didn't seem.

"That's not something I can answer for you, sweetheart," she told him again. "I don't know."

He rocked his head tighter against his knees. She thought he was crying but he was doing a good job at keeping it silent, if he was. Though, his body was shuttering and his voice was cracking with every word. He wasn't looking at her and she was worried that after this, his embarrassment might have him not wanting to look at her for the rest of the day.

"Dad's gone, Izzy's gone, Nan might as well be gone. And I'm here in this fucking city alone and I don't even know what the hell I'm doing here. I don't know what the hell I'm doing anymore. I just don't know what the hell I'm supposed to be doing."

She shifted Benji at that – pushing him gently off of her and against the back of the couch, so she could slip out from under him and sit up, putting her feet on the floor next to Jack and gripping at his shoulder.

"Look at me, Jack," she said quietly. He shook his head so she squeezed his shoulder again. "Com'on, sweetheart. I don't care that you're crying. It's allowed."

He just kept shaking his head, so she lowered herself onto the ground next to him and put her arm around him and brought him against her side, rubbing up and down the bicep on his opposite arm.

"You aren't alone," she told him again. "You've got your nephew and he needs you. He really does. And, you've got me. I know that's really hard for you to accept – but I am telling you – I am not going anywhere. I am here to help you get through this. OK? I know these last six months or so have been really hard for you. I know these last few years haven't been great. But you're here now. You've got Benji. You've got me. You're in a new city. You've got a new start. And, we're going to figure out how to make that work for you and to get you back on track. And – it's all going to be OK. We'll figure it out."

"What if it's not?" he shuttered.

"It's going to be," she said. "Look, Jack. My life wasn't a bed of roses, either. It's still not. But you keep going. It's going to be fine."

"What if the judge says no?" he asked. It was the first time he'd really vocally acknowledged that the petitions were before the court now and put it in a way that actually left it open to interpretation that it might actually be something he wanted.

She patted his shoulder. "I don't think the judge is going to say no," she assured. It was what she'd been telling herself for weeks. It was the only way she could keep herself from obsessing over it. "But if she does – then Mark is going to help us look at other options. There's fostering. There's adoption. There's extending the parental designation after the six months is up. We'll figure it out, Jack. I'm here for you and I'm here for Benji. That's not going to change – no matter what a judge says. You just have to put some faith in the process and we'll see how it plays out."

She could feel him shuttering and sniffling against her side – still refusing to make eye contact. But she also felt him slowly calming. So she just kept rubbing at his bicep and shoulder and waiting – giving him time and patience, much like she'd had to through this entire process.

"I'm ruining Christmas," he muttered after a long silence.

She snorted at that – and actually bent down and put a small peck on the top of his head. He didn't pull away.

"This is not ruining Christmas," she told him and shook his shoulder again a little more light-heartedly this time. "You should've seen Christmas in my house growing up. You'd have to try pretty hard to make worse than that. Besides – Benji isn't even awake yet – and we haven't even started Christmas morning yet. You aren't ruining anything."

He made a loud snotty sniff and she left go of him for a second to lean over to one of the end tables and retrieve the tissue box and then tapped him on the chest with it. He slowly looked up and pulled a couple pieces out and blew at his nose really loudly before wiping his eyes and face against the sleeve of his Grinch tshirt.

He glanced at her when he was done and she gave him a thin smile. His face looked all patchy from his crying, especially in the multi-coloured light from the tree that was being cast on him. He couldn't maintain the eye contact and looked away again.

"You know, Jack, if you decide you want to try to find her, I can help," she offered.

He shook his head. "She's likely back in Canada. That's what Izzy said," he said at a near whisper.

"Well, if you think she's back in Montreal … or Quebec … I have some contacts up in the city police there and the Mounted Police. We work with them sometimes. We could still try."

He shook his head again and but his chin back on his knees again. "What do I say to her, anyway? 'Hey Mom, remember me? You left when I wasn't even two.'"

She shrugged. "I don't know what you say to her, sweetheart." She put her arm back around him and rubbed him again. "I went looking for my dad when I was older too."

He glanced at her at that. "Did you find him?"

She sighed a little. "Sort of. He was dead. I don't know what I would've said or done to him if I found him anyway. 'Hi, I'm your daughter. You raped my mom.' Arrest him. Hit him. Bombard him with questions. I don't know what I would've done. … I found a half-brother."

Jack rubbed his face against his knee at that like he was considering it. "Did you talk to him?"

She nodded and gave him a small smile. "When we first talked – it was probably sort of like me and you. I found him and I'd been … almost stalking him for a while."

Jack let out a small snort at that and looked away. He didn't like her calling it stalking but they both knew he'd been following her around for a while before he worked up the courage to talk to her.

"And then when I did get to talk to him – it wasn't planned. He showed up when I was trying to meet with his girlfriend to talk to her. I told him it was a mistake – confusion – and pretty much ran away. Sound familiar?" she asked and nudged him.

He let out another small noise but looked up and gave her a small smile. "Maybe," he allowed. "Did you talk to him more after that?"

She nodded. "Yeah. He figured out who I was and came looking for me. Followed me home from work. We talked. It was more than a little awkward. 'I'm your older sister. Your dad raped my mom.' He had trouble accepting that at first. Understandably, I guess. But as hard it was for him to hear it – it was hard for me to hear him deny it too. We were able to form a bit of a relationship, though."

"Was he able to tell you stuff?"

She shrugged. "Yes and no. I think meeting Simon … talking to him … left me with more questions than answers in a lot of ways. But it helped to know I wasn't alone."

"How old were you when you started looking?"

"Ahh … I guess technically I started actively looking as soon as I was in the NYPD and could get access to my mother's old case files. So my mid-20s. But I didn't find Simon until … about six years ago."

"Do you still talk to him?" Jack asked.

She sighed and rubbed her eyebrow at that. "Sporadically. Not really. Simon has his own messes to deal with. He dragged me into enough of them. We're in a period of not speaking right now. Maybe that will change. I don't know."

"So it didn't help?"

"It did," she said. "It gave me a better idea of where I came from, of who I was. It made me feel less alone. But it brought with it more questions and more complications. That's kind of how life works, though, Jack. It's a bit of a give-and-take."

"She probably has another family now," he mumbled after a silence.

She patted his shoulder. "That's a definite possibility. There's lots of possibilities. Lots of them you might not like. Finding her might really hurt. But if you're prepared for that – and it's something you feel like you need to do – we can figure that out too."

He sagged his head again at that and became quiet – so she rubbed at his back.

"You know, you can take breaks today, Jack," she told him after a bit. "If you need some time out – you can go to the bedroom and close the door or lay down. Or if you need to talk more – you can just tell me. We'll talk."

"Until your friend comes over," he said quietly.

She looked at him at that and moved her hand back up to his hair and smoothed it out a bit more again. She shook her head at him.

"No, not just until Alex comes over. If you need me – then I'm there. It doesn't matter if we have company. And, Jack – Alex is not going to care if you need time to yourself, or if you look a little teary. She's had to deal with lots of hard things too. She's lost people too. She's had uprooting in her life. She's spent time alone. She knows what it's like. She's not going to judge you – or mock you. She's not like that."

"She's a lawyer," Jack said softly.

"She's a good person – and a friend."

"She thinks I'm a dick."

Olivia snorted and nudged him at that. "No. She thinks you were a little obnoxious when we were signing the parental designation. But she deals with people a lot worse than you on a daily basis. You're a lot more tame than you think, Jack."

He hung his head again and she rubbed at his shoulders some more.

"What do you think? You up? Or you going to go and lay down again for a while?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I guess I'm up."

"OK," she nodded and pulled the top of his head over to her for another small kiss like she so often placed on Benji's head anymore. "I'm going to put on the coffee – I need it – and start working on getting Benji to wake up. You go to the bathroom – wash your face, put something on that cut. Change that tshirt, if you want. It looks a little teary and snotty now. And then when you're ready to come back out - we'll open some presents."

He shrugged again at that though. So she shook him a bit.

"Com'on, Jack. Some enthusiasm. I'm excited about my presents."

"They aren't very exciting," he said flatly.

"They are way more exciting then no presents," she said and moved to stand up. "Com'on. Time to get going – put on the happy face. It's part of getting things to feel better."

He glanced up at her with some disbelief but she just nodded again.

"Com'on – up and at 'em. Let's go."

He sighed and moved to stand, padding slowly over to the bathroom. So she leaned over and rocked Benji a bit.

"Com'on, Benj, time to get up," she said. "It's Christmas. Let's check for Santa."

He mumbled something at her that was unintelligible.

"OK, Mommy Fox is getting coffee and then it's time to get up. Com'on, com'on, com'on – let's go. What's wrong? I've got two kids that are sleepyheads on Christmas morning?"

"Mommy," Benji whined and kicked his foot and pulled the blanket more over his head.

She messed his hair. "Com'on sweetheart. Merry Christmas. Start waking up," she told him again and then headed to put the coffee on. It was going to be an exhausting day. She could feel it already.


	91. Chapter 91

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Her and Jack were sitting on the couch sipping at their coffees while Benji continued to consider the reality of Christmas. He was pulling at his bare toes and had his face scrunched like he was in deep concentration.

"You sure Santa came, 'Livia?" he asked for about the fifth time.

She once again pushed herself up onto her one knee a bit to visibly and dramatically look over the back of the couch and towards the tree – before settling back onto her ass on the couch.

"Yep, Benj, I'm pretty sure he came," she assured him again.

"There presents?" Benji asked and looked at her with those big, questioning and disbelieving eyes.

"Yep. I definitely see presents," she said.

"A transformer?" he asked and gazed at her expectantly.

"Well, Benj, I don't think I should tell you. I think you should go over and look."

"A fire truck?" he asked instead.

"Sweetheart, why don't we just go over to the tree and check to see what Santa brought?"

Benji looked at her at that and pulled on his toes some more, glancing at Jack, and then looking back to her again.

"Did Santa eat his cookies?"

She sighed and got up to look over the edge of the couch again. "It looks like it, baby."

"Him milk?"

"I think so."

"Rudolph eat his carrot?"

She looked again and then lowered herself and nodded. "The carrot is gone, sweetie. They must've eaten it. Do you want to go see?"

Benji considered that some more. "But MOMMY we didn't hear Santa or his reindeer paws or his jingle bells!"

She snorted and smiled at him. "Well – Benji – we don't live anywhere near the top floor to hear his reindeers' paws on the roof or their jingle bells. And, if we heard Santa in the apartment – that would mean his magic wasn't working right. We aren't supposed to hear him."

"BUT WE DIDN'T SEE HIM EITHER MOMMY AND WE RIGHT HERE!" he protested.

She shrugged. "Well, we didn't check, Benj. Maybe he'd already been here. But we were sleeping – and wearing out magic jammies – to make sure we were really asleep and didn't see him or hear him so he could make his visit. So we likely just missed him."

Benji considered that again. "But Santa here?"

She nodded. "He was here, sweetheart. I see presents over by the tree. I don't know about you – but I'd really like to go see what they are. What about you, Jack?"

He nodded. "Yeah. Definitely," he agreed.

"What do you say, Benj? Are you ready to go over and look?"

"BUT WHAT IF HE FORGOT ME 'GIN 'LIVIA?!"

"Little Fox – how could he forget you? Mommy Fox wrote him and had you put on the list. We went and saw Santa and he promised he'd come. He sent Dandy to leave you his magic key and magic jammies – and Mommy can see presents behind us. I don't think they're just presents for Jack and me. I'm sure there's presents for Little Fox too."

He flopped against her and buried his face into her chest. She rubbed at his back – lifting her coffee a bit higher out of the reach of his squirming body and restless head, not wanting to sloop any of the hot liquid onto him.

"You sure, Mommy?"

"I am absolutely sure, sweetheart. It was just an accident that Santa forgot you before. He's not going to miss you anymore. Let's go look, OK?"

Benji considered it a little bit more but then slid himself off the edge of the couch and stood unsurely looking at her. She gave him a small smile and leaned forward to put her coffee on the table and then gave Jack a look – and they both stood up.

She stuck out her hand to Benji. "It's OK, sweetheart," she told him. "Let's go look. Lead the way. Mommy's right here with you."

But he huddled to her side and grabbed up at her waistband. She rubbed his back as he buried his face against her hip.

"Shh, sweetie," she said. "What are we so scared about?"

"What if he not come?" he whined. "What if bad guys come in?!"

She shook her head and rubbed his back some more. "Sweetheart – bad guys can't get in. The door was locked – and Mommy would've heard them and protected you."

"YOU DIDN'T HEAR SANTA! MAYBE SANTA NOT COME!"

"Benji," she said calmly. "I'm standing up and I'm looking over at the tree right now and I can see your presents. Santa came – just Santa, no one else. Now, com'on. You can't be grabbing at Mommy Fox's waistband when she doesn't have a belt on. You're going to pull down my pants – and no one is going to be happy about that."

She stooped and looked at him, meeting his eyes briefly, and then wedging her handed under his armpits and pulled him up – his legs and arms coming around her tightly – but his face looking off into the kitchen. She rubbed his back.

"OK, sweetheart," she said after comforting him for several seconds. "I'm going to turn a bit now – so you can see the tree."

Benji shook his head against her.

"Benji, little one, there is absolutely nothing to be worried about. I see some pretty great presents. I really think we should go over and take a look."

"Mooommmiieee," he whined.

"Shh," she assured him and rubbed his back some more and moved so she was standing sideways. The little boy still kept his head turned. "Com'on, Benj. Take a look," she encouraged. "I've got you. Nothing is going to happen."

"What if magic not work?" he protested.

"It's working, sweetheart. Take a look," she said and rubbed up and down his back some more.

"Com'on 'Jamin," Jack tried. "I can see the presents too. I want to go over and look. Please?"

Benji lifted his head off her shoulder at that and considering his uncle a moment but then rested his head back against her. She rubbed his back a bit harder, bouncing him a bit on her hip the way she imagined she almost would it she was trying to calm a crying newborn. Benji wiped his face against her a couple times and then slowly brought it all the way across – resting the top of his head against her chin – and gazing over at the tree.

"Good boy," she said and placed a kiss on the top of his head. She pointed down at the base of the tree. "Look …"

Benji was quiet for a moment and she could feel him scanning the scene and gripping at the material of the sweater she'd pulled on over her tank.

"Fire truck," he said really quietly after some time.

She moved her mouth and put a kiss against his cheek. "Fire truck!" she agreed a bit more excitedly than he was. "Should we go take a look?"

He nodded more quickly that time – and again meeting Jack's eyes briefly, she carried the little boy around the couch and off into the corner where the tree was, placing him on the ground. His feet had hardly reached the floor before his knees hit the hard wood. It made such a whack! noise that she nearly winced but Benji seemed unfazed – shuttling himself on hands and knees between the final little space between him and the toys. He glanced up at her with bigger eyes – excitement finally starting to glean in them.

"Fire truck!" he declared and gazed at it from just inches away.

She smiled and sat herself on the floor – and gestured for Jack to do the same. "You can touch it, Benji," she encouraged. "It's yours."

He pulled his thoughtful pout but then reached out and rolled it towards him – shooting her another big smile. He rolled it back and forth.

"IT BIG!" he declared and lifted it up – pulling it into his lap and examining it thoughtfully. He pulled the little figure out of it and held it up at her. "FIREMAN!"

"Whoa!" she said and smiled at him, reaching out and smoothing out his messy bed-head faux-hawk and then taking a photo of him and his discovery.

He put the toy back on the ground and got back up on his knees to roll it more towards her and Jack, who'd taken a seat on the far side of her. Olivia reached over and bounced her hand on Jack's knee.

"I think you should go sit on the other side of the tree, sweetheart," she told him. "Check to see if Santa brought anything for you." He gave her a questioning look – but she nodded her head a bit to just the opposite side of them, which was partially obstructed from view with Benji's toys and how'd they'd piled the presents under the tree and into the tight, cluttered space. "Go on," she encouraged.

Jack slid on his ass and then sort of crab-walked the several feet off to the other side – sitting to the other side of them and several feet out of Olivia's reach now. But he spotted his unwrapped gifts nearly immediately. He glanced at her again – his face lighting up and an excitement there she hadn't seen ever.

He rocked forward on his crossed legs and snatched up the videogame. "Oh, no way," he said and immediately started picking at the plastic wrap. She wasn't sure what would be inside besides the game disc to look at – but the teen seemed determined to get the shrink-wrap off as quickly as possible, even bringing it up to his mouth and chewing on the corner and then spitting out some of the plastic.

Benji spun at his uncle's reaction and gazed at him. "Santa bring you toy too, Peedg?"

"Ah yeah …" he said, briefly holding the game out. "Halo 4 … and …" he reached down and picked up the box containing the micro figures and examined it for a moment like he was unsure what it was. But then a smile spread across his face again. "Oh cool … Master Chief with a warthog vehicle."

"Matter Chief?" Benj asked and crawled over to look at it for a moment, taking the box from his uncle and gazing into the packaging. He seemed to lose interest, though. "My fire truck way bigger!" the little boy declared and returned to his toy, rolling it around some more.

Olivia smiled. They both seemed pretty content – and it was then that Benji apparently discovered the button to transform his fire truck. The sirens wailed and the robotic sound went and she heard the hard plastic popping open. She brought her eyes back to the little boy and lifted her phone again to take another shot of his surprised face.

"IT A TRANSFORMER!" he near screamed at her and scrambled around on his knees to take a better look at it, pushing on the button again to send the sirens going. But this time the ladder popped up and the little toy truck came rolling out the back. Benji picked it up and examined it and then his mouth dropped more and he held it out at her, his little hands already working at the simple transformation on that toy. "OPTIMUS PRIME, MOMMY!" he shrieked and then looked at it with the admiration he'd seen him give his stuffies. She wondered if the hard, little plastic toy would be joining him bed that night for sleep-time comfort.

"Wow," Olivia said and watched him some more. He was running the little truck up and down the ramp that had come down in the mission control of the transforming fire truck and exploring all the little flips and ledges and doohickeys in that play area.

"Did you see this too, Benj?" she asked and tapped her hand on the fire station sitting next to her. He'd been so attracted to the fire truck like a magnet, she wasn't sure if he'd entirely missed it.

He reluctantly looked up from what he was doing. He'd figured out that the little firefighter figure could also sit in Optimus Prime or stand on most of the ledges in the mission control and was moving him around trying him out in just about every spot.

She tapped the toy again lightly as he met her eyes and he looked over at it and she saw his eyes get bigger. They shot back to her for a moment.

"Santa bring TWO toys?"

She shrugged. "Well, it looks like Santa brought Jack two toys," she said. The teen was now completely absorbed in looking through the manual for the game and didn't seem to be paying too much attention to either of them. But she was just glad he seemed momentarily happy and excited – that going in-and-out of multiple stores on her usually skipped lunch breaks in search of the friggin' game had apparently paid off.

Benji scooted over and looked at it his mouth gaping a bit as he examined the large playset structure.

"It for me, 'Livia?" he asked and gazed at her a little hesitantly.

"I think so. I don't think it's something Santa would've brought for me or Jack."

Benji looked at her a moment longer but then started grabbing at the little figures sitting on the various scaffolding – another firemen, a little boy and the police officer that Alex had contributed to the Santa delivery efforts. He batted at some of the fire in the windows – sending them down and technically put out – and then he leaned forward and rolled the smaller fire truck out of the main doors. He picked it up an examined it like he had Optimus Prime and then held it up to her with another big smile and did the quick flip transformation again.

"ANOTHER TRANSFORMER!" he yelled, holding it above his head. "FIRE TRUCK TRANSFORMER! LITTLE FIRE TRUCK TRANSFORMER!"

She snorted at him and put her hand to cup his excited cheek. He was glowing.

"But what is it, Benj?" she asked, nodding back at the play set.

He gazed at her and then looked back at the toy considering it for a moment and then back to her.

"FIRE STATION MOMMY!" he declared happily.

"Oh!" she said. "A fire station! And a fire truck! Wow! Santa really heard you when you told him what you wanted."

Benji nodded hard at that and crawled around in front of the station some more.

She tapped up at the dial on the front. "This dial says 'turn me'," she told him.

He glanced at her but then his little hand went up and awkwardly rotated the dial. More sirens went off and then the voice of a robot 'This is Optimus Prime' that declared and the front of the station transformed into the robot's face.

Benji just gaped at it. "Wwwwooow," he said quietly.

She smiled some more and rubbed at his back. "I think I see another trick with this one, Benj," she told him and leaned forward a bit to turn it around so he could see the whole play centre at the rear of the toy.

The little boy's eyes got even bigger. "Fire pole!" he declared and put one of the figures on the little spinner to make it go down.

Olivia nodded and pushed at some of the other buttons on the inside of the station, making more lights and sounds go off for him and showed him the elevator and the various cranks and levers in the play set.

Benji gazed at her with big eyes. "Mommy, Chris-miss sooo cool. It even better than Thank-giving!"

She smiled more at that and rubbed at his shoulders. "Think so?"

He nodded hard and reached to start playing with the new toys more.

"I think so too," she conceded.

Watching the boys' and their wonder – their excitement and their momentarily happiness wasn't anything she'd ever experienced before. But it felt so good. It felt so normal. It felt so nice.


	92. Chapter 92

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Aren't you going to open your stocking?" Jack asked her.

She startled a little and looked at him. There was a questioning to his face – but almost a touch of hurt that she hadn't started digging into her Christmas sock yet to see what was inside.

It wasn't that she wasn't curious. She'd just been so caught up in watching the two boys and experiencing Christmas morning and the magic through them. She'd been smiling a ridiculous amount and even laughing at some of their reactions and faces.

She'd actually become so caught up in it all, that she'd been having to remind herself even to remember to take some of the photos she'd been wanting so badly to get. It was just watching them was so much more interesting. She didn't want to miss a second of it to be trying to frame a picture and snap it – or minutes of it to go through the stocking that Jack had stuffed for her. So as they dug through their stockings, hers had remained on the floor, leaning against her crossed legs, untouched.

"Oh, sorry, sweetheart," she said and glanced down at the sock, picking it up and pulling it more onto her lap. "I was just having fun watching you two."

The boys had discovered the letter from Santa with a bit of prompting – and after Jack taking over the reading of it, they'd determined that there were two more wrapped Santa gifts for them too – making up for the years of missed visits and dismal Christmases they'd experienced over the past several years. Jack had kind of gaped at her after reading that. But Benji had taken some joy in crawling around under the tree and determining, which gifts were To: B and From: S.

She'd wrapped the four presents all in the same paper and they were right at the front – so it wasn't too much of an ordeal. But the little boy had still made it a bit of an event – gazing at each tag before declaring it was To: J or To: B and pulling them out further into the living room to examine. He seemed about as happy to examine a tag with his name on it being From: Santa than he was in having any interest in opening either.

It had actually reached the point, where she'd encouraged Jack to just go ahead and open one of his rather than wait for Benji to get over his fascination with the paper and ribbon and Santa leaving him a present! She could tell the teen was getting a little restless about just gazing at the wrapping paper when he had two boxes sitting in front of him.

She'd thought Jack starting to open his presents might prompt Benji into doing the same with his. But instead he'd become really fascinated with getting to watch his uncle take the paper off his.

Jack had opened the Lego set of the Empire State building first and had again looked at her with big eyes of how she could've possibly figured out that would be something he wanted. Technically, she'd bought it before their Lego store visit. But even if she hadn't, the amount of time they'd spent in there and the amount of time he'd spent over in the Architecture section manhandling the sets would've been clue enough. She didn't say anything, though. She just let him turn it around and around in his hands. She could tell he wanted to open it and start working on putting it together but Benji started to take a bit too much interest in it and his teenaged uncle went a bit on the defensive.

"Santa bring Peedg Lego?" he asked and crawled closer to Jack, trying to get a chance to look at the box.

Jack had held it away from him. "You've got your own presents," he'd told the little boy.

She sighed. "Jack – you can let him look at the box," she instructed him.

Jack seemed reluctant and gave her a brief glare but eventually handed Benji the box to take a look at too.

"I HELP PEEDG!" Benji declared, smiling broadly at the gift.

"No you will not help," Jack told him. "You're too little. It says 10 and up."

Benji looked a little hurt. "I good at blocks, Peedg! I tell Santa you like blocks and Santa bring you blocks!"

He took the set back from his little nephew. "I don't need your help, 'Jamin. AND I'm NOT opening it right now anyways." And with the way he said it, Olivia definitely got the impression that now he wouldn't be opening it until Benji was either in bed or he'd gone home.

Benji looked like he was about ready to cry at the Lego being snatched away from him. "But I play too Peedg!" he whined.

"You've got your own presents," Jack had stressed again. "Open them. Maybe you got Lego too."

Benji looked at her, blinking his eyes quickly like he was preparing for tears. She held open her arms and he crawled into them.

"Shh, Little Fox," she said, rubbing at his back. "You're still awfully little for Lego – and it is Jack's present. I'm sure Santa brought you something nice too."

"I WANNA HELP, MOMMY!" he whined.

She rubbed at his back some more. "I'm sure Uncle Jack will let you help with a couple pieces after he decides to open it," she assured the little boy and gave Jack a stern look. "Mommy Fox doesn't want you two fighting on Christmas."

Jack sighed and examined the floor and looked at the box again and then gazed at little boy. "I'll let you put the antenna thing on it when I'm done, 'Jamin," he said. "It's the last piece."

Olivia gave the teen a small smile at that – and Benji seemed to perk up, leaving her lap to go back over and look at the box again, gripping it in his little hands.

"That piece," Jack said and pointed at the picture on the front.

"We do it now, Peedg?" Benji asked more excitedly.

Olivia shook her head – and interjected on Jack's behalf. "No, sweetheart. We've still got lots of presents to open – and there's toys and wrapping paper all over the floor. Jack doesn't want to lose any pieces. He'll work on it later."

With that kerfuffle out of the way, she'd shifted her focus to convincing Benji to open one of his Santa presents. Not surprisingly, it'd taken a bit of coaxing – but he'd eventually worked at getting the paper off the smaller package.

His face lit up as he held it up to her after he did get it opened. "TRANSFORMER!" he declared – yet again. Apparently the Transformer theme she'd imposed on the Santa gifts was a hit. She wasn't surprised. Benji's life pretty much revolved around Transofmers, skateboarding and dragons at the moment. Anything from those genres would be a winner.

She smiled and nodded. "Wow. What kind of transformer?"

Benji had already started ripping at the packaging. "Police car transformer!" he shrieked, as his little hands pulled at the cardboard.

She reached to take it away from him, which prompted some more hostile shrieking and grabbing. "Benjamin," she'd said sternly. "Mommy is going to open it for you before you hurt yourself."

She wasn't entirely sure how she'd shifted into calling herself Mommy – talking about herself in the third-person and allowing her to use that title for her own person – but it had just happened. And, it had seemed to happen so naturally – and she liked it. She wanted it. Badly. Jack hadn't said anything – and she hadn't noticed any disgruntled faces from him about it – so she wasn't trying to reel herself in. She really didn't want to have to. She so wanted to just really be Mommy.

Benji considered her a moment but then let her take the toy and sat bouncing on his knees extremely impatiently as she worked at it. The packaging as definitely designed so shoplifters couldn't steal the Transformer out of the plastic in the store.

She sighed and looked at Jack. "Can you get the scissors out of the desk drawer for me?"

He nodded and headed off to get them. In his brief absence, Benji decided to grab at the package more. She let him take it back and rip at it again himself. He actually seemed to be making more progress than her. But he was slightly more motivated to get into it. She retrieved it from him again after Jack handed her the scissors and she managed to get the toy out of the wrapper for him and gave it to Benji's grabby hands.

"Police car transformer!" he declared again looking at it.

"His name is Barricade," she told him and pointed to the lettering on the now near shredded packaging.

"Bear-cade," Benji shouted and started working at twisting and turning the cruiser out of its form. He quickly got frustrated and handed it back to her. "ROBOT, MOMMY!" he demanded.

She sighed at that. It hadn't even been out of the box a minute and she'd already been tasked with trying to figure out how to transform the thing.

Jack grabbed at the discarded packaging as she tried to figure out the movements – Benji gripping at her arm and wrist and bouncing even more impatiently on his knees as she worked.

"There should be instructions," Jack muttered and worked at ripping apart the packaging even more until it pulled a little folded piece of paper out of the bottom somewhere. He shook it out and handed it out to her. "Here."

She glanced at it and gaped for a moment. It was a rather long list of steps. "That's all for this?"

"Well, it's in Spanish too," Jack said. "Some other languages."

She rolled her eyes and shook her head and just kept working at it without bothering to look. She knew from having looked up other directions for Benji's Transformers online that they were only so helpful. It didn't matter what language they were written it – it might as well have been in another language. She was getting there anyway.

"I think that's the arm," Jack said and pointed, "if you flip it."

She nodded. She thought they should sell Transformers as an alternative to a Rubik's cube puzzle – especially if your child was under eight. But she eventually got it and handed it back to Benji.

He examined it and held it out to show her – like she hadn't seen it yet. "Bear-cade," he told her.

She nodded. "I know, sweetheart."

"He a police car," he informed her and worked at adjusting the thing's arm and legs. "So he a good guy. He can live in fire station."

He crawled back over to his play set and worked at wedging the thing in the elevator and cranking it to the top. It was a bit of a tight fit – but he got it to work. Benji then picked up the little policeman figure and set him next to the toy.

"They par-ten-ers. Like Nick and Mommy Fox," he told her.

She snorted at him. "Are they?"

He nodded vigourously and then looked around. "Where Copper, Mommy?"

"Mmm, I think Copper is in the milk crate, sweetheart. But let's just leave the other toys away for right now, please, and play with our new toys. We don't want too many things out at once."

He squinted his eyes at her but went back to fiddling around with his play sets and creating chatter between the characters. He seemed pretty transfixed with the new toys.

"You going to open your other one, 'Jamin?" Jack had eventually asked. He never seemed quite as fascinated with Benji's make-believe play as Olivia did.

His nephew hardly looked at him at his question, though. He was pretty interested just in what he had in front of him at the moment.

"Go ahead and open yours, Jack," she nodded at him.

He examined her for a moment and then looked down at the other box in front of him. "It's OK?" he asked, like he thought there was some sort of rules to the present opening that had to be followed.

She shrugged. "Yeah. It's your present. Go ahead."

He looked a little hesitant but then picked up the box and started ripping the paper off. Jack didn't go at the packages with anywhere near the cautiousness Benji was showing. After he got an edge up on the paper, he just ripped right through – getting the wrapping off in about two-seconds flat.

"Holy shit," Jack said as the shoebox fell out of the wrapping.

"Jack, com'on, language," she reminded him in his excitement.

But he didn't even look at her with the comment and flipped the lid open and gazed at the skate shoes.

"Oh my God," he mumbled and took one out of the box and looked at it with almost the same admiration Benji had been giving Optimus Prime when it had rolled out of the transforming fire truck. He finally glanced over at her and gaped. "But … you bought me shoes last night," he sputtered.

She shrugged. "We bought you dress shoes and boots last night. These are sneakers. And, I'm pretty sure Santa's workshop would've made these before last night."

He just kept gaping at her and then looked back at the shoes. "Do you know how long I've wanted these?"

She shrugged again. "I think I have a bit of an idea," she allowed. Gecko had made it rather clear they were a coveted item of the teen that he looked at and looked at in the store, but never bought, even though his boss had offered to let him put them on layaway or to pay in installments.

Jack shook his head at the shoes and just kept looking down at the box in his lap like he was in some sort of shock.

"One of Santa's elves may have told me they have double-stitching in the ollie zone, which I assume means you won't be walking around with an ollie hole anymore?" she asked.

He glanced at her and gave a small nod. "Ah, yeah, it means it will take way longer to get one."

He went back to looking at them and running his fingers a bit along the suede. "Olivia …" he said quietly and shook his head "…thanks."

"Thank Santa," she told him flatly.

He glanced at her and snorted – but she thought she could see his eyes glassing a bit. He shook his head again. "Just thanks," he said quietly.

She allowed him a thin smile. "Merry Christmas, Jack," she offered but he was keeping his eyes away from her – focused on the shoes.

Olivia looked back to Benji instead – giving the teen a few minutes to pull it together.

She knew Jack likely hadn't received any gifts from anyone since his father had died. And, he also wasn't used anymore to anyone putting any thought into things he might like or need since Jay's passing. He'd become used to just operating on his own and making do. She'd been doing that for years and years too – most of her life, long before her mother had been gone. You had to when your parent was an alcoholic. She had to take care of both of them.

Jack, though, had been forced to start doing that at 15 – not just for himself, but for Benji and for his sister and Nan. In a way, she knew, he'd likely felt that part of him had been doing it – looking out for himself - for his whole life, ever his mother left when he was barely a toddler. That he hadn't been good enough for her to stay – to want to know, that he somehow didn't deserve certain things in his life because of some other person – an adult person who'd given birth to him – made a decision, that likely had very little to do with him.

It hadn't taken Olivia long to decide that the teen feeling that way for the past three or so years – or the past 17 maybe – was over than enough. He didn't need to feel that way his whole life. She knew what that could do to a person. And, if her taking some time to think about him – to reflect on what he might like that holiday, to spend some time and money on the boy, to wrap a few gifts – was what he needed to believe that she was in this for him, just as much as she was for his little nephew, then it was what she was going to do. It was what she wanted to do. And, she thought, it was what Jack needed. He needed to be reminded that someone cared – that he was worth it, and that he deserved to have people and some nice things in his life.

"You going to open your last Santa present, Benj?" she asked, giving Jack the time.

She ruffled at Benji's hair where he was still puttering around with his play sets. The initial play-value was pleasing her. He seemed completely enamored. She hoped that would continue – and by the next day … and the next week and next month, they'd still be toys that would hold his attention.

He glanced at her. "Present?" he asked.

She nodded. "There's still this one. To: Benji. From: Santa," she told him and tapped on it.

He looked at it and crawled over a bit to re-examine it again. "It a big box, 'Livia," he informed her.

She considered it. "Not that big," she said. "Medium."

It actually was pretty small compared to if she'd decided to try to wrap either of the play sets. After seeing what was involved with putting them together and getting the stickers on them last night, she was glad she'd decided to leave a couple of the boys' presents out of the wrapping paper. Trying to get the play sets ready for Benji to play with on Christmas morning after being opened would've been frustrating based on the impatience he was showing in his restless excitement after seeing each toy.

"Going to open it, sweetheart? Mommy Fox is really curious."

"Santa didn't leave you a present, Mommy," he told her after looking at his last box for a bit.

She smiled. "We talked about that, Benj. Remember? Santa doesn't leave grown-ups presents. Just stockings. He filled Mommy's stocking. We'll look at our stockings in a few minutes. After you open the last present Santa left for you."

Benji considered that and then pushed it towards her. "You wanna open Mommy? Santa didn't bring you present."

She smiled at him more. "Come here," she told him and held open her arms.

He considered her another moment but crawled the rest of the way over to her and got up on his knees to accept her hug. She put a kiss in his hair and rubbed at his back.

"I love you, Benjamin. You make me so happy. You're such a sweet little boy."

"You gonna open?" he cuddled at her neck but just asked the same question again.

She put another kiss on his temple and pulled him into her lap more – reaching out and dragging the package the rest of the way to them.

"It's your present, so I think you should open it. But how about you sit right here and open it? So I can see right away what it is. OK, sweetheart?" she asked and then set the box into his lap. He was actually right – when set on top of him, it did seem a lot bigger than it actually was.

His little fingers started picking at the paper and then slowly worked at ripping it off. He didn't have an immediate reaction – and she could tell he wasn't entirely sure what it was.

"Wow," she whispered into his ear, helping him along. "Do you know what it is, Benj?"

He shook his head at that. So she pointed to a word on the box.

"This says Play-Doh," she informed him.

He grabbed at box more at that and looked up at her with big eyes.

"PLAY-DOH?" he near demanded.

She nodded and then moved her hand to another word. "And this says Transformers. It's more Transformers, Benj. Transformer Play-Doh."

His jaw dropped at that. "Transformer Play-Doh …" he muttered and gazed at the box in about the same shock as Jack had with the shoes.

She knew that Benji's caretakers couldn't keep him away from the Play-Doh and modeling clay during free-play at the daycare and nursery school centre. Even when she went to pick him up on the extended after-hours, he was often off in the art corner pounding the substances together. He didn't make anything much more interesting than snakes. He sometimes brought a blob over to show her and claimed it was something else but it never looked like much of anything to her.

She thought he was just pretty fascinated with the feel of the dough in his hands and the fact he could manipulate it. She actually thought that was why he liked most crafts – especially finger painting. It was a tactile thing – just like him constantly touching at her face.

She pointed at the box more. "Look," she encouraged. "You can make cars and trucks and airplanes – and then there's this big stamp and you turn them into their robots! This looks like so much fun, Benj. There's tools and FOUR Play-Dohs."

"FOUR PLAY-DOHS?" he screeched and gripped at the box more.

She nodded – and tapped on the box more. "Yellow, blue, black and grey."

"GREY PLAY-DOH?"

"Grey Play-Doh," she agreed.

"TO MAKE CARS?"

"And airplanes and trucks," she said. "See – there's little moulds, so your creations are going to look so good, Benj."

He twisted the box around and shook it a bit. "Open Mommy! Please!" he said and gazed up at her.

She nodded and took it out of his hands and popped open the side and started pulling the items out. It was all in little plastic bags – and it looked like the actual press thing needed some assembly. But that didn't stop Benji from grabbing at each one to examine. As soon as she took the first tin of Play-Doh out of the box, though, he snatched at it like it was a treasure and worked at using his little fingers to get the tightly-sealed lid to pop off and then stuck his index finger into it before starting to pull the blue dough out.

"We play now, Mommy?" he asked as he got a little wad out and started rolling it together in his hands.

She smiled and put another kiss against his head. "Actually, Benj, sweetheart, it looks like Mommy is going to need to put together some of this toy for you. And, it's really a toy we should play with at the table – not the floor, OK? So I think we should finish opening presents and then we'll play Play-Doh."

He looked at her from his already in-the-works snake. "But this last Santa present, Mommy."

She nodded. "It is," she agreed and gestured to the tree. "But you still have presents to open from Mommy and from Uncle Jack. And we still have to open our stockings."

"There more presents?" he asked and looked at the tree.

She bounced him in her lap a bit. "Sweetheart – you've been looking at those presents all week. There's lots more presents. So we'll open some more presents – and then I'll put together this for you and we'll play Play-Doh. OK, sweetheart?"

He held up his snake to show her.

She nodded. "That's a great snake, Benj.

"It be robot?"

She picked up the one piece of the press she was going to have to put together and examined it.

"Yeah, Benj, I think we'll be able to make your snakes into robots too."

"Transformer snakes?"

She snorted. "Absolutely." But she gently took it from his hand and he didn't protest too much beyond a small sound. "But let's not get this all over the floor right now, OK? Play-Doh is going to be a table toy – not the living room floor."

"Mommy," he whined a little.

She shook her head and put another kiss on his temple. "Listen to Mommy Fox," she said and worked at putting the dough back into the container. "We'll go and play at the table in a bit. Let's look at stockings."

She gave him a small nudge and pointed at where the stocking was sitting under the tree a few feet away. Benji had to consider that a moment but then got off her lap to take a look.

"It full, 'Livia," he informed her.

She nodded. "Santa fills up stockings when you leave them out."

"Becuz you hang 'em by da chim-eee with care," Benji said.

She nodded. "Well, we hung them on our chairs with care. But he still filled them, didn't he?"

Benji nodded hard at that and examined hers. "Yours full too, 'Livia."

"Wow," she agreed. "Looks pretty exciting. Are you going to take a look in yours and see what's in there?"

He scrunched his mouth and gazed at what he could see at the top. She'd purposely tried to put some of the more 'boring' things to a four-year-old at the top to not ruin any surprises. In doing the boys' stockings, she'd discovered that with them having picked ones that were a bit on the larger size – at least compared to what she remembered from her childhood, though not necessarily compared to some of the other massive options that had been in the aisle – that her mother had had some logic in putting 'boring' items in her sock growing-up. Olivia thought the difference was that she'd decided to grab some toothbrushes and toothpaste, some socks, some highlighters and a pack of pens for Jack as literal stocking stuffers. They were things to take up space. They were items that she'd likely would've had to buy for them at some point anyway. But they weren't all that was in the stocking.

Her mother had seemed to fill the whole thing with items that she would've ended up buying for a child living at home anyway – socks, underwear, shampoo, toothpaste. It took some of the fun out of it, if that was all that was there. She understood the value in that a bit more now – but she hadn't been about to pack the socks full of items that as a caretaker … a mother … she'd be buying anyways. That was ridiculous, she'd decided. That's not a present – that's an obligation as a parent.

"It toys?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know, Benj. It could be all sorts of things. You'll have to start opening it to find out. Here, bring me mine. I want to look in it too."

He very nearly dragged hers over but left it leaning against her legs before shuttling his knees across the floor and back to his.

"You ready to take a look at your stocking, Jack?" she asked, working at drawing him back into the morning.

She'd seen him watching a bit as her and Benji looked at the Play-Doh kit. But she could tell he was also a little lost in thought. She didn't want him to get too lost in thought. She knew that would be bad for him today. He needed to stay in the moment as much as he could and just try to enjoy the day.

He gave her a small nod. "Yeah," he said quietly.

She smiled. "OK, have at it guys," she said. "Go on, Benj."

She'd settled into just watching them again – and had ended up ignoring her own stocking. It had been kind of amusing to watch the boys. Benji was fascinated with just about everything he pulled out of the stocking – like it was a loot bag. He'd examined each item and hold it up to her and declaring what it was – while also trying to rip open every little toy that was still in the packaging.

"Dinos!" he said of the little bag of plastic dinosaurs from the 99-cent store – and then immediately started ripping to get it open.

Olivia probably should've stopped him. They were little and even with the boys having just opened a total four presents at that point, paper was starting to accumulate on the floor – becoming a pile for things to get lost in. Or maybe more concerning, for her to accidentally throw hidden little toys out with when she did get around to tidying up the mess. But she decided to just let him go at it – and not nag at him for each and every toy he opened. That'd get annoying for both of them.

"Mater!" he screamed when he eventually reached the Cars die-cast. Though it wasn't anywhere near as loud as when he got to, "Light-ting Mah-Keen!"

He'd held the little die-casts out at her and then sat examining them in his little hands for a long time. Eventually he'd taken them over to his new play sets and added them to the rest of the toys there. It definitely looked like it wasn't just Transformers that were going to get to play on the fire truck and in the fire station. But that was likely a good sign that they were a winner.

The roll of stickers and the little kids watercolour set caused nearly as much excitement as the Cars. Some of the stickers got peeled off and applied to her cheek and his own near instantly, like some sort of colourful freckles – or maybe pimples. Benji, however, declared they were 'just like real tattoos, 'Livia!' Jack, though, declined to participate in the 'tattoo' application, rather vocally dodging Benji's efforts. Eventually, after some coaxing, he allowed the kid to put one on his hand. Olivia thought it was a bit of a waste of the stickers. But there were about 500 on the long – and seemingly never-ending strip (Benji had rolled a significant amount of it out in his efforts to determine how many 'bajilllin!' stickers he had. She'd stepped in and put a kibosh on that and taken it away from him to start rolling back up before she was instead having to deal with a twisted and knotted mess for the rest of the duration of the stickers' life.).

The watercolour set had prompted near the same reaction as the Play-Doh after he'd realized what it was. He thought it was finger paints at first – which was actually something she'd considered, but had decided she didn't want to be dealing with that disaster at home no matter how much Benji loved it. Besides, she'd found the little watercolour set at the 99-cent store too. It likely didn't say much for its quality. But she was sure it would do for a little boy's first paint set – and if he ended up liking it and the set ended up being a little more crappy than anticipated, she'd upgrade him to something else at some point in the future.

"It's not finger paints, sweetheart," she'd told him. "It's watercolour. See you get paint brushes – and we'll use some water to dip them in – and then you'll be able to paint lots of pictures."

"For fridge?" Benji asked contemplating the set.

"Of course for the fridge," she agreed. "You know how much I love putting your masterpieces on the fridge."

The fridge was literally covered in them. One thing she kind of loved about the daycare centre was that they did some sort of craft with the kids every day. So every day when she picked up the little boy he came running with some sort of arts-and-crafts project to show her. He took great pride in them – and she just loved seeing the creativity, even though she knew they were getting a lot of help at that age.

She also just really loved getting to put the items on her fridge when they got home. There were so many drawings and paintings already she was having to rotate ones off. If the art projects at daycare weren't enough, she'd made a bit of a habit of setting Benji down with a colouring book or a piece of paper and his crayons when he started getting underfoot when she was trying to do something that didn't involve playing with him. Then there were the regular library circle-time crafts that seemed to be quickly becoming part of their weekend routine. So her fridge was more than a little overflowing with the little boy's efforts.

She wasn't really sure was she was supposed to do with the pictures after she took them off the fridge. She knew that no parent kept every drawing their child ever made. But she just couldn't bring herself to throw any of them out yet – so they were being filed off in a corner for the moment.

She wished she could keep them all on the fridge. There was something about having Benji's artwork on there that made it all more real. She'd caught herself stopping to look at his work more than a few times when all she'd really been doing was moving to grab the water pitcher or the milk from the fridge. But it was just another visual reminder that the little boy was in her home – and what she was working towards – a family.

The art certainly made it look like a family lived there – if the growing disaster zone that was becoming her apartment wasn't indication enough. Her home was definitely starting to look more lived in. She was also definitely starting to give up on keeping things in their place or tidy. Benji was a tornado. Toys, socks, crumbs, spills – were everywhere. But, at least for the moment, with each passing day it was bothering her less because it meant he was there with her. She'd take him over a tidy apartment any day.

"We paint now?" he asked, trying to pop open that set too.

She stilled his hands on that request, though. "Not right now, Little Fox. This is another table toy – not a floor or living room toy. OK? We'll play with Play-Doh and painting after we're done in here."

He puckered his lips at her in his unimpressed squint. But it didn't last too long before he set the paint set down for the moment and turned back to his stocking.

It had been kind of funny that maybe his biggest reaction for items in the stocking came from the tube of Christmas M&M's. He'd about lost his head about that.

She'd had to laugh. She'd met Benji in early October but didn't get to have a Halloween with the little boy. That had been during the period where Jack had told her to get the hell away from them and she'd been trying to honour his wishes. It seemed like so long ago now. But if this was how Benji reacted to candy – hopefully next October would be quite the event.

It was like Benji had never seen candy before. Though, she imagined on Jack's budget actual candy would've been a bit of an indulgence. And, since being with her – it definitely was. She didn't pump him full of sugar on a regular basis.

"How on Earth did Santa know how much you like M&M's?" she'd teased him.

"Because him always watching Mommy!" he informed her and worked on pulling that lid off the candy-cane shaped tube to dumping an overflowing handful into his little hand.

She thought about again taking it away from him – and promising that she'd get something for breakfast ready after they were done stockings. But then she decided not to. She'd put some treats in his stocking – in all of their stockings. The boys were going to expect to get to eat them – and that's really why they were there. It was Christmas. A sugar high – the crazies and the crash - was going to be part of the deal of the day. So instead, she'd just tipped his hand back up before he spilled them all over the floor.

"OK, sweetheart," she'd told him. "I think that's enough for now. You don't want to eat them all at once."

"YES I DO!" he insisted.

She smiled and shook her head. "You aren't going to eat them all at once, sweetheart. Eat what you have there – and then maybe you'll have some more after that. Or maybe there's other treats still in there."

She knew there still was. She'd gotten each of them a chocolate orange. It was something she always ended up picking up for herself around the holidays – and while gathering items for the stockings, she'd remembered that her mother had always put a giant navel orange down in the toe. Another item that had never been that exciting, though she did understand where the tradition came from in putting oranges in stockings at Christmastime. Still, when she'd seen that year's chocolate oranges on display, she'd decided that it would be a little more exciting than a piece of fruit and would still be a way to pass on a small tradition, for what it was worth.

"MORE CANDY?" Benji had declared and started riffling through what was left at the bottom of his stocking – shoving his whole little arm down it in his efforts to reach. She knew he still had a couple more things to pull out.

Benji was funny. But really, in a lot of ways, it had been Jack who'd been more interesting to watch work at his stocking.

"Santa must be a pretty good detective," she'd eventually teased the teen with how much he was looking at her with that 'how did you know' face.

Really he just kept looking at her with those questioning eyes as he worked through the Santa bit of the morning. He clearly hadn't really expected Santa to be much a part of his Christmas. She didn't blame him. He was a little old for it. But she had to balance that against having a little boy in the home too – and just ensuring they all had a nice day. Jack needed some surprises and treats too.

He shot her another one of those looks as he pulled out some of the school supplies that his professor had told her would be useful to him: a drafting pencil kit, some charcoal drawing pencils, some sort of soft-covered sketching notebook.

Olivia had had leave work a little early one day and before going to pick up Benji, traveled uptown to some drafting supply store to find it. She really didn't know what she was looking at in the store and had just handed the list of items to a clerk who'd taken her around to show her some of the options. And, after she'd told him the teen was in architecture at City, he'd been happy to point out other items she might want to consider. She hadn't bought any of them – but it had been a little eye-opening in how much the supplies for some of Jack's courses were costing.

The teen may be on scholarship for his tuition – assuming he managed to pull through exams with decent marks to end out the semester – but that money wouldn't be covering this stuff. She didn't know what Jack would've needed in his previous semester at school. But she did know that with paying for an apartment and caring for Benji, there would've been no way his part-time job at Funky's would've been paying for it. That meant, she suspected, that he'd either tried to make do without – or he had credit card bills run-up even more than she might've suspected. It was something she was going to have to try to get him to disclose and for them to deal with.

Depending on how much debt he had on his credit cards, she wasn't sure how much she wanted him to just sit on it with growing interest while he slowly paid it off. She imagined her repayment agreement would likely be much more reasonable than a credit card company's – if he was willing to let her help. But that would be another story. She suspected Jack would much rather be in significant debt than be in debt to her.

Then there was the skateboard stuff – more things she didn't know much about, but that she was slowly learning. He must've known at that point that she'd clearly spoken with Gecko and he'd provided input. But Jack still kept looking at her like it was shocking she'd been able to pick the items. It really hadn't been that complicated. She'd asked Gecko if there were a few cheaper items that would make good stocking stuffers and he'd wandered her back of the store and the little workshop area that she always seemed to find Jack in. He'd pulled out board wax and bearing lube.

"Always good to have handy," he'd said.

They didn't look like very exciting Christmas presents to her. But if they were something Jack would use – the price had been right – so she'd added it to her purchase. Gecko had been rather happy that she finally wasn't just loitering in his store and was now a paying customer.

"Jack goes through headphones like normal people go through a bag of bread," Gecko had commented at her while he was working out the discount at the front cash. "Wouldn't want to get him an expensive pair – he destroys them too quick – but cheap ones might make a good stocking stuffer."

She'd just nodded at the time – but had decided that was a pretty good idea and had thrown a pair of cheapies in the stocking for Jack as well. It was another item he'd looked at her questioningly as he pulled them out.

"These are good ones," he said quietly and looked at her.

She shrugged. They really weren't. She'd only paid about $5 for them.

"The brand," he'd said again and looked at her. "The sound is really good."

She nodded. "Well, that's good then."

He gave her a small nod and a little smile – almost like he was a little embarrassed. But he'd gone back to pulling items out of the sock. The next questioning look came as he found the bottle of hot sauce. He held it out a bit at her as he got to it.

She just shrugged again. "Santa must hear you complaining every weekend that my cooking isn't spicy enough."

He snorted at that and looked at the bottle some more. "It's my Dad's kind," he said quietly after a while.

She gave him another small nod but didn't comment. She didn't know what hot sauce the kid would like – if any. Though, with his comments about the lack of spiciness and heat in her food – and knowing that Jay had poured the stuff onto his meals – she'd figured it was a safe bet that Jack used the stuff growing up. She'd also figured it was a safe bet that he would like – or at least be used to – what Jay had favoured.

It had taken a while and a lot of staring at the bottles to figure out which one it was that Jay had used. If it hadn't been hard enough to try to pull a 20-year-old random – and now rather vague – memory out of her head, the packaging of the product had obviously changed over the past two decades. She'd ended up just taking a bit of a shot in the dark. But apparently her memory and deduction skills had served her well and she'd got it right.

With Jack, though, the item that he spent the most time looking at had surprised her a little. With his mental and emotional state that day, though, it really shouldn't have come as that much of a surprise. Actually, if she'd thought about it a little bit more, she might've even foregone the item – just to avoid him becoming too melancholy.

He was fingering at the little painted clay ornament of a rather modernized Santa face, complete with a long beard and flowing, curly hat. She'd gotten one for Benji too – but it had barely registered with him as an item to spend much time looking at. He was four, though. That was to be expected. She'd had each of their names painted along the rim of Santa's cap on their respective ornaments along with the year. Jack finally looked up at her eventually.

"Nan used to do this for us," he told her quietly.

She gave him another small nod. "I know," she said.

And, she had known – it was why she'd done it. She thought it might be nice for them. It was one thing that, for whatever reason, had really stuck out when Jay had talked about his Christmases at home. He'd told her that every year he and his brother got an ornament – with their names and the year – placed in their stocking. That with them getting older by then – their mother was still doing it and that their family's tree was almost entirely covered in the ornaments that they'd received right from their first Christmases.

Even back then Olivia had thought it was a nice idea – and just so different from anything she'd experienced in her house with her mother. Now, she still thought it was a nice idea. In reality, it was something that had stuck with her enough, she thought that if she'd had her own family – her own children – before, it likely would've been something she'd done for them. She thought the boys might still like it now.

"She did it until Dad was 25," Jack told her, looking at it some more. "Until Izzy and me were both born. Then she just started doing it for us. In high school when we started complaining that it was a stupid tradition and we didn't want to put up all the ornaments on the tree. He said we'd feel different eventually. He still had all of his ornaments – and put them all up."

She smiled at him a bit more about that. "I think it's a pretty neat tradition. It sounds like your tree was really nice – lots of memories hanging on it."

"Yeah," Jack said, his voice cracking a bit. So she slid over and rubbed his back.

"I'm sorry, Jack. I wasn't thinking about all the other aspects of it at the time. I just remembered your dad talking about it and how much I liked the idea. I didn't mean to upset you," she told him quietly, watching Benji carefully. But the little boy wasn't listening – or at least didn't seem to be registering their discussion.

He shook his head. "I'm not upset."

She rubbed his back some more. "OK, sweetheart."

He'd eventually gotten up on his knees and leaned towards the tree, hooking the ornament over branch about midway up. He looked at it for a few seconds and then sat back on his heels and glanced at her. She gave him a small smile.

"You owe me six more now," he said quietly after a while, still looking at the tree and not her.

That had actually hit her a bit harder than she would've ever anticipated. She felt a lump in her throat and swallowed it a bit – giving him another firm rub on the back.

"I'd love to make sure you get six more for your tree, Jack," she told him.

"This tree," he said even more quietly – still keeping his eyes away from her.

She nodded again – and shook her head a bit. She didn't expect it to be Jack that would get her eyes watering that day. "I'd love that even more," she said almost as quietly as he was talking to her.


	93. Chapter 93

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia was just taking a momentary time out at that point – finishing off her now lukewarm coffee and working at eating some breakfast.

She'd had Jack help her turn the couch around to face the back wall and the tree – so that they'd actually have a place to sit for the rest of the morning that wasn't the floor. She really didn't know how Benji crawled around on the hardwood floor all day on the weekends and in the evenings. She found it so cold to be sitting on. Not to mention, hard – and all that sitting cross-legged had left her feet feeling a little asleep and tingly when she did get up to get something for the boys to eat. Though, she suspected when they did get back to present opening – she'd end up on the ground again even with the couch option. She'd want to be closer to the boys – not looking at their backs for the sake of some more comfortable cushioning.

Jack had taken to eating some of the breakfast she'd put out too but Benji was still far more interested in his new toys than he was eating. He was crawling over to the table intermittently to take a bite out of his bagel but then was shuttling right back over to the play sets and Transformers and Cars and dinosaurs.

Jack hadn't said anything about the breakfast not being what he'd grown up with. She'd tried. But the reality was that she didn't even want to attempt to bake cinnamon rolls. The week was just so busy and she knew even before starting – just by looking at some recipes online – that it was going to be a disaster for her. And she'd decided that really no matter what she did – it wasn't going to be a Christmas Jack had grown up with. This might be able to evolve into what Benji would define as Christmases from his childhood. But it never would be that for Jack. She wasn't going to try to match or outdo his father or grandmother. It just wouldn't work.

So she'd got some of his requests to have on-hand. But she wanted Christmas morning to be simple. Really – she wanted all of Christmas Day to be simple. She wanted it to be about spending time with the boys. She didn't want it to be defined by what they were eating or when. So she'd got into a bakery to pick up some of Jack's requested sausage rolls but had ended up coming out of there with some fresh bagels and a couple kinds of cream cheese. She'd put it all out on the coffee table with the jam and yogurt from the fridge and some fresh fruit - not the requested fruit salad, which she had meant to get around to making but time had just slipped away. It might've been laid out a bit nicer – and been from the bakery rather than the grocery store or bodega – but it wasn't that different from what at least her and Benji were eating for breakfast most days. But neither of the boys had made any sort of comment about it not being special enough, fancy enough or Christmas-y enough and both had helped themselves. So that was it. Little fuss – and that's what she wanted.

"You want to open one of your presents?" Jack had asked her from where he was sitting on the floor working on chewing through half a bagel that he'd put a rather whooping amount of cream cheese and sliced strawberries on top of.

She gave him a small smile and leaned forward to put her plate onto the table, readying herself to actually get to open something. "Sure," she agreed.

Jack had actually surprised where with the amount of thought he'd put into her stocking. When he wanted to – Jack could be full of surprises and a rather thoughtful young man. Sometimes it left her feeling like she sold him a little short. Sometimes his teenaged antics really masked the man he was trying to settle into becoming.

Some of the items had been a little funny because he really had no idea what he should be buying a woman in her 40s – even though he'd been trying. Others were funny because he was clearly trying to be funny.

There was the tin of mints, which had POISON written across the top and scribbled-out with scrawled writing that said "Mints for a friend" instead. He seemed to think they were pretty funny. He'd had trouble containing himself even as she pulled them out of the stocking and examining them before looking at him and shaking her head.

Then there were the novelty sticky notes, that she actually thought would come in amusingly handy at work at times – and probably end up being directed right back at Jack too. Though she wasn't quite sure he'd thought of that yet. One simply had "SERIOUSLY?" across the top of the sticky while the other indicated it was a "NAG NOTE" and had various boxes to tick off including email me, call me, shut up, remember, pick up, do it now and thank you after the message had been written down. It seemed like just the kind of thing that Jack needed sent to him – not to mention John and Fin on certain days.

He'd also managed to shove a copy of Olivia in there, which he also seemed to think was amusing. Benji was rather excited by that inclusion – but the little boy was excited by books in general.

"I told you," Benji had declared as she'd been paging through the children's book. "I a dog! You a pig!"

She rolled her eyes a bit at the comment – but she could see Jack's eyes laughing at it. It was likely just the comment he'd been going for.

"Apparently you're right, Benj," she'd agreed.

"She lives in New York too," Jack had added for her.

"Ooooh," Olivia had said a little sarcastically. "Even better."

But his amusement had turned to some awkwardness as she dug out a hard ball of aroma.

"It's a bath bomb or something," Jack had told her almost immediately as she got it out, in case she didn't know. He seemed a little embarrassed about that selection. "The lady …"

"The elf," she corrected for him and he looked at her confused but then realized what she was saying and glanced at his nephew.

"Ah … yeah … the elf at the … workshop … said you'd like it probably," he offered.

She gave him a small smile and held it up closer to her nose to take in the scent. It did smell nice. It wouldn't have been something she'd likely go out and buy for herself. But it would be a nice treat if she ever got the chance, and the privacy, to take a bath again now that Benji was in her life. Maybe after they got into the new apartment and she got her own bathroom.

"I do like it," she told him. "It smells nice."

"It's supposed to be like a relaxing one for night time not like a wake-up morning one or something," he further clarified.

She just smiled at him again. She really couldn't imagine Jack in any sort of soap, bath or beauty shop trying to pick out something. Or what he would've told the clerk helping him – who likely would've assumed he was buying for a girlfriend or maybe his mother. He was probably more bashful and blushing than he was at the moment.

He'd obviously ventured into a couple health and beauty type shops, though. She'd noticed after the previous weekend that some of her toiletries in the bathroom had looked like they'd been moved around. But she hadn't thought much of it at the time. She was having to get used to her things being touched and reminding herself to not be annoyed by it. Benji was a little boy and touched everything – and when Jack was there, he just moved things to get them out of his way or knocked things around in his fumbling. Neither of them meant anything by it – they weren't purposely trying to invade her space or privacy. If she didn't want something touched – she was learning to either put it up and out of Benji's reach or to move it to the bedroom and put it in a place that neither of the boys was likely to go into.

But as she went through the stocking, it was clear that Jack had been picking things up and examining the labels and actually taking note of what it was that she had in the bathroom. He'd put a small bottle of her one shampoo in the stocking – and it wasn't exactly cheap. He'd also found one of her favourite lotions that she had out around the apartment regularly and a lip balm that she must've either had in the bathroom or out on the kitchen island before transferring it to her purse.

They were basic things. They weren't too sophisticated or exciting. They really were just toiletries when you got down to it. They were probably the kinds of things that she would've chastised her mother in her head for getting. But it was different coming from Jack.

It felt a little strange to know that a young man had been looking at her things and thinking about her. That anyone had stopped to think about her enough or look at some of the things she used and liked to deduce they'd be reasonable stocking stuffers. And, they really were. The thought Jack had clearly put into it and the fact that he'd likely put himself in some situations - that he felt a little awkward or uncomfortable about - to make the purchases made them have that much more meaning – and made her appreciate his efforts and the gifts that much more.

He'd surprised her even more with some of the little thoughtful and quirky knick-knacks and treats he'd rounded the stocking off with. There'd been a crossword puzzle book, a nylon reusable shopping bag that stuffed into a little packet so it didn't take up heaps of space in her already overflowing purse, a couple bottles of cheap-end hand sanitizer that would still do the job with all the crap that Benji was touching while they were out-and-about, a ball ornament containing some loose leaf tea that smelled really appealing and some gloves.

"They're touch-screen gloves," he told her as she examined them. "So you don't have to take your gloves off when you're using your phone."

She looked up at him at that. "Really?"

She'd looked at options like them before but nothing like the ones he'd picked. They were a really simple make – almost more of a liner than a glove. She'd likely be able to fit them under some of her leather gloves if she wanted to. They actually were a lot better design than what she'd considered in previous winters. A lot of touch-screen gloves didn't have the appearance of anything she'd really want to be wearing out in public - too bulky and masculine. But not these.

"Yeah," he nodded. "Look at the thumb and index finger pads."

She nodded and turned them over. "I've been meaning to get a pair of these for a couple years now. Do they work?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. I don't have a smartphone."

She snorted at that. But she appreciated the thought – and she'd definitely be trying them to see if they did work. If the white Christmas they were having was any indication of what kind of winter it was going to be, she liked the idea of not having to pull her gloves off all the time while out on the job and trying to use her phone.

"'Jamin, get your present for Olivia," Jack instructed his little nephew. But he left his spot and moved back over to the tree as well and started rooting around among the presents. He and Benji both brought packages over to her.

She looked at Jack. "You want me to open them both now?"

She wasn't sure how she felt about that. They'd taken a break after the Santa aspect of the morning to have their breakfast and the boys hadn't opened any of the presents from her yet. She wasn't sure if she should be the one starting off the gift opening – or if she wanted to open her couple gifts from the kids right away.

Jack shrugged, though. "Well, these two. You can open your last one later. At the end."

She looked down at the packages the boys were holding out at her and realized the one that she'd been told was fragile, and she wasn't allowed to shake, wasn't being presented to her yet.

"Open mine first, 'Livia!" Benji pleaded and shoved it into her lap and then bounced on his knees excitedly in front of her.

"You sure you want me to open this now, Benj?" she asked. "You don't want to open one of your presents?"

"OPEN MOMMY!" he demanded and put his hands up on her one knee.

She gave him a small smile and started working at getting the paper off. From the weight and feel of it she already knew it was a book – likely a children's book. She'd been right and smiled down at Grand Treasury of Robert Munsch's works that she had in her lap. She wasn't familiar with the author but she knew that anything that added to story-time in their household would be a winner with Benji.

"Wow," she said and stroked the little boy's head. "Thank you, sweetheart."

"You wanna read now, Mommy?" he asked with excited eyes.

She snorted and smiled, opening the cover to start taking a look at the collection. "It's a pretty big book, Benj. I don't think we could read it all right now. I think we're going to have to read through it at story-time one at a time."

Jack seemed to take that as a cue to move over to the couch and sit next to her for a moment.

"Do you know him?" he asked of the author.

She glanced at him from where she was looking at the table of contents and the list of titles included in the collection. She gave a small shake of her head. "No, I'm not familiar with him. Looks like he's after my time."

Jack snorted a little laugh at that. "Ah … Dad read us a lot of his books growing up," he offered and she looked at him a bit more at that. "The guy's American but I guess he's like a Canadian author or something now. Maybe that's how Dad knew about him … Mom."

She gave a small nod. She didn't want him to spiral into a tailspin about his mother again.

"Ah … his kids are adopted so like a lot of his stories are kind of about adoption and alternative families," Jack told her. "And, he uses like a different kid as the main character in each one – so you can like read about … you."

She watched him at his comment about adoption and alternative families. She thought about the messaging behind that. That the teen had thought about it – and not just thought about it, he'd gone out and got a collection of stories that spoke to it and given it to her to read to his nephew. She felt the start of some glassiness coming to her own eyes again and willed herself to hold it back. She didn't want any tears from any of them during Christmas morning – and she wanted to be setting the example. They could be a happy family … or unit of people … or whatever … they didn't need to be emotional messes or fighting with each other. They could just enjoy each other's company.

Jack moved a bit closer to her again and leaned over to point at some of the titles in the table of contents.

"That one he's like famous for," he said of one. "And that one's at a fire station – and … you know … Benji."

She snorted and smiled at that.

"That one is about a kid who always says he doesn't have to take a piss and then does right after in super inconvenient situations. And … you know … Benji."

She laughed at that.

"Ah … that's one of the ones about adoption," he said as his finger landed on David's Father. "And that one too," he said of Murmel Murmel. "I think you might like that one."

She nodded and gave him another small smile. The gift wasn't about the book. It was about him getting a chance to share a small bit of his childhood and something his father had done for him with her – something she didn't know about Jay and now a piece of him for her to get to know long after she'd even known him. It was also about responsibility. Jack was handing her something from his family – his memories, his childhood – and asking her to share it with his nephew and to keep it going. But he was also giving her the gift of time. In some ways the gift itself was more for Benji. It was her, though, that was going to get the gift of sharing it with the little boy, of watching his reactions to the stories, of seeing which ones he latched on to, and of getting to spend the time with Benji while they enjoyed all that together.

"This one was my favourite when I was a kid," he said and tapped on Mortimer. "It's pretty great. I mean … we read it so many times, I could probably recite half of it to you right now."

"Tell me a line," she said, teaing him but also testing him. She wanted to know. She wanted to hear something come out of Jack's mouth that his father had shared with him so many times that he could still remember it word-for-word.

"Ah …" Jack thought about it. "OK. Umm. One night Mortimer's mother took him upstairs to bed: thump, thump, thump. When they got upstairs, she opened the door to his room, threw him in the bed and said, 'MORTIMER, BE QUIET!' Mortimer nodded, yes oh yes. So his mother shut the door and went back down the stairs: thump, thump, thump. But when she got down to the bottom of the stairs, Mortimer sang: 'Clang, clang, rattle-bing-bang, gonna make my noise all day. Clang, clang, rattle-bing-bang, Gonna make my noise all day.'"

She smiled at him. "That's it?"

Jack shrugged. "Well, that's like the general gist of it. It just kind of repeats itself from there. Dad did it better anyways. Sang and sh … stuff."

"DO MORE, PEEDG!" Benji demanded, sitting up on his knees, clearly having enjoyed his uncle's rendition of the story so far.

But Jack shook his head. "Nah. She can read it to you later, 'Jamin." He looked a little embarrassed.

But she gave him another smile and nudged him a bit with her shoulder. "I think you did a good job."

He snorted but just looked back to the table of contents again. "Ah … that one the character is named John … so Dad read it to me a lot. You'll like it too. It's this kid who's mom makes him clean up his room but then his room ends up being a subway station so all these people keep coming through and messing it up all the time. So his mom thinks he isn't listening and keeps making him clean up his room and not believing him when he tells her about the subway."

She let out a small laugh at that. "Sounds appropriate for a John born in New York City," she allowed.

He nodded. "Yeah. Dad would always remind me that I was a Brooklyn kid and made for the city when we read it. Umm… this one the character's name is Jason … so we read it a lot too. It has another funny part that Dad would sing. 'Ten, twenty, thirty, forty, fifty below and outside there's ninety inches of snow'," Jack recited.

She smiled some more at that. She liked hearing it coming out of the teens mouth – how comfortable he seemed with the memories though how a little embarrassed he seemed about it.

"And, ah, this one the character is Olivia," he said and gave her a glance. "It's a good one too. We read it a lot too. And, this one the kid is Ben."

She squeezed Jack's shoulder a bit and then reached down and ruffled Benji's hair.

"Come here," she encouraged him and pulled him up onto the couch with her, giving him a small kiss on the temple. "Thank you so much. I can't wait to get to read all these stories with you."

"You like?" he asked, cuddling against her and working at flipping some of the pages and gazing at the pictures.

"I love it, Benjamin," she told him and gave Jack a glance.

She really did. This was a big step for Jack. There was messaging behind it about some things they were going through, that he was thinking about and dealing with but that he clearly didn't want to directly say to her or talk about. But it was almost like with the gift he was giving her some more permissions and opening himself up a bit more. That meant a lot to her.

The teen held out the other gift to her. "This is for you too," he said.

She gave him a small smile. "You sure you guys don't want to open a couple before I do another one?" she asked.

Jack shook his head. "Nah. You should open this one now too."

She allowed him a little nod and took it from his hands. It was one that she hadn't noticed before. He clearly hadn't wrapped it with Benji and she hadn't noticed him put it under the tree. But she also hadn't been crawling around under there with the same fascination and nosiness as Benji.

She could tell as soon as she had it in her hand that it was another book – though not a children's one, she doubted. It felt like a hardcover. Jack clearly thought she had a thing for books – which she supposed she did, and that was likely obvious enough from the bookshelves in the apartment. She wondered, though, what book Jack could've possibly picked out for her. She wasn't sure that their taste in reading material would really jive.

She worked at getting the paper off it and then gave the teen another glance as she did. He was really doing his best to make her emotional. She shook her head and smoothed her hand across the cover.

"Thank you, Jack," she said quietly.

"I tried to find one like the other one," he said and looked down. "I couldn't, though."

She shook her head at him and looked back down at the hardcover copy of Treasure Island. "This is just as good," she told him. "Better."

It was better. Making it even more special was that as she opened the cover to take a look in it, she saw that he'd mirrored the message her mother had left in her previous copy that was now in the teen's possession. "Happy Christmas, 2012," he'd written there. She ran her fingers over the Jack's penned-in scrawl.

She shook her head again and examined the ceiling for a moment – coaching herself not to let the tears to come and tilting her head in an effort to keep them in.

She hadn't added a book to her Christmas collection since her mother had died. She hadn't really thought she ever would. It'd just be something from her childhood – from early adulthood. A small package on display to try to cling to some of the good, happier aspects of her family life – of some of the things her mother at least tried to do right or tried to show she cared in some way. Jack adding to that shelf – replacing something that had been taken from it along ago – maybe he was really more replacing what that collection had come to represent for her. Maybe it could grow into something else now – be a little less sentimental, a little less sad.

She reached her hand over to his head and pulled it a bit closer to her and put a short kiss against his temple. "Thank you," she told him again even more quietly.

He just nodded as she let go of him. "I'm sorry I … can't give the other one back."

She shook her head. "No, sweetheart. The other one is yours. I want you to keep it." She tapped her new book on her knee. "I like this one much, much better."


	94. Chapter 94

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She thought she liked the rate Christmas morning was going for them. They seemed to be taking their time and enjoying the experience – and that was important to her.

Though there were more presents under the tree for the boys than she ever experienced, it wasn't like there was a truckload. They all could've easily rushed things. They could've ripped open the packages in a hurricane of paper and bows, and likely been done with it in a matter of about five minutes or less. But neither of the boys had attacked the gifts like that.

The boys were taking turns. They were watching each other open the gifts. They were looking at what the other got. It wasn't a tizzy of activity of them all operating in their own little zones. It really felt like time they were spending together. That was really one of the bigger gifts that Olivia could've asked for.

After each gift Benji opened, he wanted to play with it or at least examine it. Though most of the gifts from her rather than Santa had been practical – following the five-gift rule suggestion, Jack's presents had injected some levity again. He'd gotten the little boy a sleeved tshirt that showed the steps of putting together a skateboard, which Benji had gone pretty crazy for.

"That what Peedg do!" he'd shrieked and then told his uncle it was also like the steps necessary to put together the Tech Deck he'd given him.

Jack had also gotten the little boy a play set that included some sort of build-it and morph-it vehicle and dinosaurs. Dinosaurs equated a winner and had created a bit of a pause in the activities while Benji got wrapped up in wanting to play with that toy. He'd eventually been coaxed into opening the last gift from Jack, which had been a police dress-up play set that was clearly just from the 99-cent store likely. But the little boy had been thrilled to have his own set of handcuffs and a badge. He'd been sure to handcuff Olivia and Jack together almost immediately. She'd only gotten him to let her go with the promise of getting another present out from under the tree for him to open.

She'd got him the anthology of Winnie-the-Pooh stories – starting him out on the one Christmas tradition her mother had given her, and also working at establishing a bit of a personal library for the little boy. Benji had been thrilled with how heavy the book was, which she thought was funny: weighty words for a growing mind. He'd sat in her lap with the book pulled into his lap for quite a while, paging through and looking at the sketch drawings. They were going to have a lot of new reading material to work through over the coming weeks and months.

She'd also gotten him a full-zip Cars sweatshirt jacket and Velcro shoes. Benji had been thrilled with the shoes. Not only did they have the Cars characters on them – they had painted wheels on the edges of the soles and lit up. They had to go and get a pair of socks from the bedroom so he could immediately try them – running around the apartment to make them light up and making car 'Zroooom' sounds.

"Now we can leave a pair of shoes in your cubby at nursery school – so we don't have to be bringing them back-and-forth all the time," she'd told him when he'd eventually sat back down with them – but was still stomping his feet on the ground trying to get the lights to go off again.

She didn't think he much cared about her logic of getting him the shoes – but she sure did. Not having to remember to truck his shoes back-and-forth, especially with it now officially being snow-on-the-ground winter and boot season was going to be one less thing to worry about.

Jack had seemed much more taken with the jacket she'd gotten the little boy. She actually found it a little funny. She almost thought he might try to take it from the little boy. She thought about teasing him about if he wanted is own Disney jacket.

"It looks like a real racing jacket," he'd commented in his continued examination it.

She smiled and nodded. "Yeah, I thought it was pretty nice too."

"This is pretty cool, 'Jamin," he'd told the little boy.

Jack's interest in it had actually only increased Benji's enamorment with it. If his uncle thought it was cool then it must be super cool. Though, he was looking a little silly half dressed in Cars clothing with his stripped Christmas pajama pants still on as his bottoms.

Jack seemed to glean as much enjoyment from is presents too. He was still ripping the paper off his presents about as fast as possible when one was handed to him. But after he got a gift open, he was taking the time to look at it and being really appreciative about each one. There hadn't been anything he'd just opened, looked at and set aside like it was something he didn't want, wasn't interested in or didn't need. She'd gotten a sincere amount of gratitude from him about each thing. There'd also continued to be a little shock about some of his gifts.

"I need this for my model construction workshop next semester," he said and looked at her questioningly after he got the X-Acto knife set opened up.

She nodded. "I know. You didn't go and get it yet did you?"

He shook his head. "No. I was going to wait until I got in some of my shifts this week. How'd you know about this?"

"There's this thing called the Internet …" she teased but he gave her a look. "Your department's website lists the courses you have to take each term. I clicked on them – then it lists the profs' contact information. I emailed a couple of them and asked if there were some supplies you might need. This was one of the suggestions."

He gaped at her. "You emailed my profs?"

"To ask about supplies that could be Christmas presents. We don't have the same last name. They don't know who I am. I didn't say it was for you. Don't worry. You don't have to cringe with embarrassment," she assured him.

"This is a really nice kit," he said instead, rather than continuing to cringe at her potentially overstepping bounds and pushing a little too far into his life.

She shrugged. "It's the one your prof said will be listed as what they want you to have for the course."

Jack nodded. "Thank you," he said. "I know they aren't that cheap."

She shook her head at him. "You aren't supposed to be thinking about money, Jack. It's something you need – and it's a Christmas present. That's all there is too it."

He nodded again but fell a little quiet. "Thanks," he said softly again and worked at getting it out of its packaging to take a closer look at. He'd spent a fair bit of time looking at the various components and blades in the boxed set. He seemed pretty happy with it and that made Olivia happy too.

She'd also taken another risk in pushing into his life with his 'something to wear' present, having gotten him a mock military-style canvas jacket similar to the army surplus he was wearing. This one, though, was new and not from a surplus store and it was Sherpa-fleece lined. She'd also put a wool-knit hat into the box for him.

He got really quiet after he opened it and didn't say anything right away.

"You look so cold all the time, Jack," she'd offered in the wake of his silence.

He hung his head a bit at that. "I just couldn't afford a jacket," he said quietly.

"I asked you in November if you needed a jacket," she said.

He shrugged. "I had a jacket."

She nodded at that. In the beginning of November there was no way he would've accepted that kind of help from her. He'd define it as charity. They'd made a lot of progress in the two months.

"Well, now you have a jacket that will actually keep you warm," she said. "Try it on. See what you think," she encouraged.

He listened and pulled it on and worked on doing up the buttons. It looked nice on him – nicer than what he currently owned. It didn't have holes in it for one – but she'd also bought him a size that wasn't hanging off his frame.

"What do you think?" she asked. "Think it's something you can see yourself wearing? Do you like it?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I do," he agreed quietly. "Really," he said and pulled the beanie on too.

She smiled and shook her head at him. "OK. If you sit in here like that too long, though, I think you're going to overheat."

He snorted but didn't immediately take the outwear off – leaving it on for quite a while as they continued to work through the presents.

She finally reached over and handed the teen one of the last from under the tree – and the last of his.

"Last one," she said, as he took it from her hands.

He turned the box over in his hands a couple times like he was a little reluctant to open it and for the Christmas morning aspect of the day to be coming to an end. But then he started to work at the paper – going a little more slowly than he had with his other gifts. But in going more slowly he also saw enough of the writing on the packaging inside to realize what it was before all the paper was off.

"Oh my God," he said and looked at her. He put the present down. "I can't accept this."

She shook her head. "Finish opening it, Jack," she said.

"I can't," he said but fingered at it a bit in pushing it away.

"If you don't finish opening it, I will for you – and you're still going to end up walking out of here with it when it's said and done."

He shook his head harder. "It's too much," he said.

"It's a gift for me – just as much," she told him. "It's going to make things easier for me. I want you to have it. Open it. Please."

He kept examining the ground in front of him where the present was for a while but finally let out a deep sigh and picked it up, finishing taking the paper off and then gazing at the smartphone. He rubbed at his face and looked at her.

"This is crazy," he said.

She snorted. "Trust me – it's not."

Jack didn't need to know that her contract had been coming to an end anyway. It opened up the opportunity for her to explore other options. She'd already decided months ago before Benji and Jack were even in her life that she'd be upgrading her iPhone when the latest model came out just as her contract was coming up. It had been easy enough to switch to a family plan – pay for her own phone and collect a free phone for the second line for Jack. Not an iPhone. He'd clearly expressed in his rants about the crappiness about his current cellphone that if and when he finally upgraded it wouldn't be some Apple product.

He also didn't need to know that she got partial subsidy for her phone bills through work because of the amount of work-hour minutes she clocked on the thing. It was a gift that wasn't costing her much of anything at the moment – and that she'd decided wouldn't have a huge impact on her monthly budget with just switching to a family plan instead. She was working at reassessing and readjusting to her monthly expenses anyway. This would just be something else to factor into the process – and within a few months it would be a routine expense and just part of the budget.

"It's not an iPhone," she teased him, in trying to get him to be a bit more excited.

"It's not an iPhone," he agreed.

"It's what you wanted? A Samsung?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah," he said quietly and looked at her and shook his head again. "Olivia …"

She just gave him a thin smile.

"Whadda get, Peedg?" Benji asked taking some interest in the gift.

"Ah … a smartphone," Jack said and showed him the box.

Benji crawled over to take a look. "You play Angry Birds on it?" the little boy asked, gazing at the box.

Jack nodded. "Yeah. You can do lots of things on it."

"We play Angry Birds?"

"Umm. I think I'll probably have to charge the phone and stuff, 'Jamin. Download the app," he said and finally started to work at getting the box open.

"There's a couple catches to the gift, Jack," Olivia said and he glanced at her.

"I put you on my plan," she said.

Jack snorted. "So now you own me for the next two years? Three years?"

She gave him a smile. "Two. And – it means no more excuses. OK? When I call or text or email – you return the messages in a timely manner. That can be one of your gifts to me. This is supposed to make it a bit easier for me to get a hold of you want I need to."

He gave her a small nod. "OK," he said.

"And, since you're on my plan – it means I'm going to be getting the bill for it, and I'm going to be paying for it. It's a family plan. But I don't want you going over the limits or downloading or spending money on ridiculous things. I'll see on the bill what you've been doing and how you've been using the account. Don't be stupid."

He allowed another small nod at that. "Yeah," he said.

"OK. And I need you to be aware that my phone is listed as a work phone and a work contact number for the people I work with – and for my supervisors and bosses. This phone is going to be attached to that now in a way. Because of my job – if something were to happen at work, they can dump my phones. So they could potentially decide to dump that phone too."

Jack squinted at her. "What's that mean?"

"That they'd see who you'd been calling – what you'd been doing on the phone. So I don't want you doing anything stupid on the phone."

"Isn't that … illegal or something? An invasion of privacy?" he asked.

She shrugged. "It's part of the job. And, really, Jack, who are you going to be calling? What are you going to be using the phone for?"

"I don't know. You. Work. Listening to music. Playing some apps. Maps. Facebook. Whatever."

She nodded. "Exactly. So there shouldn't ever be a problem, right? But every time you have the urge to say – text, Tweet, call, message – something angry or something stupid; when you want to Google or YouTube or post something immature or inappropriate - I want you to take a moment and stop to think. Think about not just how it reflects on you but how it might reflect back on me and my job if something were to happen and they looked at the history on my phones. OK?"

He examined her for several seconds like he was hesitant about it. She didn't entirely blame him. It was a challenging concept for anyone who wasn't used to how the police lifestyle operated – the higher standard you were expected to live up to, the law and order that could be imposed on their lives in working for a paramilitary-style organization, the discipline and expectations that were involved in that. It'd be even more challenging for a teen used to living in the connected and social media world – and for a kid who wasn't used to letting anyone in.

But the reality was that if they were going to make things work – if his temporary guardianship got approved – they were going to be a police family. It meant that he was going to have certain standards he was going to have to live up to for the sake of her job and for the sake of the family too. It was likely better he start learning and coming to an understanding about that.

She was putting a significant amount of trust in him to be responsible – both with how he was spending her money and how he was interacting with something that could some day have implications for her job in a worst-case scenario. But she also felt he'd been working towards earning that trust. So she needed to take steps to show him that she did trust him – as a teenager, as a young adult, as someone she could soon have a parental responsibility to, and was a member of the family unit they were working at creating.

"OK," he said. "Does that mean I can't get any apps or ringtones or surf random crap or watch shit on YouTube and stuff?"

She shook her head. "No. Of course you can go online and use the phone like any normal, responsible young person would. And you can download some things for it. I expected you to – and to continue to. After we call and get the phone activated, you'll get a $10 credit on your side of the account to get you started. So you'll be able to pick out some stuff. You're going to have to decide if you want to get your number switched over or if you want a new number."

He looked at her. "I can get a new number?"

She nodded. "If you want to."

"I want a new number," he said immediately without even thinking about it.

She snorted. "OK. Are you avoiding someone?"

"Gwen," he said. "And Greg …"

She watched him for a moment and then nodded. "OK. We'll get you a new number. If you're getting a new number – I think you'll probably be able to do it online or on the automated system today."

He examined the phone in his hand and looked at her again. "Thank you," he told her.

She gave him a smile. "No problem. Just remember the rules – or you might lose it."

He shook his head. "I won't be stupid."

She snorted. "OK. Good."

He put the phone down and crawled under the tree to retrieve the last present there and handed it out to her.

"It's from both of us," he said.

She smiled as she took it. She knew all three of her presents were mostly from Jack, though he'd done his best to make sure Benji was involved.

"It good," Benji told her and moved back over to her, plopping himself a little heavily into the lap of her crossed legs. "It fag-gill."

It didn't feel that fragile now that she actually was getting to hold it. But she was still being careful with how she got the paper off of it because of the repeated messaging about its breakability and that it shouldn't be shaken.

She reached around Benji and lifted the lid off the shirt box that the present had been put in. As she got it off, it was apparent that a couple things were in the box and she started to root around in the tissue paper a bit.

"Take out the smaller one first," Jack told her.

She just nodded and managed to get what felt like the smaller to her out and worked at getting the red tissue paper that had been wrapped around it off. She smiled as she did. It was a simple frame but there was a smiling picture of Benji in it.

She showed it to Benji in her lap. "There's my Little Fox," she said and put a kiss on the top of his head.

"It me," he agreed.

She shot a smile at Jack too.

"I saw you had a picture on your desk at work. Of you and your mom?"

She nodded. "I do," she agreed and admired the picture of the little boy a bit more. Though she had her own pictures of Benji that she'd been taking with her phone over the past few months, this was the first one that she actually had printed out. It made it a little more real and more tangible. Jack being the one who printed it out and who had placed it in a frame – and was seemingly giving her permission to display it at work if she wanted - made it that much more real. They were getting there. He was slowly letting her get to the point that this could be real for her … for them.

"There should've been something else in that tissue paper," Jack told her.

She gave him a bit of a questioning look but squished her hand around it a bit more and then found the flash-drive he was referring to and held it up at him.

"It has pictures on it," he offered. "I put everything I had on my computer of him on it. There's some baby pictures and stuff."

She smiled at the little drive at that and looked at Jack some more. "That's really special, Jack," she told him. "I really appreciate that."

She hadn't seen any pictures of Benji expect her own. She actually was feeling a bit of a wave of excitement about getting to see what the little boy had looked like as a baby. She almost wanted to move to her computer right then to take a look.

"Were you a cute baby, Benj?" she asked instead.

He nodded vigourously. "Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeees," he agreed.

She snorted. "I bet you were."

"You can look at the other thing now," Jack told her.

She gave him another smile and put her hand back in the box and pulled out the other part of the gift. As soon as she had it picked up, she could tell it was another frame. She still worked at getting the tissue paper off to see what picture they'd picked for that one. But when she did get it off she saw that there wasn't a photo in it. She gave it a bit of a confused look but as she got the rest of the tissue off, she saw that Jack had taped a handwritten note at the bottom of the frame.

"Not having a mom sucked," he'd written. "He deserves to have one."

She glanced at Jack but he'd gone back to examining the phone and clearly doing his best to avoid any sort of eye contact or seeing her reaction. So she looked back to the frame and peeled the taped-on piece of paper off the frame. As it came off it revealed that the bottom of the black wooden frame had mounted-metal text reading "Mommy & Me" attached to it. The tears that slipped out of her eyes had been near instant – and she quickly reached up and wiped at them, telling herself to stop. Instead she reached down and pulled Benji tighter against her and put another kiss on the top of his head.

"Thank you, sweetheart," she told the little boy, since it was clear that Jack didn't want her attention directed at him. "This is about the best Christmas present I could ask for."

"It fag-gill Mommy?" he asked and looked up at her with big eyes before taking the frame from her hands to examine on his own.

She smiled down at him, still feeling her eyes wanting to water and tear. "I think it's making Mommy a little fragile," she said.

"I didn't have anything to put in it," Jack said quietly from where he was sitting, still avoiding eye contact. "But you do, right?"

She nodded. "I do, Jack – and I think there can be lots more we can put in it in the future."

He glanced at her. "Good," he said. "He deserves that."

"You did too, Jack," she told him and he looked away. "And you still do."

He just shrugged.


	95. Chapter 95

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Hey, Merry Christmas," Olivia offered as the elevator door opened and Alex moved to get off.

She'd headed down the hall thinking the other woman was going to need some help with the food and bags – but it looked like she had it under control with a rolling grocery cart that was looking rather overloaded. She actually found it a little amusing that Alex had one in her possession and maybe that had shown on her face a little too much.

Alex shook her head. "Yeah, I know, I'm officially some old bag lady. Pathetic," she said and glanced at her. "Oh – but look at you – don't you just look Christmas-y."

Olivia glanced down at herself and the outfit she was wearing. She was still in her candy cane and snowflake sleep pants – her magic Christmas pajamas.

"I especially like the stickers on your cheeks," Alex added.

Olivia sighed at that and reached up to peel them off. "Benji …" she mumbled.

She looked at the removed stickers briefly and then stuck them onto the top of her hands. She thought it would likely be seen as a mortal sin if she'd just stuck them into the pocket of her sweater and left them destined for the trash. Benji likely had other plans for them. They'd probably be taping them to a sheet of paper or something just as ridiculous. And she didn't doubt the removed stickers would likely be replaced with new ones pretty quick – as soon as the little boy noticed she'd removed them.

"I'm sorry," she added with another small sigh, feeling a little embarrassed or at least like a poor host. "It's been a really slow morning and I completely lost track of time. I didn't realize it was getting to be this late in the day. We're all still in our pajamas."

"Must be nice," Alex snorted as she started to follow her back down the hall and back to the apartment. "Do they look as cute as you?"

Olivia shot her a smile. "I'm pretty sure cuter."

"It's been going OK?" Alex inquired and gave her a look of some concern. Her friend had known that Olivia had been stressing about the day on multiple levels – wanting to make it nice for the boys, if it would be nice for the boys, if they'd like their presents, how Benji would handle it all, how Jack would manage, if it would be a complete disaster.

But Olivia offered her a smile. "It's been really nice."

"You get anything good?"

Olivia let out a little laugh at that and shot her another look. "Are we seven and comparing presents?"

"That'd be a short comparison," Alex mumbled.

Olivia gave her a sad smile. She understood that. That's what her Christmas had looked like for years too. This year was really an oddity. But she didn't really want to be rubbing it in the face of her friend. Though, she got the impression that Alex might be trying to live vicariously just a touch.

"They were really kind to me," Olivia offered. "I'll show you some of it, if you want. Books mostly. A picture frame."

"How'd Mr. Delightful do on your stocking?"

Olivia gave another small laugh at that. "He did good. He's funny. I'll show you some of that too."

"And he's not being a pain in the ass today?"

Olivia shook her head. "No. Not at all. He's on his best behaviour. He's struggling a bit with memories of home, though. So just tread carefully."

Alex nodded and Olivia reached and opened the door to the apartment for them to re-enter.

"Alex is here, guys," she called out to the boys as they got back inside and she reached to take her friend's coat.

She'd left the boys playing over by the Christmas tree when Alex had buzzed up. The toy that Jack had gotten for Benji had proven a pretty big hit. It was a vehicle that could be broken down to its components and rebuilt into all sorts of different dinosaur catching vehicles: helicopters, boats, trucks, jeeps, tanks. Benji was pretty fascinated with it and had decided he wanted to see all 25 different vehicles it could be built into. So that had meant that Jack had taken on taking it apart and putting it back together for the little boy could see and play with each one.

Olivia was really hoping he'd find one that he particularly liked and Jack could set it up in that model – and that it would stay that way for a long, long time. She knew she was likely kidding herself. But as much as it was clear that Benji was liking the toy – and as much as she was glad that Jack had picked something that the little boy liked so much – she really wasn't too excited about taking on the responsibility of vehicle mechanic after Jack went on his merry way.

As Jack was working at figuring out all the different options – refusing to do more than glance at the instruction manual to just see the various models - Benji was playing with the dinosaur that had come with the set and had also determined out how to fire the toy's missile launchers at his uncle. The teen didn't seem too adverse to any of the activity, though. He wasn't even putting up a fuss about his nephew being an annoying little boy towards him. The young man had actually been flopped on the floor with the little boy for the better part of two hours at the point just building and re-building the toy. He seemed to be enjoying the toy almost as much as Benji.

Benji jumped up, though, as they got in the door and jumped out in front of Alex with clenched fists and a rather purposefully let off a spitty raspberry in her direction. "PFFFFFFFT!"

She stuck her tongue at him and shook her head at him. "Merry Christmas, Benjamin!" she teased back at him. After he pulled her tongue back in her mouth, she glanced at Olivia. "Oh my God," she said, "those PJs …"

Olivia smiled and nodded. Four-year-olds could look pretty ridiculously cute in pajamas any night of the week. But Christmas pajamas took it too another level. It made him look younger and littler in a way but also just added to the cuteness by about a factor of ten.

"Santa bring Transformers, Alex!" Benji informed her.

She looked at him. "Santa brought Transfromers? That just can't be."

Benji nodded hard. "It is. Santa bring Transformers."

"But I thought Santa wasn't real?" Alex teased him.

"SANTA REAL!" Benji protested.

Alex shook her head. "Now, Benjamin, I distinctly remember having a conversation with you – and you very clearly telling me that Santa wasn't real."

"YOU WRONG!" Benji yelled at her. "HE BRING TRANSFORMERS!"

"Well, even if he is real, why would he bring a thing like that?"

"I ask for Transformers," Benji said. "And fire truck. So Santa bring Transformer fire truck and police car. AND FIRE STATION! And PLAY-DOH TRANSFORMERS!"

"Oh, he did not," Alex said and shook her head again.

Benji nodded. "HE DID!"

"I thought Santa was supposed to bring good toys," she said.

"HE BRING GOOD TOYS!" Benji yelled at her.

Alex shook her head. "I don't know. That doesn't sound very good to me."

Benji stamped his foot and glared at her. "YOU WRONG!"

She snorted and looked at Olivia. "He's always so delightful. I see why you want to keep him."

"You tease him too much," she informed her friend and shook her head.

Alex ignored the comment. The attorney knew she antagonized the little boy. It was part of the fun of interacting with him. He took everything she said so seriously. Instead, she flipped open her cart and pulled a couple packages out.

She held out one of the presents to the little boy who was still glaring at her. "I brought you something, Ben," she offered.

Benji scrunched up his face and pulled his thoughtful pucker at that and looked at Olivia. "'Thank you, Alex'," she coached him.

But instead of taking the prompting he just snatched it from the other woman's hands and went trotting back to the living room and wagged the gift in the face of Jack. "I getta open 'nother present!" he declared.

Alex snorted again and looked at Olivia. "So how's it going with the discipline and teaching him some manners?"

Olivia shrugged and shook her head. "We're working on it. It's a slow process."

Alex let out a small laugh at that. "I'd say. Good thing he's cute – or he might be out to the curb by now."

Olivia gave her a smile. "I don't think so."

Olivia had picked up on the way Alex was looking at the little boy in her visits and their interactions; some of the little comments her friend had made about the child. She knew it was partially the age and the stage. Hitting forty did that to you when you were single. The reality of being alone really started to set in. The biological clock ticking started to echo in your ears a bit more. The possibility that you'd never have a family started to feel more real. The questioning about if your career had really been worth it and with what you had to show for it – if it was still that important to you. Then there was the starting of twinges of if you should be looking into other options – take matters into your own hands. Or the second-guessing of if that was just giving up on the possibility that you might still find the right man to actually be a father to your children. But at that point was it actually realistic that you'd find him before the clock ran out? Some days it could all feel a little weighty.

Olivia worried a little bit that her situation with Benji might be bringing all that inner turmoil a little too much to the forefront in Alex. She didn't mean to send her friend down that train of thought unnecessarily. Not everyone wanted or needed the same things in their lives. Olivia hadn't even really considered if Alex had played with the idea of family and children. She sort of assumed so. Didn't most people? But it wasn't something either of them had ever brought up in conversation. They were both a little too guarded for that to be coffee break discussion. But she'd definitely wondered more in her observations of the lawyer with the little boy.

She didn't imagine that Benji's appearance helped matters much. As much as Olivia got so easily mistaken as Benji's mother while she was out-and-about with the little boy – there likely wouldn't be a question in anyone's mind if Alex had alone time with him out in public. The blonde-ish hair, the fair complexion, those piercing blue eyes. Olivia didn't doubt that Alex likely looked at Benji and had some stirrings about what a son of her own might look like as a little boy.

Alex wandered over into the living room area as Olivia started to clear some space for her in the kitchen and pull out the massive amounts of food the woman had rolled in in her cart.

As Alex rounded the couch, she spotted Jack on the floor. He'd gotten up off his stomach and was sitting a little protectively with his knees pulled up to his chest but was still fiddling with Benji's dinosaur toy. He glanced at her.

"Hey," he offered quietly and almost unsurely.

She gave him a small smile. "Hi Jack. Merry Christmas," she said and handed out a small package to him. It was just a little candy-cane striped tin – not even wrapped.

He gave her a questioning look but accepted it. "You didn't have to get me anything," he said.

She shrugged. "I heard it was your birthday the other day – and it's Christmas. Don't worry. It's nothing special."

Jack popped the lid off the tin and looked down at the iTunes and Starbucks gift cards in the little container. He looked back up at her and gave her a small smile. "Thanks," he said.

"The ultimate study tools, right?" Alex said in her efforts to offer him a mea culpa of sorts. "Caffeine and music?"

Jack snorted and put the lid back on the box. "Yeah. I guess. I didn't get you anything, though."

She shrugged. "I'd be a littler weirded out if you had."

He snorted again at that and looked down at the ground. So Alex turned her attention back to Benji.

"So you going to open that or not, Ben?" she asked.

Benji had the package sitting on the ground and was doing his knee-bounce and examination of it, fingering at the ribbons – but hadn't made any move to open it yet.

"He likes to think about it for a while," Jack told her.

Alex nodded. "Great. We've got time," she said initially but then looked back to Jack. "Exactly how long does he think about it for?"

Jack shrugged.

Alex nodded and glanced over her shoulder at Olivia.

"I told you it's been a slow day," Olivia offered.

"Ahh …" Alex said and nodded like she was starting to understand why it was almost three in the afternoon and they were still lounging around in their pajamas and looking like they'd barely moved from in front of the tree.

They actually really hadn't. It'd been pushing noon by the time they were done with presents and after Olivia had worked at cleaning up all the wrapping paper off the floor, she'd settled back into the living room with the boys. Benji had wanted to be read to and they'd read through Olivia and a couple of the Robert Munsch stories before she ended up getting back down on the floor with him to play Transformers. At some point in it, his attention had shifted to Jack's present and his uncle had taken over playing with him while she moved over to looking at the photos on the flash drive.

Looking at the pictures had just made her smile a ridiculous amount as she worked through them. Benji had been a small baby and it looked like he must've been nearly two before the hair on his head started to fill out in any way. There'd been some pictures of Jay holding the little boy as an infant too, which she'd found strangely touching to look at, though a little sad. He looked so happy in them – even though Benji's arrival clearly wouldn't have been an ideal situation for him. It likely hadn't been something he would've wanted for his daughter, who would've been likely 18 or 19 when the boy was born. Jay likely also knew that given his daughter's history – at least how Jack had explained it to her – that it would likely be him who was raising another child. But he still looked so excited about his grandchild in the pictures. His smile still looked the way she remembered it and the softness to some of his features – even though he'd aged.

Then there were pictures of Benji in bright yellow boots standing in the barn with the rows of cattle waiting to be milked in the background. He looked maybe two or three. He still looked like he was on a mission. Doing what? She wasn't sure. Benji always looked like he was on a mission. She really loved that about him. He was always up to something. He couldn't keep still. It was exhausting – but it was so much fun.

There'd been surprisingly few pictures of Benji with his mother. She'd sort of hoped to see some there – to try to glean some more details about the woman who'd given birth to him, about her relationship with the little boy, about what kind of person she was. But Olivia didn't get the impression that Jack had been overly close with his sister – or at least not as she settled into her Goth appearance and her drugs, alcohol and other self-destructive behaviour. She also sensed there was some bitterness. There was blame for his father's death and anger about her death. There was the added responsibility he'd taken on with Benji's arrival. Even before he had to take it all on on his own, Jack had had to take on more responsibility than he likely felt was his share – especially after his father was gone.

There had been a couple of the young woman, though. Her hair was jet black in all of them and she looked so pale with piercing about everywhere you could imagine in her face. Benji didn't look that comfortable with her in the few shots there were – and really, the girl didn't look that comfortable as a mother either. It almost looked like they were tolerating each other. There were some happier photos of the little boy with his great-grandma and with Jack. She could see the smiles and the giggles emitting from the little boy – and a still sort of happiness in the older woman too. The photos of Jack with the boy all seemed to range from him looking slightly annoyed to him being ridiculously goofy. She liked to see the goofy ones of the teen – of him smiling and being silly, of him playing with, roughhousing with or hugging his little nephew so casually and naturally. She felt that was something that Jack had lost a bit along the way – though she did see occasional glimpses of it. She wanted them to get to the point that he was able to show that side of himself more and get back to that point in his relationship with Benji.

She couldn't decide what her favourite was but two that she was still smiling about was one with just Benji and another with the little boy and his uncle. In the one, Benji was completely decked out in winter gear to the point that it looked like he couldn't move. He looked about 18-months-old and he'd clearly been made to pose in front of a snowman that was about three times his height. He looked so awkward and confused about the whole situation and was gazing at the snowman like he didn't know how either of them got there – or just what this thing was that he was being made to stand next to. She almost wondered if there'd been tears soon after the picture had been snapped.

In the other one, Jack and Benji were standing on the top of what looked to be what she'd been repeatedly informed was a half-pipe. The funny part was that it looked like it was likely in the yard behind the house on the farm – she could make out a field in the background with what looked like horses. Jack appeared to be a year or two younger and had a skateboard held above his head like some kind of ultimate prize. He was making the most ridiculous face. Meanwhile, Beni was standing next to him with his foot beaten down on his skateboard so it was sitting half-cocked up to him – and almost as tall as him. The little boy was clearly trying to copy the ridiculousness of his uncle and was making a silly face and holding two thumbs up, extended all the way away from his body and towards the camera. She wondered if he'd be prompted or coached to get into the pose – or if it was just Benji being Benji – a goofball and camera cheese.

She hadn't realized how long she'd spent looking at the pictures. But she had been going slowly and really looking at each one – observing things in the background and taking in the family life that the two boys had previously had before it all really and truly went to hell. Even in the photos with the more recent timestamps, it became apparent that things were becoming more strained. There were fewer photos and in the ones that were there no one looked quite as happy as some of the ones from when Benji was just a baby. It was almost like doing a bit of a rubberneck to spot that car wreck you'd whipped by on the highway. She'd spent such an amount of time looking at them, though, that she'd almost startled a little when the intercom buzzed and she'd seen the time of day it had reached.

"In that case, we haven't got all day, Ben," Alex said. "Don't you want to open it?"

"Wazzit?" Benji asked, giving her a glance.

"He asks that about every present," Jack interjected and the looked at his nephew. "It's a present. Open it."

Benji give him the stink-eye and went back to looking at the package.

"There no tag. It not To: B," he said.

Alex looked at him. "Not To: B?"

"He knows the first letter of his name," Jack told her. "It's to you," he said sternly to Benji. "She handed it to you."

"Jack – don't raise your voice at him," she called from over in the kitchen and Jack gave her a bit of a look. "Benj – sweetheart – it's a present Alex brought over for you. You can open it."

Benji puckered in some more thought about that but apparently with the reinforcement from Olivia, he started to work at taking the paper off. Partway in he seemed to recognize what it was and ripped at it more quickly.

"TRANSFORMER!" he cried happily and held it in the air above his head, before bringing it back down to look at with a giant smile.

"Little Fox – what do you say to Alex?" Olivia called from over in the kitchen again.

Benji glanced up at the woman sitting on the couch. "Tank you," he said but then set his eyes back on the toy and put it on the ground, placing is foot on the flap and then ripping at the Transformer.

Alex gapped at him a moment and then moved her butt to the floor. "How about I get that out of the box for you, Ben?" she offered and gently pulled it out from under his foot and away from his batting hands.

Olivia looked over again. "BENJAMIN," she called out a bit more sternly. "What did we say about being grabby?"

Benji huffed. "No grabbing," he said quietly.

She nodded. "So let Alex help – and apologize for hitting her."

Benji sulked a bit but met her eyes. "Sewy," he said.

The woman gave him a small smile and retrieved the toy. "It's OK, Ben. Let me help you with that."

She got it out of the packaging and held it out to him. "It's a bulldozer," she told him as she gave it back to him.

He squinted at her more and looked at the toy. It was a Rescue Bot like what had come with his fire truck and fire station, so he quickly figured out the one-step flip to get it to morph into its vehicle. Olivia was already thinking that the Rescue Bots were the miracle Transformers. She sure didn't intend to buy him anything that wasn't a Rescue Bot for at least a few more years. Hopefully by the time he was too old for Rescue Bots he'd be over his Transformer infatuation. But even if he wasn't she definitely liked that she didn't have to wrestle with the Rescue Bots to get them transformer and Benji didn't seem to care that it wasn't some complicated process to get them from a robot to a vehicle and back.

"It a Transformer," he informed Alex after he flipped it back and forth between being a robot and a bulldozer a couple times.

"It's a Transformer that's a bulldozer," she told him again.

Benji shook his head. "You wrong. It a Transformer."

Alex nodded. "You know – somehow I thought you might say that," she said. She was always wrong. "So I got you something else too."

She reached back over to the couch and grabbed the last gift that she'd had sitting behind her. She held it out to the little boy who considered it for a moment but didn't grab at it this time – still focused on the new Transformer for his collection that had expanded rather significantly that day.

"It's a book," Alex offered, in a bit of an effort to hurry things along so she could get to her dinner duties in the kitchen.

Benji seemed to perk up at that. "Book?" he asked and Alex nodded. He got to his feet and trotted over to the couch to take it from her hands but then went running into the kitchen and held it up at Olivia. "Mommy, a book!" he declared happily.

She smiled at him and stroked at the side of his head. "A book? Well, you better open it and see what book it is, sweetheart."

"THEN WE READ!" he added with even more excitement and started shredding the paper off. He held it up to Olivia again as he got the wrapping off. "Read, Mommy!"

Olivia gave Alex a smile from where she was watching over the back of the couch. She pushed the little boy's arms and the book back down, though.

"Take it over to Alex, Little Fox. She'll read it to you."

Benji looked at her for a moment but then ran back around the couch and held it out at Alex. "READ!" he demanded.

"Benji," Olivia called again. "Didn't we talk about please and thank yous?"

Benji got up onto the couch and threw himself into Alex's lap. Olivia could see a brief moment of shock – or maybe the wind had just been knocked out of her on impact – flash across Alex's face but then she looked down at the little boy with a tenderness as he settled.

"Please read, Alex," Benji said and opened the book in his lap.

Alex just nodded. "OK, Ben, I'd like that. I think you'll like this too. I think it's going to end our argument about what is a bulldozer."

Benji hardly looked at her, though, gazing down at the pictures.

"Good night construction site," Alex said to him – and Olivia let out another small smile and watched for a moment. "Down by the big construction site, the big trucks work with all their might, to build a building, to build a road, to get the job done load by load …"

"Bulldozer," Benji said and smacked a finger on the page.

Alex smiled. "YOU'RE RIGHT!" she said.

Benji looked up at her at that. "YOU WRONG!" he declared.

Olivia laughed.


	96. Chapter 96

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

The intercom buzzed and Olivia glanced up from where she was working at peeling some potatoes to make Jack's requested mashed potatoes, which were apparently way better than scalloped potatoes. She wasn't sure that Alex really agreed with that assessment – but it'd been rather quickly determined that there wasn't any way in hell that she was going to fit her ham, green bean casserole, baked maple squash and scalloped potatoes in Olivia's oven.

Olivia had actually already had to have a talk with Jack about being polite about dinner. The teen had clearly grown up with down-home cooking and even with having been in the city for over a year – he still seemed so leery to try anything that wasn't familiar to him. It was such a dichotic opposite of Benji, who seemed eager to try most things she put in front of him and had been developing his own likes and tastes. Though, there'd been some little boy spit-it-back-out taste-tests along the way.

Olivia felt that Alex was doing a fairly standard Christmas dinner when you got down to it. But it wasn't the turkey that Jack was used to – and he'd pointed out previously that there wouldn't be stuffing and there wouldn't be gravy and there wouldn't be cranberry sauce and there wouldn't be carrots and there wouldn't be mashed potatoes. She had contemplated raising her voice to him that he would've gotten all those barely a month ago if he'd shown up for Thanksgiving and hadn't had them all in a tailspin of anxiety. But she'd just bit her tongue and encouraged him to try the food and to be polite. That she expected that of him.

At least now, though, there would be potatoes on the table that he'd eat and she figured he'd eat the ham OK and the crescent rolls. But she wasn't so sure about Jack and the bean casserole, the squash, the sweet-and-sour red cabbage or any piece of meat that had been near the pineapple or glaze on the ham. She was just having to hope that he wouldn't embarrass her and that he would continue to be the polite, respectful young man he'd been for most of the day.

Though, at that point she'd asked him to get dressed multiple times now that company was over and they were getting towards dinner. She'd gotten herself dressed – and Benji. But Jack had so far ignored her requests. It was grating at her a bit but she was doing her best to not let it bother her too much.

Actually, after Alex had got there, Jack had gotten very quiet, which she'd expected. He hadn't completely disappeared – but he might as well have. He was fiddling on his computer for a while and with the phone. She assumed that he must've put some music on it, because he plugged the new headphones into it and then flopped on the couch with the book she'd gotten him and hadn't said anything to anyone – or moved – since.

She'd just left it for the moment. She didn't want to agitate him or be dealing with teenaged discipline problems in front of her friend. She really just wanted to get through Christmas unscathed. The day had been going so well so far. So she'd instead encouraged Benji to leave him alone too and set him up at the dining table with his new Play-Doh and then had started loitering in the kitchen with Alex, chatting and continuing to consume gross amounts of caffeine. Though, now it was gross amounts of caffeine combined with alcohol. And she knew it was only a matter of time before they entirely switched over to the wine. She was actually starting to think she was about at that point now.

Alex hadn't asked Olivia to help. She seemed content puttering on the last bit of prep work and heating up the food on her own. But with the boys off in their own little worlds, she'd volunteered to get her hands dirty too. It was really the least she could do since the other woman had done most of the grunt work on dinner and taken on the expense of what looked like a rather significant feast. Even if Jack did decide to dig in there looked like there were going to be a lot of leftovers. Not to mention, Olivia still had some of her and Benji's Christmas baking that she really wanted to get eat or trucked out of the apartment ASAP and then Jack's candy cane ice cream. If that wasn't enough dessert options, Alex had brought over a Christmas cake that she seemed rather unimpressed that someone had (re-)gifted to her at work and a mincemeat pie that she had apparently made herself.

"I actually tried my mom's recipe," Alex had said when she pulled it out of the cart. "So it will be amazing because of her – or awful because I baked it. I'm leaning towards awful – but it sure came out looking pretty."

Olivia had smiled. "I'm sure it will be fine. It does look nice. Better than I could ever manage."

But she'd actually been thinking she wasn't sure if any of them would have any room for dessert by the time they got through the meal.

Olivia looked at the intercom from the counter with a bit of a questioning look – as Alex glanced up at her too from what she was doing.

"You expecting someone?" she asked.

Olivia shook her head. "Someone likely just hit the wrong button," she said and wiped off her hands and headed over to the speaker.

She pushed in the button. "Hi?" she asked.

"Hey," the male voice said through a bit of the hum of static. It sounded like the voice expected her to instantly know who it was. She recognized it but it didn't click immediately.

"It's Brian," the voice said again with a pause before adding, "Cassidy" like it was an after-thought and a needed clarification.

She looked at the intercom hard at that and glanced around the apartment. The boys weren't even listening but Alex was definitely looking at her – giving her an even more questioning look.

What the hell was Cassidy doing at her apartment? And on Christmas? She was feeling a spread of anger in her. What was he thinking just showing up there – in her personal time and space, on a holiday that was a bit of a teeter-totter in terms of emotions with the boys? It was completely inappropriate. He didn't know anything about her life. He would've had no idea what he could've potentially been walking into. She could have family over, a boyfriend over, Benji's father over for all he knew. She might not have even been there or she might've been alone and not had the boys. Maybe that's what he half-ways wanted. He didn't even know about Jack, she didn't think. He hadn't even heard about Benji on the rumour mill. She was wondering how much more information he'd gone out and collected for himself at this point. She was feeling a rather significant amount of rage and annoyance set in.

It was immature – and completely unfair of him to be there. It was just rude. And how the hell did he even know where she lived? She mind immediately went to Munch, though. If that's where he got her address from, she'd have more than a few words for him when she got back into work on Thursday.

She pushed the button in again. "What do you want Cassidy?" she demanded.

There was a bit of a pause – and then he came back through. "Merry Christmas, Liv," he said with clear sarcasm. "I've got something for you. Let me up. It will only take a minute."

He had something for her? He had got to be kidding. Now this really was driving her to flashbacks of 13 years ago. Inappropriate. At her home now. He might as well have again been giving her watch back and talking to her about wanting to see her again in the hall at work with Elliot barely six feet away 13 years ago. He just had no fucking common sense.

She wanted to buzz back down and be really rude to him – or to just not respond at all. But she didn't want the boys to hear it and she also didn't want Alex to see the show. And, she actually thought, she kind of wanted to rip him a new one so he'd really get the message. If this what working with him was going to be like again – if this was what being a partner with him was going to be like – she might as well hand in her papers now. She'd rather look into her other options – get a better work-life balance for while raising a little boy and a hopefully a fatter pay cheque – then put up with having to deal with Brian Cassidy's antics and ridiculous way of thinking.

She pushed the button again. "I'm coming down," she barked, clearly annoyed. She glanced at Alex, as she released the button and moved away from the intercom. "I'll be right back," she told her.

The other woman raised an eyebrow at her. "Is everything alright?" she asked.

Olivia shook her head, as she moved into the little foyer and grabbed some shoes from the closet to pull on. "I just need to get rid of someone," she muttered and then reached for the door and was gone, taking the steps and still fuming.


	97. Chapter 97

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Cassidy was leaning against the brick wall at the entrance of her building when she got down into the foyer. He was holding a small gift bag and he looked rather unimpressed. She really doubted he could be anywhere near as unimpressed as she was feeling at the moment.

Olivia pushed open the door and he made a move to grab it and come inside, but she blocked the entrance and instead stepped outside with him, wrapping her arms around herself a bit, and letting them settle into her regular cross-armed stance, as the cold of the winter air hit her.

He looked at her for a moment. "Seriously?" he said with some more annoyance in his voice. But she gave no comment and he let out a sigh and released the door for it to fall closed again. "OK," he sighed but gave her a bit of an angry look.

"What do you want, Brian?" she spat at him.

He shook his head and she could see he was resisting the urge to roll his eyes at her. He held out the small bag to her. "To give this to you," he said.

She didn't take it. "Crashing Christmas, Brian? Really? What are you thinking?"

He looked at her harder and shook his head again, letting the bag drop back down to his side. "I wasn't trying to 'crash' your Christmas," he spat at her. "I was just going to drop this off, say hi, Merry Christmas, and leave."

"You're being really rude," she told him. She almost felt like she was talking to Benji had having to give him instruction on proper manners – yet again.

He snorted at her. "I'm being really rude? How about you Olivia? What do you think you're being?"

"How do you even know where I live?" she asked, ignoring his statements.

"What? Is where you live a state secret? Your name is on the listing." He jammed his finger against the directory next to him. "O. Benson. Not a lot of those around, I don't think."

She rolled her eyes at that. "What? Did you just go up to every building in Murray Hill until you found Benson next to a buzzer?"

He just shook his head at her and held out the bag again. "Here," he said. "Take it. It's for the kid anyway. Not you."

She looked down at that and rubbed her eyebrow. Him saying it was for Benji made her feel some twinges of guilty – but at the same time, it made her a little more upset with him. It almost felt like he was playing her – tugging at her heart strings, knowing that she wouldn't likely deny the little boy a gift and that it might gain him entrance into her life.

"Brian … you're being really inappropriate," she sighed out.

"How am I being inappropriate Olivia? I'm trying to do something nice. I wasn't planning on sticking around and infringing on whatever the hell I am apparently infringing on. What? Is the ass-hat upstairs?"

She gaped at him at that – any stirrings she felt of regret at her attitude towards him were quickly released with anger again. "That's really none of your business – and it's extremely inappropriate that you're even asking," she spat at him.

Cassidy shook his head. "I can't believe you ever let that guy near your kid. If you heard half the shit he said about his ex and his own kids …"

She looked at him at that. David had always used his kids as almost a carrot, she felt in retrospect. He'd really said very little about them to her – and with the amount of time they did spend together on weekends, it was clear that he wasn't exactly playing even Weekend Dad for his two children. She'd expressed some interest in them – because she was interested in them. She wanted to know what they were like –what interests they had, what he did with them, when he saw them, how they were doing in school. Just basic things – expressing an interest in their lives – in David's life as a father. She was dating a man with children. If it worked out, it was another chance to have something that resembled a family in her life. But he always deflected.

The only time he seemed to offer tidbits was when he perhaps sensed she needed to have the possibility of family or kids dangled in front of her. It was unfair and hurtful now that she thought about it. It was like a game. There were false promises of maybe her getting to meet them. That would've been a big step for them – she recognized that. She had kind of wanted it. But it had never happened and she was glad it hadn't. It wouldn't have been fair to the kids – and it certainly would've made things harder for her too.

"I'm not with him anymore," she said. "I already told you – I'm not seeing anyone right now. But I do have company upstairs – and the kids …"

"Kids?"

She sighed and looked down before meeting his eyes. "You haven't tapped into the rumour mill yet?"

"Yea … I thought you'd like it a lot if I went digging into your personal business …" he said rather harshly.

"Says the man standing on my stoop on Christmas Day," she said and shook her head at him.

He just sighed and started examining his boots too. He seemed slightly more embarrassed now, though maybe a little hurt. But at least maybe he was starting to get it. He had just placed himself into family time – personal time – her life and completely uninvited. He'd crossed a boundary – whether he meant to or not. And, Olivia didn't let people in easily – especially right now. There were more people who could get hurt than her now. She didn't need to be cleaning up any more messes. Things were messy enough at the moment.

"Why aren't you at your Mom's?" she asked.

He just shook his head and shrugged. "I was there this morning. She's got her own shit on the go this afternoon."

"And – what – you didn't want to crash on her Christmas plans?"

He gave her a glare at that but didn't respond.

She rubbed her eyebrow again and then wrapped her arms around herself a bit tighter. It was chilly. There was even still a bit of snow in the air. She actually couldn't believe how much snow it looked like had accumulated on the ground – and with it being a holiday, it didn't seem like much effort had been made in clearing it yet. That was going to be a mess to clean up. She was sure a lot of people all over the city would be giving themselves an extended Christmas break with excuses about the weather and not getting cars out of the driveway or buses running absurdly late. A lot of the city pretty much ground to a halt between Christmas and New Year's anyway. It was mostly drunks and suicides that cropped up – the occasional familial or spousal homicide as families snapped under the stress of the most wonderful time of year.

"Brian – Cragen talked to me. He told me that you've officially approached him about coming back to SVU."

"So?" he spat back at her. "I told you I was going to do that."

She sighed. "OK. But even if you take out how completely inappropriate it is for you to just show up unannounced in the midst of family time like this – there's that too. It just makes it even more inappropriate. Cragen might be partnering us. You can't be here."

Cassidy shook his head and looked at her. "Partners can't spend time together outside of work around the holidays? I must've missed that regulation in the handbook," he said.

She shook her head and looked at the ground. "Brian …"

She knew he knew he was likely being ridiculous. They had history. Cragen knew they had history. If Munch and Fin didn't suspect from before or from rumours - or from Brian outright saying something to John – she'd might as well given them a tell-all while Cassidy was in surgery. Then there was the kiss at the hospital and Brian putting out feelers a couple weeks ago – him saying that her having a kid attached to her didn't scare him. They couldn't be spending time together outside of work – especially if they were going to be partners. There couldn't even been the suggestion of impropriety going on between them.

"Liv – just because you've been partnered with tightly-wound assholes for the past … 15 years? … doesn't mean …"

She held up her hand. "OK. You taking shots at Nick … and Elliot isn't going to earn you any points."

It was likely he'd just tapped into all the angst she had about Elliot never inviting her to participate in anything in his family's life until last night. That she could be so a part of his life at work – but so nothing to him outside of the office. Like you're married – but you aren't. Because he is married – was married. He had a family. He had a life. She didn't.

Cassidy sighed a bit more heavily and stood looking at her for several long, silent seconds that seemed to tick by. She just held the gaze and stood her ground. He finally broke the eye contact and looked down into the bag, digging around a bit.

"Sometime while I was undercover, my mom turned into an old lady. Distracting herself maybe. I don't know. She started knitting," he told her and pulled out something. "She had this sitting around her place this morning. I claimed it … for you … for him … Benji."

He held it out to her. Olivia held his gaze for several more beats. She really had no intention of taking his offered gifts. She thought it would make this anymore awkward than it already was. But then she made the mistake of looking down at what he was holding in his hand.

She sighed a bit on her own and gently took it from his grip to look at. It was a knitted winter cap done up to look like a fox head – with complete with ears sticking out the top, beady eyes and a nose against the orange of the yarn and the white rim.

"You were calling him Little Fox the other night," Brian said.

She glanced up at him and gave a small nod. "Yeah," she offered and fingered at it a bit. "Little Fox, though, is a character from a bedtime story we read. He's actually an Arctic Fox – white."

Brian snorted and shook his head, looking at the ground. He shrugged. "Story of my life with you. Can't ever do anything right."

She glanced up at him again but didn't respond. She didn't really know what to say to that. But it had hit her and made her feel badly. She didn't want him to feel that way about her. She wouldn't want anyone to feel that way about her – that they never did anything right? That's an awful feeling. She'd learned to feel that way. Her mother had taught her how.

He held out the bag again. "That's for him too. He likely already has them - since he seemed pretty Transformer obsessed – and with my luck. But … he can have extras."

She still didn't take it so he reached out and took her one hand and then hung the loops of the handles over her fingers.

"See you around, Liv," he said and started to turn away. "Merry Christmas."

She sighed and looked after him as he started to walk away. She'd been so upset at herself – and with how she'd handled the situation with him 13 years ago – when he'd been lying in the hospital and she'd thought he was dying. She didn't want to get into another situation where she was beating herself up over how she'd handled something, how she'd treated someone. She spent enough time on that lately – her and Jay and what happened there, her and Elliot and what happened there, her and Jack and getting through this whole process. She didn't need to add Cassidy to that list - again.

"Brian," she called and he glanced back at her. "Come back," she said a little more quietly, hanging her head and shaking it. She thought she was likely shaking it at herself and what she was about to do. She was likely being stupid. Setting herself up to end up in a situation – whether it was dealing with fall out with the boys, emotional turmoil for her, or a mess at work. It was likely stupid …

Cassidy came back to the little alcove in front of the door slowly and rested his shoulder against the bricks on the one side – looking at her and not saying anything.

She sighed again and stuffed the hat back into the bag and held it out to him. He didn't take it. "You can come up," she said and met his eyes, "to give this to him. But – Brian – Benji doesn't deal well with strange men …"

"I'm not a strange man," Cassidy interjected. "He's met me."

She snorted and looked up at the rather dirty ceiling of the alcove for the moment. "He's seen you. Whether he remembers you, whether he wants to spend any time near you or in the same room as you …" she shrugged and shook her head. She met his eyes again and he was looking at her. "He's not mine, Brian," she spat at him. "He's … basically a foster kid. I'm in the process of getting permanent guardianship of him. He's had … some trauma. OK? So … sometimes he struggles with men he doesn't know."

Cassidy gave her a small nod. "OK," he said quietly.

She shook her head and looked down. For some reason saying it out loud to someone who didn't really know was making her feel like she wanted to shed some tears again. She didn't like thinking about how screwed up Benji might be under his sweet, little boy exterior. Most of the time he seemed OK. He seemed like just an average little boy – a loving, happy little boy. But she got glimpses of the problems he had. The way he clung to her, his fear of the dark, his struggles when new people were introduced to him – especially men, his defiance at times, his lack of manners, how grabby he was, how he thought most things would be taken away from him, how protective he was of his belongings, his difficulties sharing at daycare. It wasn't all just normal little boy behaviour. There was more to it than that.

She let out a deep breath and looked up at him again. "If he can't handle you being there – or if I indicate you should go – I don't want it to be a discussion like this, I want you to leave, Brian."

He nodded again. He hadn't let go of the eye contact at all. "OK," he said again.

"And – I need you to tell me that you're hearing me when I say I'm not available, Brian. I'm really not available. My attention right now – my focus – it's on Benji, my family. That's where it has to be – where it needs to be, where I want it to be."

He nodded again. "I hear you," he said.

"And – Brian, even if I was available – I wouldn't be available to you. Do you understand that? If you're coming back to SVU – if we end up as partners – this, " she gestured between them, "it's not possible. It doesn't matter if either of us, or both of us, are interested. It doesn't work with us working together. My policy there hasn't changed. I don't date people I work with. It's too messy. And, if we're partners – I value my job too much to lose it over … hormones. OK?"

He nodded. "Yep. Gotcha."

She rolled her eyes at that. "I'd like a bit more serious answer than that."

"Liv – I know nothing will ever happen between us if I come back to SVU," he said flatly. "My job is all I have. I wouldn't fuck what I've got for a fuck."

She didn't really like the way he put it – but it was what she was looking to hear. So she reached into her sweater's pocket and pulled out her keys and opened the door, stepping back into the warmth of indoors and holding the door for him.


	98. Chapter 98

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

They hadn't said anything to each other on the ride up on the elevator. It felt awkward and strained – if not still a little angry on both of their parts. She was still questioning how much of a good idea this was – she was letting him into her personal, private life. The boys. Her apartment. Her belongings around. Christmas gifts still visible. She knew how detectives took in a room – she did it all the time. She wasn't sure she wanted Brian chalking her up in quite that way. Not now. Not at this point in her life.

Then there were the boys. She figured the worst reaction Benji would have would be to whine, growl, cling to her and just not want to look at Cassidy. She could manage that. But Jack? She figured his reaction could go anywhere from not caring to an all-out swearing outburst, if not him outright leaving – based just on how he'd reacted to her telling him Alex would be joining them for Christmas dinner. An unknown man would likely meet an even larger rage from the teen.

"Take off your shoes," she told Cassidy as they got in the door, in almost the exact same tone she gave Jack.

He made no comment, though, and just bent over and quickly unlaced his boots before using his opposite toes to push each piece of footwear off.

Alex gave her a questioning look from the kitchen as Brian worked on that. She clearly didn't know what was going on – and wanted to. But Olivia just sighed and shrugged. There wasn't much she could say at the moment. She'd never let Alex in on any details of her and Brian's past. That was before Alex's time and she hadn't exactly publicized the kiss to anyone that spring.

"Do you two know each other?" Olivia asked as Brian straightened up and took a step more into the apartment and out of the little foyer.

Alex gave a small shake of her head, but Brian allowed, "Know of. I've seen you around. You're with the district attorney's office, right?"

Alex nodded but just looked at him more at that – like she really couldn't place him.

Olivia didn't know the when or where Brian would've seen Alex around. But he wasn't dressed at the moment like a cop or a lawyer – or anyone that Alex would've classified in her realm of people she'd see around. He probably looked a bit more like someone needing a criminal attorney with how he was dressed at.

Olivia didn't think Cassidy had much settled into regular attire since coming back from his U.C. work. Or maybe this was just the way he dressed. It wasn't like she ever spent enough time around him outside of work 13 years ago to have a perspective on what would be off-duty clothes for him. But she'd always kind of imagined Cassidy as a jeans and sports team tshirt kind of guy. Not to say that his attire wouldn't have changed and evolved even if that was what he was wearing years ago. Now, though, he was still dressed as he had been when she'd dealt with him while he was undercover - all in black with his leather jacket. None of the clothes looked much like they'd been washed recently. There remained a bit of a grimy feeling about being around him that she didn't much like.

It worried her in some ways. It made her question more how much she actually knew him – because she really didn't, when you got down to it, and here he was walking in her home with her kids there. And, then, alternatively, she wondered if it was an indication of how he was … or maybe, moreso – wasn't … dealing with getting back to his life. Either way, she thought getting back into a suit might help his appearance. But she tended to think that of most men.

"Alex Cabot," Olivia offered and gestured in her friend's direction. "One of SVU's ADAs. And Brian Cassidy," she continued her introduction and she saw some recognition cross over Alex's face at that. "He worked SVU about 13 years ago. He was the U.C. embedded with Genzel … he might be coming back to SVU."

Alex nodded and wiped off her hand and held it out. "Hi," she offered.

Brian took it. "Hey. Merry Christmas," he said in his usual overly-casual and raspy tone.

"I keep leaving and getting roped back into sex crimes too," she said. "But 13 years and a return? That seems like it should've been a pretty permenant departure."

Brian shrugged. "Nah. Maybe just took me a while to realize it was where I should be."

Olivia glanced at him at that. She wondered how much truth there was to that statement or if it was just a platitude.

Alex allowed him a small smile, though. Still her eyes darted back to Olivia quickly. The questions were still sitting there in them. Olivia was almost dreading when Brian did leave and she'd have to deal with answering all of them. The lawyer wasn't good at dropping things. If Olivia dodged one question, Alex was pretty good at reframing the question and throwing it back at her again. Redirect. They might as well have been doing court prep.

"Jack – Benji's uncle – is on the couch," Olivia offered and nodded her head in that direction. They still hadn't returned the couch back to its usual rotation yet – so the teen wasn't visible and they weren't yet visible to him. That might be best, she thought. "He has his headphones in. He may or may not acknowledge your presence and existence."

Cassidy gave her a bit of a look at that but didn't say anything, so she gestured on the opposite side of the kitchen.

"Benji's at the table – you can give him your gift," she instructed.

He gave her a small nod and started to follow after her as she made her way through the kitchen and to the small dining table. She didn't know where they were going to put all Alex's food. There definitely wasn't going to be room for it – and for them to eat at the table. They'd have to put some of it on the island or the kitchen counter and make it a bit of a buffet. Hopefully Alex wouldn't be too put off by that.

Brian excused himself as he stepped around Alex and gave her another small smile. Olivia also watched him give her another once-over as he did push by her in the cramped space. She'd experienced the man's roving eyes and had been unimpressed with where they landed in the spring. She'd given him the benefit of the doubt at the time. Working undercover in an escort service for that long had likely left him a bit too much in character and too used to looking at women as objects or pieces of meat – things to be had and ogled at. He might've gotten away with it while still U.C. but he wasn't undercover anymore – and he'd been out for a while. She didn't like his roving eyes. It made him seem like a player and a womanizer. She didn't much have time for either. And, she didn't much think that someone who looked at women that way belonged back in SVU.

Olivia rubbed Benji on the shoulder as she got to the table. He'd been so absorbed in his Play-Doh that he'd hardly even seemed to have noticed she'd stepped out of the apartment for a few minutes or that she was now back with additional company.

It had been interesting watching what gifts and toys Benji had really latched on to during the day. The experience had definitely given her some perspective on how to do shopping and Santa gifts and stockings if she got to do it again in the future. She definitely hadn't gotten so much that Benji had been completely overwhelmed. But there was definitely more new things around that day than he could realistically play with. The 'something to learn' toy was still in its box at that point and some of the little knick-knacky toys from the stocking were still in their packaging too.

Really, the only real dud of a gift for him had been putting the sheet and comforter set under the tree as the 'something you need' gift. He probably didn't have much of a concept of what it was, though – beyond a colourful blanket. He'd likely be a bit more excited after they got his bed and had it together and were able to put the set that had all different kinds of construction vehicles and police cars and fire trucks onto the bed. Or at least she hoped he would. Either way – he needed sheets for a twin bed and now he had them. So mission accomplished.

The Play-Doh was definitely a winner, though. But by the looks of it she shouldn't have left him unsupervised with it for the length of time she did.

She'd told him not to mash the colours together – or else he wouldn't have the colours when he wanted them. He'd just have one big blob mess. By the looks of it, he hadn't really listened to her in her absence.

She sighed at him. "Benj – what are you doing?"

He held up a badly mangled robot to her. "Making robot, Mommy."

"Multi-coloured robots?"

He nodded hard. "Robots not just one colour, Mommy!"

She nodded. "But now you're going to have less blue and grey when you want it, right? Now you have a blob of blue-grey Play-Doh."

He just held it up to her more for her to look at until she took it from his hand. Then got on his knees on his seat so he could push the press down and into another blob of dough. He didn't seem to be that great at being able to get the dough out of the moulds of the vehicles – and since she'd indicated she wasn't available to take every one out for him every time, he'd taken to just sticking balls of Play-Doh under the stamper instead.

He took his newly created robot out from under the press and looked at it.

"It bad," he stated – to no one in particular and then grabbed on of the little roller tools. "MASH!" he declared and started rolling the thing back-and-forth across the robot, squishing it further.

She shook her head and put the robot in her hand back down onto the table.

"Don't mash that one, Little Fox," she told him. "I might still be able to get the two colours pulled apart."

He gave her the squint eye at that. Clearly getting to mash the robots was part of the fun of the activity. So she wasn't sure he was going to listen to her direction. So she rubbed across the back of his shoulders again and glanced at Brian standing behind her.

"Sweetheart, someone is here to see you. Do you remember Brian from Mommy's work?" She gestured at him and Cassidy came more into Benji's view and offered him a smile.

"Hey, Big Man," he said. "Merry Christmas."

Benji looked at him but flopped his head against her side and didn't say a thing. She rubbed his back a bit more – but gestured for Brian to take a seat at the table. She grabbed the chair from kitty-corner Benji and pulled it over so it was next to him, sitting beside the little boy and keeping her hand on him at all times, trying to keep him calm and secure.

"Brian brought a Christmas present for you," she told him and looked over at the other detective.

Cassidy was starting to look a bit more awkward about the situation than before – like he was really starting to get it. Benji wasn't a normal little boy. He wasn't just shy. He was reluctant around new men. He was waiting to be screamed at or for the women around him to be yelled at or roughed up. Giving Benji a smile wasn't going to just flick a switch and instantly change that.

"Ah, yeah," Brian said with a small stutter in the awkwardness of the moment. Alex was watching from the kitchen too and Olivia was watching him like a hawk while hovering over and guarding the little boy, ready to scoop him up should the hesitation turn to tears instead. "Sorry, buddy," he added, "I didn't have wrapping paper."

He put the Christmas bag on the table but Benji just looked at it and leaned against Olivia some more. Brian watched for a moment but then reached into the bag instead – clearly picking up that the chances of Benji digging into the package were probably pretty slim.

The man pulled out the cap first and put it on the table sort of off to the side and not directly in front of the boy where there was still a mess of Play-Doh. Brian looked at his face but could likely see that there wasn't much recognition painting across it. So he reached out and touched the material – his fingers playing across the eyes and then moving up to tug at one of the ears.

"See?" he asked as he moved his hand. "It's a fox. For Little Fox."

Benji glanced at him and settled his eyes back on the hat. Olivia looked down at him and tried to help him along – placing a kiss in his hair.

"Wow – Little Fox," she said. "That looks pretty nice, doesn't it? Do you think maybe we should try it on?"

Benji considered it for a moment and reached out to get the hat – so Brian quickly moved his hand away. He started to pull it across the table but that only caused Olivia to reach out and lift it up.

"Let's not drag it through the Play-Doh, sweetheart. It will get all dirty and Brian's mommy worked very hard to make it."

Benji glanced at Brian again at that and then looked at Olivia. "Him mommy make it?"

She nodded. "She did."

"Mommies make Little Fox hats?"

She smiled. "Brian's mommy does."

Benji glanced at Brian again but then looked back to Olivia and the hat.

"Little Fox white," he said.

She heard Brian let out a small sound at that and look down. Olivia gave him a small smile and looked to Benji.

"In the story Little Fox is white – but my Little Fox is strawberry – just like this Little Fox," she said and held open the hat.

"Strawberry?" Benji said.

She nodded and pulled the hat down over his head and ears. "Strawberry – just a touch of orange in my Little Fox's hair."

It was a repeated conversation - part of their canon. She thought Benji kind of liked hearing it and it being reaffirmed to him. His hair colour, him being Little Fox, him being her Little Fox – over and over. But if that's what he needed – she was going to give it to him.

She smiled as she got the hat in place. He looked ridiculous but ridiculously cute. She gave Brian a smile at it.

"Look at Brian, sweetheart," she encouraged, "so he can see."

Benji gave her big eyes but slowly turned his head towards the man, though it was pretty clear his eyes were elsewhere and not making contact. Cassidy smiled anyways, though. It was actually a pretty big and genuine smile. One that Olivia hadn't seen on him since those 13 years ago when he was saying or doing something goofy in the squad room – and he knew it. He'd been so serious in all their meetings in the spring. His face looked like it had been molded into a permanent frown and the lines around his mouth had been creased to prove it. The job had worn him down over the years. That had been painted all over his being.

"Looks pretty good to me, Big Man," Brian told him and glanced at Olivia. "Sorry – I guess, it's a little big."

She shrugged. "He'll grow into it. Turn and show Alex, sweetheart."

Benji gave her his big eyes again but then got on his knees and looked back over the chair and into the kitchen. Alex snorted and gave him a smile at the floppy ears and the beady eyes protruding off the little boy's head.

"I don't know … is that Benjamin or Little Fox?" she asked.

"LITTLE FOX!" Benji stated.

She nodded. "That's a good thing. Because I don't see Bejamin anywhere right now."

"I Ben-jam-in!" he argued to that.

"I thought you just said you were Little Fox?"

"I Benji too!" the little boy clarified.

"Hmmmmmm," Alex said and acted like she had to think about that.

"COOK FASTER ALEX!" Benji demanded.

She snorted and looked at Olivia. "There – you've got another opportunity for a manners lesson."

Olivia rolled her eyes and adjusted Benji to get him to sit his butt back on the chair.

"Benj – you don't talk like that to people cooking your dinner. If you're rude to them – who knows what you'll end up eating."

Benji glared at her. "I WANT PIN-APP-PEEL NOW!"

"You'll get lots of pineapple at dinner. I'll make sure you get a piece of ham right from under the pineapple. But you don't yell at Alex while she's cooking."

He squinted at her and then looked back to his Play-Doh, picking up his masher again.

"And – you say thank you to Brian for the hat," she instructed.

"Tank you," Benji said but didn't look at the man.

"You look at Brian and you say thank you," she told the little boy.

Benji glanced his way. "Tank you," he offered again, though once again no eye contact had been made.

"You're welcome, Benji," he said. "I've actually got something else for you too."

He reached into a bag again and pulled out a small box and then leaned across the table a bit to show it to Benji. But the little boy had gone back to playing with his Play-Doh.

"Hey, Big Man, can you look for just a second," he asked more gently than she would've expected to come out of Cassidy's mouth ever. "I'm pretty excited about these. I hope you will be too."

Olivia rubbed Benji's shoulder again. "I think you should look, Benj. I think you're going to like it," she told him after seeing what the gift was.

Benji met her eyes for a moment and then rotated his head over to Brian, who gave him another thin smile. He tapped on the box.

"They're Transformer Bot Shots," he told the little boy. "So see – they're little cars but when you smash them against something they'll transform all on their own. So, you know, then Mom won't have to do it wrong for you anymore."

Olivia snorted at that and shook her head at that. But Benji seemed slightly intrigued and reached to take the box from the man's hands. Brian let him.

"Transformers?" he asked quietly and glanced at Olivia.

"Transformers," she agreed.

Brian leaned forward a bit more and with Benji not cringing, he reached out to tap on the box again. "See – that's a fire truck – Sentinel Prime. And that's a police car – Prowl. And there's Bumblebee – because he's the coolest, right?"

Benji puckered his lips and glanced at Brian briefly before looking at the box holding the three little die cast style cars.

"You say Optimus Prime the coolest," Benji stated – giving the first indication that he even remembered meeting Cassidy before at this point.

The thin smile across Brian's face appeared again at that. "I am a pretty big Optimus Prime fan," he agreed. "But I know you are all about Bumblebee – and the fire trucks and police cars. I've gotta say, I've been really wondering all day if Santa brought you a fire truck or a police car Transformer."

He glanced at Olivia at that. He was really trying to be too kind and too sweet – and she wasn't sure how she felt about it. She rubbed her eyebrow.

Cassidy had clearly catalogued away what Benji had said he'd asked for for Christmas – that he liked Transformers, that he liked police cars and fire trucks. He'd gone out and gotten something for the little boy that spoke to that. It was a kind gesture. But she felt like it was still him trying to court her. She wasn't sure if he was just trying to court her opinion about him coming back to SVU and potentially being partnered with her – or if he was going for something more. Either way, she wasn't really thrilled about him using her little boy as a pawn in it.

Benji, though, seemed to light up a bit at the opportunity to get to talk more about Transformers. He examined Brian for several more seconds but then allowed, "Santa bring fire truck and police car."

Brian sat up at that. "A fire truck and a police car? You got both?" he sounded almost excited. Olivia wasn't actually sure Brian could pull off excited. His voice really could be too monotone.

"Santa bring Optimus Prime too Buy-in!" Benji declared at that and hopped out of his chair, making a break for the living room.

Olivia watched Cassidy. She could see he was itching to go over to the tree and see the little boy's loot but was restraining himself. She let out a sigh and looked at the ceiling for a moment.

"Go see," she told the man, shaking her head. But he allowed her another one of his thin-drawn smiles and stood from the chair, following after Benji. She walked behind him.

Brian glanced down at the couch as they passed it and Jack looked up at the movement. Cassidy hardly seemed to flinch at the realization that the other kid – Benji's uncle – was a teenager. He just held up a hand in a silent greeting. But it was enough for Jack to take one of the earbuds out and eye the man up and down, the look on his face darkening. He glared at Olivia.

She let out a small breath through her nose and met Jack's eyes. "This is Brian Cassidy," she introduced. "He's a detective too."

Jack squinted at her and didn't say anything but she could just see his mind churning.

"This is Jack Lewis," she provided to Cassidy. "He's Benji's uncle."

"Hey," Brian said again. "Merry Christmas."

Jack just glared at him some more and then turned the icy stare back to Olivia.

Cassidy glanced at where the little boy was digging around his toys under the tree and then at Olivia, before settling his eyes back on the teen.

"That's an awesome book," he offered, like he was trying to change some topic or escape the tension that was clearly settling in the room.

Olivia could see that it looked like in the couple hours that Jack had been reading he'd put a significant dent in The Road. She was actually surprised that that was what he had settled into doing for the afternoon when he had Halo and his Lego set there too – or just fiddling around with the phone. She figured, though, that he maybe didn't want to end up having to play with Benji on the videogame or the building set. She was glad that he seemed to be liking the book too, though.

She'd struggled a bit with the 'something to read' guideline of the five gift rule for Jack. She didn't think he'd much appreciate getting one of the classics. She'd thought about getting him something about skateboarding – but she really didn't know what would be appropriate there. She ended up looking at some graphic novels and comic books but wasn't sure if that was his thing. Though, there were tonnes of Walking Dead options. She wasn't sure if he would've read all those already.

She ended up finding some Halo and Walking Dead novels over in the science fiction and horror sections. But she really wasn't sure if Jack read at all – or if either of those topics would be a story that would hold his interest. Still, it was while she was reading the back of one of the Walking Dead books and skimming the first few pages that she'd thought of the The Road. She thought that post-apocalyptical landscape and the journey of the father and son might appeal to Jack. The uniqueness of the writing might grab him too. And, really, she liked the concept of getting him a piece of award-winning fiction far better than getting some TV show or videogame mass-marketed spin-off that had likely been written in the matter of days.

She was actually a little impressed too that Cassidy had read it. Back when they were younger they'd butted heads over her allegedly treating him like an idiot or questioning his intelligence with some of her little jabs. She'd never meant much by them. She was used to playing in the boys club. Sarcasm and quick comebacks was part of the deal. Cassidy seemed to really take it personally when it came from her, though – especially after their little fling.

She supposed she didn't entirely blame him. He'd made clear that she'd made him feel like it was about him – and not her personal rule. That wasn't true. But she didn't put much time or effort into convincing him otherwise. Doing so had seemed so high school. She just really wanted them to both move on like grown-ups. She supposed they eventually had – but it'd been awkward for both of them and she wasn't really sure if they'd ever entirely moved past it. Cassidy had been one that had stuck with her. Likely because he was someone she worked with and did care about as a colleague.

But that still didn't mean that she thought Cassidy was the smartest cookie in the batch. It wasn't that she thought he was stupid. Though he was the least educated of the group at the time. But he'd climbed the ranks of the NYPD and made detective. Technically that meant that he was a good cop. Though, it could've just meant that he knew people. Brian didn't really seem to know people. She'd give him, though, that he was a smooth talker. He could likely be a car salesman if he wanted. In retrospect, placing him undercover with an escort service was likely a good call. He could really pull that off.

She might not have thought that 13 years ago. He'd really seemed so naïve in a way back then. She'd felt like he didn't have as much life experience as her – even though his job experience would've been rather similar. She just didn't get the impression he'd been through much and that he'd done just enough to get to where he was at. No special education, no spectacular collars to his name, nothing particularly astounding about his abilities in SVU or with the victims – at least that she'd seen at the time.

But she was putting up a lot of fronts back then as she settled into working the unit. She'd thought she needed to be tougher, ruder, rougher around the edges. She needed to keep up the hard exterior to be able to function. There'd been some self-destructive behaviour in the midst of it all until she figured out who she was in the unit and became more comfortable with her role, the job and the victims. It was what she wanted to do – but it still took time to settle into it.

Jack, though, didn't seem to much care that Cassidy had read the book. He just glared more and then sat up and pushed himself up and off the couch, heading for the bedroom.

Olivia sighed. "Please get dressed while you're in there," she called after him. "Dinner's going to be in about 40 minutes, Jack."

"Whatever," he muttered and shut the door loudly.

Brian looked back at her a little questioningly but didn't say anything. She rubbed at her eyebrow a little embarrassed and shrugged.

"Don't worry about it. It's just … Jack," she sighed.

Brian nodded but didn't get a chance to comment as Benji came up to him and held up one of his toys to him.

"Optimus Prime, Buy-in!" he said.

Cassidy smiled at the little boy and took the toy – manipulating it a bit in his hands. "This is a pretty cool one," he said.

Benji trotted back to under the tree and whacked! down onto his knees again in front of his play sets. "See Buy-in. Fire station. Fire truck. This Heatwave. This Bowl-deer. This Bear-cade."

"You've got quite the collection there, Big Man," he said and gave Olivia a look, gesturing a little like he was asking permission to get on the floor with the little boy.

She gave a small nod – sensing that Benji had eased into him a bit and at least for the moment wasn't going to go into a fit about Brian being there, unlike Jack. "Yeah, sure," she said. "Go ahead."

He gave her another thin smile and got down on the floor to look at toys with Benji. The little boy snatched Optimus Prime back from him.

"Fix Bear-cade," he demanded and shoved that into his hands. "Then you be Bowl-deer."

Brian snorted and gave the kid a smile but then just wordless started to work at getting the Transformer from a robot to its cruiser form. But Olivia knew if Cassidy was being roped into playing Transformers he wouldn't get to do much playing. He'd be morphing Barricade back-and-forth between his two forms. The thing wouldn't stay as a cruiser for long. Though, Benji did seem to be enjoying making Barricade the cruiser and Copper talk to each other. So maybe it would depend on whatever imagined plot they started playing out.

With Benji settled for the moment she moved back to the kitchen to see what more needed to get done in there before dinner. But Alex just gave her another one of those looks.

"What's going on?" she asked quietly.

Olivia shook her head and shrugged. Her head was on Jack's reaction at the moment. "It's just Jack. I'll give him 10 or 15 minutes to cool down and if he hasn't come out on his own, I'll go talk to him."

Alex looked at her. "No," she said and nodded back towards the tree. "What's going on?"

Olivia sighed and just shrugged again. "Apparently my apartment is becoming the isle of castaway 40-somethings."

Alex snorted and eyed her some more. "That's lovely." She paused for a beat. "Then who else are we expecting for dinner?"

Olivia shook her head and rolled her eyes – and looked back to under the tree where Cassidy was still babbling at Benji about his Transformers and starting to work at getting the little ones he'd brought over out of their box.


	99. Chapter 99

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia barely tapped on the bedroom door before opening it. She knew Jack wasn't doing anything but sulking in the room and she didn't want to make a big production about going in there and talking to him. The walls in the apartment were thin enough that if he started yelling everyone there was going to hear them anyway.

At the moment, though, Jack didn't really look like he was planning on doing much yelling. He was flopped half on his side, half on his stomach on the bed – clearly having been sure to keep his back to the door so he didn't have to look at her if and when she did come in. He had his head partially buried in an arm he had curled up around his head – further hiding his face and eyes from her.

"How we doing in here?" she asked as she pulled the door shut behind her and took in the scene.

"I'm tired," he mumbled at her.

She nodded. She knew he wasn't just tired. So she moved to the end of the bed and sat near his feet.

You've had a couple late nights in a row," she commented.

That was true enough. She patted his near feet in an initial effort to offer him some comfort and to get this situation to spool down. But she recoiled a bit. She'd patted just above his ankles and even through his pajama pants she could feel how cold he was. She laid her hand against his socked feet and they felt like near ice blocks.

She reached and pulled the folded blanket at the bottom of the bed up and over his feet and the first bit of his legs.

"Are you feeling OK, Jack?" she asked. "You're really cold."

"I'm fine," he mumbled again.

So she again just nodded. "OK," she said. "Well, I don't know what you're in here thinking so I want to get two things out of the way right off the bat. I didn't invite Cassidy and not tell you, Jack. He just showed up. And, he's not some sort of secret boyfriend that I haven't been telling you about. He actually might end up being my new partner at work in the New Year."

Jack made some sort of noise but no real comment. She rubbed at his legs again – partially as a comfort and partially to try to warm him up a bit. She didn't think he should be that cold – especially when he'd been up off the floor and on the couch for the last couple hours.

"OK, Jack, I'm starting to learn what some of your sounds mean – but I'm not an expert yet – so let's try some words. Tell me what you're thinking," she encouraged.

"Like you would tell me who you're fucking anyways," he mumbled some more. "You said it's off the table."

She snorted at that and shook his legs some more. "OK – first off – you know how I feel about you using language like that when you're here. But I'm not seeing anyone, Jack – and there's no relationship on the horizon. So stop worrying about that."

"I didn't say relationship. I said fucking," he mumbled again and rubbed his head against his arm.

She watched him for a moment. She could feel the tension in him even from where she had her hand resting lightly on his leg and the sadness in him was apparent again. But she thought she was hearing what he was saying – or at least part of it. She got the sense there were multiple layers to what was going on in him. The teen was full of too much turmoil.

She would've thought that dealing with so many young people at work, she would be a bit better prepared to deal with Jack. But the reality was the teens and young adults she dealt with on the job were usually from two subgroups: victims and perps. She dealt with them in two very different ways. They needed two very different things from her for her to get to them and help them or put them away, depending on the circumstances. She interviewed a lot of witnesses that could be defined as "normal" young people, she supposed – not one of her two categories on the job. Still, dealing with a regular young adult wasn't something she was that used to and it involved a different skill set and a different type of listening.

It was different when she'd still have to deal with the kid the next day. And, Jack wasn't a completely normal kid. He didn't have as much damage as some teens she dealt with but he'd had his share of trauma – that had both pushed him towards adulthood before he was ready and apparently stunted his growth too. It was this tricky balance with Jack of figuring out when he needed to be treated like a grown-up and when still needed to be treated like a kid. But the more time she spent with him the more and more apparent it was becoming to her that he really needed her to get the temporary extended guardianship of him. The young man really needed the few more years to grow up with someone there to give him some. As much as a headache dealing with him could be some days, she wanted to be the one who was there for him. Otherwise, she wasn't sure anyone would be and with the way he was going, if there wasn't some change, he was definitely going to have some sort of fall in the future. She wanted to make sure there was a safety net under him when he happened so he bounced back and onward into adulthood.

"Jack," she said softly but firmly, "I am way past the point in my life where I'd be having one-night stands, if that's what you're suggesting. There aren't going to be strange man drifting in-and-out of this apartment or Benji's life."

"Good," Jack said even more quietly and in an even more of a mumble. "Because Izzy did that and 'Jamin was getting old enough that he saw and was confused and upset. And it sucked."

Sometimes she felt like Jack was a leaky faucet. He'd give her little drips of information here-and-there about what had been going on in his family's home and with his sister and her attempts at being a mother. It was a slow process of Olivia collecting it in trying to figure out how to best take care of both of them – what they needed from her, or in life. She really wished that Jack would sit down and have a real conversation with her about it all. But so far that seemed to be something he was unwilling to do. She thought he was partially embarrassed and he partially just wasn't ready to think about it – and then, he wasn't ready to open himself up to her that much all at once. So instead he just dripped, dripped, dripped the little bits at her.

She rubbed his leg again. "OK, Jack, com'on. Let's talk like grown-ups for a minute. Put down your arm. Let me see your face."

It took him several seconds but he slowly brought his arm down, though he maintained his body positioning, which still made it hard for her to keep any firm eye contact with him.

She sighed a bit at that – but she just left it and met his eyes as best she could.

"I'll make you a deal, Jack," she told him, earning a bit of a glance. "If, and when, I am seeing someone – and if it's serious, and if he'll be coming into our home – you and Benji are both going to meet him before he'd ever be allowed to stay over. Strangers are NOT going to be moving in-and-out of either of your lives. I'm not going to do that to either of you. OK?"

He looked at her a little more firmly but made no comment. She gave his leg another small rub.

"But, sweetheart, that's really not something you need to be worrying at all about right now. I'm not seeing anyone. Right now, my focus outside of work is 100 per cent on you and Benji."

She actually knew that even at work part of her focus there was distracted and on the boys. She was still learning on how to deal with that and not letting it affect her work. Some days it was harder than others – and she knew that there'd be a point where there would be cases where it was going to be that much harder than others.

"My focus, Jack," she said again, "is on getting all our paperwork through and getting us established as a family. OK? My attention is on figuring out how to be the best mom I can be for Benji – and how to be there for you too. I'm still learning but I'm really trying. And, I know that all of that is going to take most – if not all – my focus and attention for the next while. But you and Benji – making this work for all of us - is so important to me, it's where I want my attention to be. It likely means that a relationship isn't in the books for me for quite a while, Jack – and I'm OK with that. I've wanted a family for a long, long time. I'm not going to screw this up – and I'm not going to do anything that might see you or your nephew get hurt – ever."

Jack just brought his hand back up to his face at that with no comment.

She sighed again. "Sweetheart – I know other women have hurt you both – and that they've really disappointed you. But I'm not going to be one of those women – one of those people. And, I'm going to keep on telling you that – and showing you that every way I know how, until you're able to believe me. I'm not going anywhere – and we're going to make this work."

"You'd rather be spending time with your friends," he mumbled.

She snorted and rubbed at her eyebrow and looked at the wall for a moment. "Right now, Jack, I would rather us all be out in the living room – getting ready for dinner and visiting. But, you know, that it's absolutely not true that I'd rather have spent Christmas with my friends."

She looked back at him and sighed again. She rested her own elbow on the bed and reached up to pull his arm back down. He eyed her at that.

"Jack, I've loved today," she told him, keeping the contact from the awkward positioning on the bed. She felt a little to sprawled out but she wanted to make sure they saw each other's eyes for what she was about to say. "It's been so special for me – and I've so appreciated everything you did for me – and for Benji." She felt her eyes water again and she shook her head. "I didn't have very good Christmases growing up, Jack – and I haven't had anything that even resembled a Christmas for a long, long time. And – today has been … everything I would've ever wanted and more. OK? Cheesy but you really … made it so nice for me. Getting to spend today with you and Benji was … the best gift I could've asked for."

She sighed and sat back up and examined the floor for several moments before glancing back at him. It was such a one-way conversation, she was struggling. But she didn't get the sense that if she left the room now that Jack would be joining them back outside anytime soon or even re-emerging for dinner.

"I really didn't invite Cassidy, Jack. Brian … sometimes … he makes decisions … without thinking. I told him before he came up, though, that if you or Benji didn't like him here – I'd be asking him to go, and he said he'd respect that and leave. So, if you want, I can go out there right now and tell him he needs to go. But let me say a couple things about Brian – and about Christmas as a grown-up before you make your decision," she said.

She glanced at Jack he seemed to be eyeing her more at that. She rubbed his leg a bit.

"Brian and I both ended up in Special Victims as our first placement as detectives at about the same time. I had a few months on him. But we were both about the same age and at about the same level of experience. You have to volunteer to end up working sex crimes. So, I guess we both had our reasons for being there.

"We both had pretty different experiences in our first year or so there, though. I got partnered with Elliot – who you met last night. Brian ended up with John – who was who was bugging you in the squad room yesterday."

"That sucks," Jack mumbled.

She gave him a small smile and another little shake of the legs. "I wouldn't want to be partnered with Munch either. But he's a good guy. He has lots of experience. He's just … eccentric. He's John. Cassidy got on with him OK. I think John liked having a young guy to mentor. Brian and I, though, we see a lot of things pretty differently. Or at least we did back then. Thirty might seem pretty old or grown-up to you right now – but we were still kids too, in our own way. And, Brian and I butted heads a lot about how we thought the job should be done or what was happening on a certain case … how to approach it."

"You butt heads with everyone," Jack mumbled again.

She snorted at that. "Is that so?" she asked but he didn't respond and she just shook her head. "Cassidy decided sex crimes wasn't what he wanted to be doing. It's a hard job. You see a lot of things. Back then, I guess he wasn't ready to see them or cope with them. So he moved on. I stuck around. And, really, I hadn't had much contact with Brian for years and years but we ended up sort of working a case together this past spring. In the course of it, he got shot … in front of me. Twice. In the chest. I rode in the ambulance with him and Brian's heart stopped beating on the way to the hospital – cardiac arrest. He was technically dead. But they managed to revive him. He made it through surgery and his recovery.

"Something like that is a long road, though, and I don't think he's quite the same. He's not the man I knew back when we were young detectives. They've kept him on disability leave – and I haven't had much of any contact with him since then. But he showed up a few weeks ago at work and he's trying to get back to work. He thinks he might want to come back to Special Victims and my captain has actually approached me about if I think I could be partnered with him.

"So I think there was a lot going on in his head when he decided to come over, Jack. He doesn't have a lot of people in his life. He's gone through some trauma this year. And, I think he's really trying to get me onboard with the idea of him coming back to SVU, which for the record, I'm not sure is the best idea. But I don't think he was really thinking straight about my situation and what might be going on here when he came over. He didn't mean any harm, though."

"How come all your friends are so fucked up?" Jack muttered.

She let out a small laugh at that and shook his legs some more. "Good question. But I think working in the jobs we do for as long as we have is a contributing factor."

"You all need therapy," the teen said.

She snorted. "I'm pretty sure we're all in therapy, sweetheart. And there's nothing wrong with that either."

She actually thought Jack needed some real therapy too. After she managed to get him onto her health plan, she fully intended to figure out some way to have the uncomfortable conversation with him about him utilizing the counseling services that were covered. She knew it was likely going to go over like a tonne of bricks. But it was apparent to her that the teen needed some counseling and therapy above-and-beyond anything she would be able to provide him.

Jack had some issues he really needed to work through – and if he didn't, she had real concerns about his emotional stability as an adult, his self-worth and self-esteem as he started entering the working world and his ability to have a meaningful relationship with a woman, let alone start his own family. There was too much anger and hurt in the boy on so many levels and he was really teetering on the edge of not being able to be called a boy anymore. He was already a man – though she wouldn't define him as a grown one.

"Here's the deal with Christmas as a grown-up, though, Jack," she said and looked at him again. "It doesn't matter how old you are – part of you is always going to want that Christmas when you're four, five, six, seven and everything was still magical. When you still got presents and Santa still came and you got to play with toys under this tree that seemed huge. And, if you didn't have that growing up – then you want that Hallmark version of Christmas that all the media brainwashes us into thinking exists. But the reality is as you get older – and if you aren't in a relationship and you don't have kids of your own - Christmas really isn't much of anything than just another day, if not a little depressing day. And, if you're an only child – like me and Alex and Brian – you don't even have siblings to invite you over to take part in their families things. You're just – alone. Sometimes you find ways to get friends to invite you over. But being that adult single person at the dinner table of someone who clearly felt a little sorry for you – it's not the best feeling either.

"You know … I think Alex wanted a taste of that four-year-old Christmas for once and that's why she wanted to come over. Based on how Brian's been out there playing with Benji under the tree for the last 20 minutes – he wanted some of the same. And, I don't blame them Jack. It's something I've wanted for a long time too. I know you had a few really bad and lonely Christmases. But it gets worse, lonelier, more depressing as you get older. I don't want you to have to experience that, though. I want us to be a family and to have more Christmases like we did today. And, when you're my age – which will creep up on you a whole lot faster than you think – my hope is that you'll have been married … five to ten years and you'll have a little boy or two of your own to play with under the tree. I don't want you to have to be coming out to random friends' houses to try to get a taste of it. Because all Alex and Brian are getting out there is a taste. I really know that now after what we had together this morning. That's something really special that they are missing out on."

Jack just stayed quiet. She let him lay like that for a few more minutes before she shook at his legs again.

"So do you want me to go and tell him to leave?" she asked.

Jack shrugged. "I guess not."

She gave him a small smile. "That's nice of you, Jack. It's grown-up and I think it's in the real Christmas spirit. And, I actually think if you come out and visit with everyone – you might find you kind of like Brian. I don't know if your interests would jive. But you've definitely got similar personality types – a little rough around the edges."

Jack snorted at her at that.

She rubbed at his legs again. "Why don't you come out and say 'hi' – and get that tshirt Benji gave you. I think he'd really like if you put it on. And, go have a hot shower – warm yourself up – deal with your bed head, get dressed and then come have Christmas dinner with us?"

He shrugged. "OK," he said even more quietly but did move slightly and look like he was preparing himself to sit up.

She gave him a thin smile. "Good man," she told him.


	100. Chapter 100

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Hey," Olivia snapped sternly as she came back out of the bedroom and her eyes fell on Benji. "You do not do that!"

The little boy was chattering make-believe arrest talk at Cassidy, who was sitting with his back against the foot of the couch and his hands held in the air, while a gun was being pointed at his head.

Olivia strutted over to the two of them quickly and snatched the plastic toy that had come in the play set Jack had given his nephew out of his hand. Benji immediately wringed at that and stamped his foot as his eyes started to water.

"Mooooooommmmieeee Foooox," he wailed, as she pulled it away from him. He kept reaching for it and whining.

"We've talked about this today," she said sternly and took the toy over to the bookshelf in the room – placing it up on the top shelf well out of his reach. He followed after her grabbing at her waist and crying and stamping his foot – moving towards meltdown. But she stood her ground.

"I told you, Benji," she said again. "You do not point guns – even toy guns – at people, especially at their heads. That was just strike number three. So you're taking a time out from that toy until you think you can listen."

"Mommmmmieee," he wailed harder and clutched at her, tears starting to stream down his face.

She just grabbed at his wrists that were grabbing at her and held them firmly until he looked at her – giving him eyes that were trying to be calming but also trying to make sure he understood just how serious she was.

"No Benji," she said again. "You knew the rules. You broke them. Time out."

He wailed harder. But she just shook her head and shot a glare at Brian.

"You shouldn't be letting him do that either," she told him harshly.

Cassidy shrugged. "Sorry. I didn't know the rules. And, I'm used to your partners pointing guns at my head."

She glared at him harder at that comment but she didn't get the chance to shoot back a smart-ass comment or to chastise him further. Jack had come into the room and Benji went running at him with tears streaming down his face.

"'Livia stole your toy, Peedg," Benji blubbered at him, hugging against his legs and pointing at the shelf where she'd put the gun.

Jack looked at her questioningly but she met his eyes with just as much firmness as she'd given the little boy.

"He was pointing the gun at Brian. That was strike number three. The gun is taking a time out until Benji thinks he is ready to listen to the rules about that toy," she informed Jack firmly.

She thought it was cute that Jack had gotten Benji that police play set and she did get a bit of a kick out of the little boy wanting to play with it. It felt good that in a way he was wanting to mimic her or at least her career. Though, she did work in a male-driven environment that most little boys went through a phase of fascination with, so it might not have much to actually do with her. Still, she almost wished Jack hadn't gotten him the set, or at least that it hadn't come with a gun. She knew that wasn't likely realistic for a police play set. A plastic gun would be a toy that a little boy would want. But she'd sort of decided she didn't want Benji playing with guns. She didn't much like Calvin having wanted to play with toy guns while he was in her care. She'd actually put the Nerf gun he'd left behind at her apartment up and away after Jack had teasingly pointed it at her. If a teenager was going to do that jokingly, it was going to be something that a little boy wouldn't even think about.

Guns weren't toys to be played with, as far as she was concerned. Benji needed to learn proper behaviour, fear and respect for the fact they were weapons that could seriously harm or kill people. Even if his was just a toy – there were lots of real guns out there.

If Benji hadn't been so excited about the set when he opened it, she likely would've snatched it away. She wished she'd maybe talked to Jack a bit about that ahead of time. But he didn't know – and he'd grown up on a farm near the Finger Lakes. She was sure he'd likely handled guns or been taken hunting growing up. He likely just thought of it as a toy and not much more. So instead of snatching the toy away, she'd gone on a bit of damage control and tried to lay down some initial rules until she could sit down Benji at a more appropriate time to have a real chat about guns and weapons and good guys and bad guys. But even with the rules she had laid down, Benji didn't seem to be hearing her, understanding her or just not listening to her.

Jack though didn't say anything to her at Benji's accusation about her wrongdoing. He just shrugged and pulled his little nephew away from him a bit.

"Olivia's your Mommy – you have to listen," he said flatly and having extracted himself, kept heading towards the tree where he'd left the Element tshirt that Benji had given him.

Olivia wasn't sure if Jack really liked it. He hadn't said anything bad about it – but he also hadn't put it on. But really, Jack hadn't much touched any of his gifts after opening them and examining them under the tree. The phone and the book was about as far as he'd gotten. And, really, Olivia had let Benji pick. It was from the little boy to his uncle. So it was a four-year-old's opinion on what was cool and what Jack would like. It might've been flawed but Benji had been trying and excited to get to pick for Jack. She hoped that Jack appreciated that. She'd give him that he had been appreciative and faux-excited when he opened it, and had thanked the little boy.

But as surprised as she was that he was actually listening to her request that he come out and get it to put on for dinner, what he'd said to Benji took her off guard a bit more. She knew it shouldn't. Not in a way. He'd given her enough little– and not so little – indications in the presents that he was accepting her as having that role for his nephew. Hearing it come out of his mouth was different, though. It felt like another step to making it all a reality. Still, she felt herself almost gape at him a little as he made his way through the living room. He didn't make eye contact with her, though – likely purposely. After all, she wasn't supposed to be making a big deal out of anything that day. She'd likely made a bigger deal than he would've liked already.

Benji, though, didn't much seem to notice or care about Jack's comment and had fallen to his knees on the ground to whap at it with closed fists in an all-out tantrum about the toy that had been taken away from him. Olivia could see Alex cringing in the kitchen and likely suddenly feeling rather relieved that she didn't have a child she was responsible for.

"Benji, don't do that," she sighed and got down to his level. "You're going to hurt your wrist," she told him, grabbing his arm that was still encased in the brace to still it before he jarred it so badly that they'd be spending their night at the hospital waiting for xrays and God knows what else.

"Mooooooommmie," he wailed again and threw himself at her. "Pleeze, Mommy, pleeze. I be good now."

But she shook her head and rubbed at his sobbing back. "No, Benji. That toy is on time out for the rest of the night – and we'll talk about it tomorrow and see if you're ready to listen and follow the rules."

"Mooommmmie," he cried.

"Hey, hey, hey, Big Man," Brian called out at him, though the little boy ignored it at first. "Stop all that. Just go pick out another toy and I'll play that with you instead."

Olivia glanced over at Brian and met his eyes briefly but he just gave her a shrug. It was like he was trying to make up for his wrong-doing by not having stopped the child from doing something he didn't know Benji wasn't supposed to be doing. But even with that, she wasn't sure how Cassidy could stand having a gun pointed at him – especially his head – anymore, a toy or otherwise. Maybe whatever counseling he'd been having to participate in was actually working. Maybe she needed that counseling. She didn't think hers ever went that well or resolved much of anything.

Benji, though, did look over to the man at his offer to play another game with him and sniffed his teary-stuffed nose against her, rubbing it on her shirt a bit. But he then crawled back over to the tree to look at his other options.

Olivia gave Brian a small nod of thanks at having managed to dissipate the situation, at least for the moment. Benji was still sniffling and teary over by the tree but he wasn't in an all-out wail now. She hoped it would stay that way. So she moved to get back up and go back to the kitchen.

Cassidy, however, appeared to have moved to eyeing where Jack was shuffling through his little pile of presents under the tree in his collection of the tshirt and apparently the pair of socks and the belt she'd had in his socking too.

"It you that got Halo for Christmas?" Brian directed at the teen casually. But to Olivia it was a comment that made clear that he had been taking in the room while he'd been sitting there and playing with Benji.

She also felt herself almost freeze, though. Her mind was quickly churning about if she should step in and redirect the conversation. Brian would also have no idea the potential landmine he was stepping into with Halo. Halo wasn't just some videogame for Jack. It was a connection to his father. But that wasn't something Brian could possibly know – and might not even realize until the entire living room blew up with Jack's emotion on the matter. She'd just managed to spool Jack down and get through a preschooler meltdown – she didn't want to have to do a third round. She just wanted to get dinner on the table and for them to eat.

Jack glanced at him over his shoulder and shrugged. "Yeah."

"Tried it out yet?" Cassidy asked.

Jack gave a small headshake to that.

Olivia had been sort of surprised that with how the teen had gone at the packaging when he'd seen that game, that he hadn't spent the afternoon playing it. She'd initial thought he was just afraid that Benji might want to play too, which would likely take away from the gameplay experience. But as the day went on, she suspected it had more to do with Jack's emotional state that day. He was teetering in a lot of ways – and he didn't want to reach tears in front of her again. So a game that reminded him of his father was out for the moment. She hoped it wasn't out forever. He'd seemed so excited to see the game there for him. He deserved to get to play it – and as far as she was concerned, he was very much allowed to be thinking of his father, especially at Christmas. And, she'd much prefer Jack focusing on happy memories of time spent doing something fun with his dad rather than dwelling on the pain and sadness of his loss.

"It's M," he said quietly and gave a small nod towards his little nephew. Olivia saw it but she wasn't sure she bought that excuse. Benji had been so absorbed in his own toys that afternoon, he wouldn't have much been looking at whatever was on the screen anyways.

Brian gave a small nod to that though. "It's supposed to be good," he said. "Heard it's a masterpiece."

Jack glanced at him again but seemed to have retrieved his belongings and stood. "You play Halo?" he asked.

"Who doesn't play Halo?" Brian shot back at the teen like he was being ridiculous.

Jack would know that Cassidy was about Olivia's age – about his dad's age. It sounded like Jay had played videogames with Jack – but wasn't very good and didn't really go out and play on his own. She wasn't sure that Jack would see playing videogames as something a 40-something year old man did. But she didn't see skateboarding as something that 30- or 40-something year olds did, yet she'd been getting to meet some who fit just that description and didn't seem that immature or that fried out of their heads. Still, Cassidy likely looked his age but didn't really dress it. Or at least he wasn't dressed it at the moment really. And, as far as she was concerned, he'd always had a touch of immaturity to him. So maybe it wasn't that surprising that he played videogames.

She wasn't sure when he'd have time. But she also supposed that they all found things to tide them through the night and their insomnia after years of working the jobs they worked. For her it was being a work-oholic, reading case files excessively, handing out her cellphone number to victims habitually and taking calls at all hours of the night and going to meet them if they needed someone, and falling asleep in front of the television when all else failed. Or at least that's what she'd done to get by until a few months ago. Habits and coping mechanisms were changing quickly and some just weren't appropriate anymore. And, really, she wasn't having as much trouble sleeping lately as she had for years and years. But maybe for Brain, it was videogames that provided the distraction to pass the time and to get through the night or to get to sleep.

"She got a system here?" Brian asked Jack with a jut of his head off in her general direction.

Jack eyed him for a moment from where he was standing still having not made as hasty retreat back to the bedroom or into the bathroom.

"Yeah. My Xbox's here," he said quietly.

"If you're good with popping it in and want to do some multiplayer campaigning, I'd be interested in checking it out after Big Man gets bored of me," Brian said and directed his eyes back to where Benji was working on pushing a box over to him.

Jack squinted at him and scrunched his face in a way that was so similar to Benji that Olivia was sure she was seeing what it was going to look like on the little boy's face in another 15 years. She again feared that the teen might teeter over at that innocent offer – or request – from Cassidy, but finally the teen just shrugged.

"Yeah, maybe," he mumbled and headed back towards the bathroom.

Cassidy nodded. "OK, yeah, maybe," he said drily to the kids back – earning a snort from the teen. But the man just looked to where Benji had pushed the box against his leg. "OK. What we got here?" he asked and picked up the box to examine it. "Looks pretty cool, Big Man."

"You make race car ramps," Benji informed him.

Brian nodded and held up the set above his head and in Olivia's view over the back of the couch.

"You saving this for later, Liv? Or can we crack it open?" he asked.

Olivia looked over from where she was working at setting five places at the table as they got towards the final countdown until dinner. It smelt pretty good to her. She hadn't had much besides sugary treats since breakfaster so her stomach was growling with the aromas more than she wanted to admit.

She eyed the box, though, and thought about it. She'd gotten Benji a preschooler block set that could be put together into different ramps. It was supposed to be the 'something to learn' gift. She knew it was stretching it but she hadn't seen anything else that had really jumped out at her as age appropriate – and she figured she had lots of other 'learning' type gifts for him in the books and the arts-and-crafts stocking stuffers and Play-Doh. She thought that the building and learning to put together a project – the dexterity and the eye-hand co-ordination involved - would at least teach him something or count towards his development … hopefully. And, after he did get the ramps together he'd have something to run his Hot Wheels and Tech Decks and Rescue Bots and Copper down. She actually wouldn't put it passed him to use the ramp as a slide for Flame too.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "OK, you can open it," she agreed. "But it's almost dinner – so don't expect to get it all done."

Brian glanced at her more at that. "You saying I need to get going?"

"No. I'm saying dinner is going to be in about 15 minutes," she said. "Benji, sweetie, dinner is soon. Playtime will be over and it will be time to sit at the table and eat," she added for good measure and to start getting the little boy thinking about it so there wasn't another fit in the works.

"There's lots of food," Alex interjected. "We're setting you a place. If you want to join us …"

Brian looked at Alex at that and gave her a small smile. "Yeah. I'd like that. Thanks."

Alex seemed to smile a bit back at him. Olivia wasn't sure she liked that. She didn't have the option of being interested in Brian at the moment – but she didn't much like having competition either. Not that it was a competition. But still.

She had history with Brian – she thought she might have feelings for him still. She really wasn't sure. It was an awkward situation. And, even if it wasn't an awkward situation, it wasn't anything she could act on at the moment. She had the boys to think about – and her job. Nothing was even workable – it wasn't even an option – if he was coming back to SVU, or worse, if he was her partner.

Alex didn't know that – but she didn't like either of them making eyes at each other. They so weren't each others types. Beyond both being fair – that's where it ended. Brian was too gritty for Alex's usual liking and Alex was too high-strung for Brian's. So he needed to turn off the choir-boy grin and she needed to stop giving him that blond school girl smile.

Olivia wondered if maybe she did need to fill Alex in on some of her and Brian's history – or make clearer the complications of her fraternizing with a SVU detective while she was ADA for the unit. No one in SVU needed extra scrutiny at the moment.

Brian's flirting though might've just been harmless – or maybe it was just him. Because he didn't keep the eyes locked with the other woman for long before he looked back at Benji and started to open the packaging, pulling out some of the little square blocks and other bits and pieces for the boy to excitedly examine. Olivia knew Benji would likely just be happy making a yard-stick with the blocks. That's what he did with his Duplo half the time. He wouldn't necessarily be interested in making a ramp immediately.

"Cass – don't take over," she called back to him again from the table. "It's supposed to be a learning toy. So let him … learn and direct."

He didn't look at her but nodded. "Sure," he mumbled and looked at Benji as he paged through the instruction manual that had come with the set. "See, Big Man, always look at the manuals. It creates the illusion that you know what you're doing. And that always makes the pretty ladies feel better about the situation."

He plopped the manual on the floor in front of the little boy. "So there's the ramps we can make. Which one do you think we should try?"

Benji gazed at the book – paging at it like he would a storybook but he finally jabbed his finger at a picture. "Dat one!" he declared. His tears had pretty much dried at that point and the gun seemed forgotten.

Brian leaned forward a bit a looked at it. "Good choice, dude. Your mom totally needs that accessory for her living room. Let's get to work."

Olivia watched as he sorted some of the blocks into piles and gave Benji a bit of direction while he continued to examine the manual. But she couldn't help but think his last comment sounded a little flirty towards her again – and she'd definitely noticed that whenever he spoke to the little boy he referred to her a 'mom', even though she'd now given him a bit of a glimpse at what her situation was.


	101. Chapter 101

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia gave Jack a small smile as he came back into the living area after he'd showered and had gotten dressed. It didn't look like he'd tried to do anything with his hair. It was still beyond damp and standing on end like about as far as he'd gotten was to rub his towel through it a couple times. But it was better than the bed-head he'd been sporting all day – and at least he was dressed.

He leaned on the island and looked at her but didn't say anything.

"Feel a bit better now?" she asked him.

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess," he offered.

Alex snorted at that and eyed him for a moment. "You clean up nice, Jack," she stated rather flatly and with a touch of irony to it.

But Jack didn't seem to take anything from it. He just glanced down at himself and his new thsirt. After Benji had picked the shirt, Olivia had made a point to pick the size – and had again picked one that she thought was more appropriate for Jack's frame than his usual attire. He'd pulled it on with his cords again, though, which would make it the third day in a row he'd chosen them as his bottoms. She thought they were likely ready for the wash at that point.

She was wondering if he was wearing them because she'd told him they looked good with his birthday shirt and had made a comment about them fitting him properly. Maybe he really hadn't realized how poorly his clothes fit – or did and just couldn't afford to shift to something more appropriate. She wondered if it meant they might be able to get him some jeans and other pants that actually fit? Or if that would run counter skater-culture or infringe on his skating abilities? Though, he'd protested that about the winter boots too – and he had ended up letting her purchase a pair for him. Not that he'd put them on yet – but they hadn't really been outside and he'd insisted on wearing the shoes he'd picked out to go with his suit to church. In the weather it'd been – and the snow battle that had ensued after Mass – she wasn't sure that was the best idea, especially since they hadn't even waterproofed them or sprayed them or anything yet.

They were still sitting in the little foyer drying out and she hadn't gone and taken a look at them yet to see if she'd just flushed more money down the drain. They were likely salvageable, though – and no matter how they cut it, they were still nicer than anything Jack previously owned, even if they would now already be showing their wear after just one use.

He held out the tshirt a bit to look down at it more and maybe for Alex to examine too.

"Yeah, she thinks I need to wear smaller sized clothes," Jack mumbled and examined the design on the front of the shirt. The way he was looking at it, Olivia actually was starting to think maybe he did like Benji's choice OK.

Alex snorted again at that. "She's right," she agreed flatly.

Jack just shrugged. "She's just trying to make me look New York," he said.

Olivia rolled her eyes, as she worked at finishing up mashing the potatoes. "Tell me what that even means."

"You look New York," he said and nodded at her and then nodded at Alex. "So does she." He jutted his head backwards towards where Cassidy was playing with Benji still. "So does he."

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow. "I think we all dress pretty differently, Jack," she said and looked at him.

He just shrugged again.

Alex shook her head. "I'm not even from New York," she informed him.

"Did they re-style you when you came here?" Jack asked.

Alex let out a small laugh at that but shrugged. "I had a new job. I got clothes to fit the role."

"See. New York," Jack said.

Olivia just shook her head at him. "People dress about every way imaginable in this city, Jack. You know that. You look pretty New York to me. I'm pretty sure you don't look like Horseheads."

He shrugged and reached out to grab a bread-and-butter pickle slice from the little relish tray that was still sitting on the island. Olivia slapped at his hand.

"Don't get into that," she said. "We're going to be eating in just a minute. Put that on the table."

He gave her a bit of a dirty look but listened – and then wandered around the other side of the island and gazed at the two women some more. Apparently he liked watching women work in the kitchen, Olivia thought. Such a man thing – he wasn't even offering to help. He was just loitering like a hungry baby bird. His stomach clock had clearly gone off. Hopefully that meant he'd eat Alex's meal without putting up a fuss about the food options.

"I think you or Gecko are trying to rebrand me Element, though," he stated flatly – now holding one hand against the counter and the other against the divider wall, and lifting his weight off the ground a bit, dangling a slightly mid-air.

Jack likely wasn't even thinking anything of it. He was just being a kid but the movement was definitely showing he had some upper body strength – years of lugging things around the farm, Olivia thought. But she was also cringing a bit at the movement. She'd noticed there was a bit of a dirty, greasy looking smear developing in those two places that she'd been wiping at. She'd been a little confused about where they were coming from. She'd figured it was from one or both of the boys – dirty handprints and finger marks were becoming the norm in the apartment. But this was the first time she was actually witnessing Jack doing his little acrobatic act – or at least registering what he was doing. She usually tried to ignore him when he was hovering in the kitchen on his weekend visits wondering what she was going to feed him.

She poked him in the belly and he dropped back to the floor. She shook her head at him.

"Don't do that either," she said and handed him a bowl of mashed potatoes to put on the table too. "And what's wrong with Element?" she asked.

He came back into the kitchen and she gestured where the crescent rolls were on the counter too for him to take over as well.

"Nothing," he said. "It's just that the tshirt, belt, beanie and socks are all Element. And it's the label that Gecko thinks I should wear if I'm going to go label."

"It matters?" she asked.

He shrugged. "I guess. People like their brands. Some are better than others with quality and stuff. And then there's sponsorship and stuff, if you're good. Gecko likes what Element represents, if I've gotta go label. But Volcom is pretty cool with their shit too."

"Jack …" she sighed and eyed him again with his language. He took a second to clue in that he'd sworn but then glanced at the floor without a response.

"I really like the socks," he said from where he was looking at his feet.

She snorted at that and Alex seemed to glance down at his stripes. She smiled and looked at Jack.

"Oh – he's definitely trying to re-style you as New York with those things," she commented. "Very Wall Street or very hipster? I can't decide," she teased.

Olivia shot her a look. "They're skater socks. I think …"

Jack allowed a quiet laugh at that. "They're socks branded by a skateboard company. But they've got reinforced heels and toes or something, I think. I just like how they feel. They just feel nice."

"All new socks feel nice," Alex said, having gone back to her efforts at carving the ham.

Olivia pulled down a few wine glasses and she glanced at Jack. "Would you like a small glass of wine with your meal, sweetheart?"

He eyed her for a moment but shook his head. "No. I don't drink," he said.

"I'm not going to report myself for giving a glass of alcohol to a minor with Christmas dinner," she told him a little teasingly.

But he shook his head again and looked down. "I don't drink," he said even more quietly.

She watched him and processed. She wondered if not drinking was because of his sister or because of his father. But she wasn't going to ask then. Jack let out a slow – and she sensed a little shaky breath – but he turned to the fridge and pulled out his bottle of Coke instead and then reached up to the cupboard to get a glass. She stepped over to him and put her arm around his shoulder in a small half-hug and gave it a squeeze. He tilted his head down like he was a little embarrassed and she ran her fingers through the back of his damp hair, smoothing it down a bit. But then she let him be.

She turned back to the island. "You want a glass of wine with dinner, Cass?" she called into the living room.

The man glanced over his shoulder. "What you got open?" he asked.

"The fancy stuff," Jack said loudly enough so Brian should hear.

She shook her head at him and pushed at his shoulder, giving him a momentarily stagger. "Says the man who doesn't drink." He allowed her a small smile while he made his way to the table, claiming himself and his Coke a seat. So she looked back to Cassidy. "It's just a red. There's nothing fancy about it." He gave her a small nod and she started to pour one for him too. "Benji – go wash your hands, please, and come to the table."

She watched the little boy go running over to the bathroom door – but she turned to Jack again.

"Jack – can you please go help him so he doesn't have himself covered in water for Christmas dinner," she requested of the teen and he wordlessly followed her direction. And she once again reminded herself that she really needed to get a step-stool for Benji in the bathroom.

Brian wandered over to the kitchen at the disappearance of the boys. "Anything I can help with?" he asked.

Alex laughed out loud at that. "He asks now," she commented and looked at Olivia.

He scratched behind his ear for a moment at that. "I'm a guest," he said flatly.

"An uninvited one," Liv muttered and she saw him eye her hard.

But Alex was the one to respond. "What do you think I am?"

"The hired cook?" he suggested.

She snorted at that and looked at her friend again. But the attorney held out the platter of ham and pineapple for him. "Why don't you be the hero and put that on the table for us all?"

Olivia had cleared off one of her end tables had dragged it towards the little dining table earlier to use as a bit of a serving table during dinner. It was a little makeshift. But at least it meant that no one would have to be getting up and down from their dinner to get food off the counter. She placed a little bowl of Dijon mustard there and put down some trivets to set the bean casserole on, following it up with the serving bowl of cabbage and a plate of the divided squash.

Alex was sipping at her glass of wine, as she watched all her efforts be placed on the table and everyone preparing to dig in.

Brian took his glass of wine off the counter and looked at the table. "There assigned seating?" he asked, glancing their way.

Olivia shook her head but nodded at the plate with the Coke next to it. "Jack claimed that spot already."

Brian eyed the table a bit more. "There's only four chairs," he commented.

She nodded at that as the boys came back out of the bathroom. "Benji will sit with me. It's fine."

Cassidy eyed her again for a moment and she could sense a bit of tension and embarrassment in him again. His lowered his glass a bit. "Are you sure, because …" he kind of gestured towards the door.

She shook her head and held out her hand towards Benji. "It's fine," she said again. "Little Fox, you're going to sit on my lap for dinner. Which place should we sit in?"

The little boy skipped over to his usual chair at the table – and she pulled it out for him and took a seat, lifting the little boy into her lap. It wasn't ideal. But it would do. Chances are Benji would've ended up on her lap for half the meal anyways after he was done poking at his plate – and he always found what she had on her plate much more interesting, even if it was the exact same thing as he was eating. And, she was getting used to eating around him – and managing not to drop her food all over either of them.

Alex and Cassidy took their seats, ending up sitting across from each other. All the better for them to make eyes at each other during the meal, Olivia thought briefly. But she wasn't going to make the boys re-organize where they wanted to sit just to separate the two guests. Really, at the little four-seater table there wasn't anyway to separate much of anyone anyway.

Brian looked around the table and reached for the serving dish that was closest to him. "This looks and smells fantastic ladies," he commented.

But Olivia looked across the table to Jack. "Do you want to say some grace, sweetheart?" she asked – and she saw Brian still his movements, dropping his arm and again look a little embarrassed about the situation he'd placed himself in.

"I SAY GRACE!" Benji volunteered and then nearly whapped himself in the forehead with the force of moving his hand there to do the sign of the cross. "Name of the Father and the son and the Holy Spear-at," he declared in the learned motion and words.

Olivia thought about stopping him and letting Jack take the lead. But she saw that Jack had blessed himself too – and so had Cassidy, which seemed to surprise her a bit. Though with his likely ancestry, it wasn't that surprising. There were a lot of Catholics in the city – practicing and not. Alex had also bowed her head for Benji's rendition of the prayer, so Olivia just let the little boy continue.

"Bess us Oh Laword for des eye gifts which we 'bout to receive from dye bunting true Christ our Laword. EH-MAN! In the name …" Benji recited excitedly bouncing on her lap with each word.

"Just a second, 'Jamin," Jack interjected. "I'll finish it," he said even more quietly and then sat there for a for several, long silent moments to the point that Olivia glanced up at him a bit and gripped Benji to try to still him.

"Thank you God for giving us a nice, safe place to spend this Christmas," Jack eventually said quietly. "And, thank you, for bringing good people into our lives – and for providing us with all this food to share together tonight." He sat quietly again and Olivia wasn't sure he was done but he eventually added. "Amen."

"Amen," Alex said and looked up to give the teen a thin smile – while Jack and Cassidy both completed their self-blessing.

"GRACE!" Benji yelled with enthusiasm.

Alex held up her glass. "A small toast before you're all subjected to my cooking," she said and glanced around the table. "To family, friends and a better new year than the last. Merry Christmas."

"Merry Christmas," Olivia agreed and clinked her glass before reaching across the table to clink Jack's Coke and then down to tap Benji's apple juice. She gave Cassidy a small smile and reached over to him as he finished cheers-ing with the teen.

He tapped his wine glass to hers. "Merry Christmas …" he agreed, adding quietly, "Thanks …"


	102. Chapter 102

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Liv," she heard and felt the shake on her shoulder. "Liv, I'm taking off."

She opened her eyes a bit and had a bit of a start as she saw a man looking down at her, and before her mind registered where she was, when it was, and who it was.

Cassidy allowed a thin smile. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you," he said. "I just wanted to say bye."

She rubbed at her eyes a bit and glanced at where Benji was sprawled against her and completely passed out too. The heavy copy of Winnie-the-Pooh they'd been reading had fallen to the floor. She hoped none of the pages had become crumbled in the tumble.

She glanced around trying to find the clock to see what time it was – but she quickly realized that the couch was still turned and facing the tree. She allowed a slow release of breath at that as some of the memories and the niceness of the day washed over her again. The tree was still lit up and the open gifts still resting under it for the most part. Though, she'd already moved her one frame to the end table in the living room. She was still going to have to find something to put in the Mommy&Me one and take it to get printed out somewhere. She had a couple options. But she was hoping maybe she could get something nicer or she liked a bit more in the near future. It felt like that would make it a little staged. She might just have to wait until something organic developed with the two of them. She really wanted to get something in there soon, though, for a variety of reasons – for all three of them.

The majority of Benji's new toys were pulled from under the tree and spread across the floor from his play too. She hadn't been bugging him about tidying up that day. She figured the next few days his toys were going to be a bigger disaster than usual in the apartment. They actually might be until they got into the new apartment and she got him introduced to the toy bin organizer that she'd purchased in the (likely false) hopes that his things wouldn't be constantly spread across creation.

But even without seeing the clock, she knew it must be late. After dinner, Cassidy had managed to coax Jack into letting him play the Xbox. Though, Olivia had cautioned him several times to just leave the teen alone. Jack had eventually relented but hadn't gone and retrieved Halo from under the tree to play with the man. She thought Brian looked a little disappointed about that but had still sat on the floor playing Skate with Jack while her and Alex worked at cleaning up in the kitchen and Benji tested out his watercolour set at the table. He seemed pretty absorbed in it even though it wasn't finger paint. Though, he seemed almost as excited about how murky the glass of water she'd put out for him to wet and rinse his brush was getting as he was about actually getting to paint.

He'd declared he was making a painting for Alex. So after they were through – Alex had joined her over on the opposite side of the couch from the guys to chat and to wait for the little boy to finish his masterpiece and for it to then dry. Even then it wasn't entirely intelligible what the picture was, though Benji claimed it was a Christmas tree and Rudolph. Alex had pointed at some different coloured lines and blobs pretended like it was clearly distinguishable as a reindeer and ornaments. Olivia oh'ed-and-ah'ed over a lot of Benji's art and wasn't sure she would've pulled it off on that one quite as well as the attorney.

Their little chat had turned into a long one, though, as they wound down from the day and enjoyed another glass of wine. Even long after Benji had come over into the living room – they continued to talk. The little boy had taken to playing more with his toys and bringing things back-and-forth to the couch for them to look at. Alex had finally said she should get going around 9 p.m.

The two guys had been so involved in whatever they were playing on the videogame system at that point – Olivia wasn't even sure they registered that Alex was leaving, though they'd both mumbled something at her. Jack had made brief eye contact with the woman and thanked her again for the birthday and Christmas gift cards, but only after Olivia had waved her hands at him and prompted him to do so. Cassidy, though, hardly glanced up from the game in his 'Great dinner. Thanks. Merry Christmas,' commentary. Olivia thought Alex might've been a little unimpressed that she didn't get a bit more out of the man.

Olivia was starting to get a little unimpressed that Cassidy was still there at that point. It had been a long day for her and she would've liked to have started working towards getting to bed – or at least getting Benji to bed. But with the uninvited company still there, the little boy seemed to think something Christmas-y might still be happening that late into the evening and didn't seem very interested in a bath or pajamas – let alone, actually laying down and going to sleep. She'd thought about starting to push Cassidy towards the door. But Jack seemed content in whatever the two of them were playing at – and she really didn't want to disrupt that, so she'd just left it, thinking she'd give them a bit more time and Brian would eventually clue in that it was getting into the evening, that her other invited company was gone, and that he would take off. So her and Benji had settled into reading on the couch. But it apparently had taken Brian a couple more hours to realize that maybe he should go home.

"What time is it?" she mumbled at him and moved to sit up, pushing Benji off of her and onto the couch gently. She rubbed at her eyes a bit. She was sure she looked a mess at that point. But she was glad he was leaving – and hoped she could either get Jack shuttled off to bed too, or she could claim the opposite side of the bed in the room with Benji and hit the sack again.

"Just after 11:30," he said.

"Just?" she said drily and shook her head at him. "I'll walk you to the elevator," she mumbled and stood up.

"I'm OK," he said, as he headed to the door to retrieve and lace up his boots again.

But she followed after him and stood watching.

"I'll walk you to the elevator," she informed him again as he straightened and she looked over to Jack. "I'm just going down the hall, Jack. I'll be back in a few minutes."

The teen made a noise that at least acknowledged he'd heard her but it was definitely a non-verbal response. She shook her head a bit but pulled open the door and gestured for Cassidy to get out of her apartment – finally. She actually had a brief thought of just closing and locking the door in his face. But she did step outside with him and he eyed her some more. She wrapped her arms around herself and started down the hall with him following slowly after her.

"Thanks again for letting me come up and stay for dinner," he said.

She glanced at him and nodded. "No problem," she offered and slowed her pace a bit to match his. "Thanks for bringing Benji the gifts. The hat's really cute."

"I would've brought something for Jack. I just didn't know …"

She shook her head. "He didn't notice or care. It's fine. But thanks for acknowledging him and spending some time with him too."

"I would've preferred to spend some time playing Halo," Cassidy mumbled a bit.

She shook her head. "That wasn't going to happen, Brian."

"He just like looking at the packaging or something?"

She sighed and shook her head. "It's a long story. I don't want to get into it."

"What's the deal with him? You taking guardianship of him too?"

She nodded and rubbed at her eyebrow.

"How old's that kid?"

"Nineteen. He just turned 19 the other day," she allowed.

"So he's an adult?"

She snorted and looked at Cassidy. "Did Jack seem like an adult to you?" She shook her head. "You can take guardianship of kids up until their 21st birthday – just like parents supporting their kids through college."

"So you're randomly … adopting … an adult teenager and his nephew?"

She sighed. "They aren't random, Cass. But it's my personal life – and no offence, but I'm not discussing it with you."

He let out a loud sigh at that and placed his shoulder against the wall, just ahead of the elevator call-buttons, blocking her ability to push them and get a car up there and him on his way.

"You working tomorrow?" he asked.

She eyed him and rubbed at her eyebrow and looked at the ground. "I'm on-call."

"So what are you up to?" he posed.

She snorted and looked at him. "Why?" He just shrugged, though. So she sighed and shook her head. "I don't know. We have a lot to get done this week."

"What a lot?"

She rolled her eyes. "You want a list?"

He shrugged again. "Sure."

She snorted. "Ah. OK. Well, I've got work, Jack's got work, Benji has daycare. I need to get Benji into a doctor to get some updated immunizations to get him registered for kindergarten. I need to start packing – because I'm moving …"

"Where?" he interrupted.

"Upstairs," she said flatly. "Bigger apartment. And, I need to get Jack moved into residence."

"He's moving out?"

"He doesn't live with me. He's moving out of his apartment and into residence for the winter term. … And that's off the top of my head things I need to get done this week. But I'm sure other stuff will come up. It always does."

Cassidy eyed her a bit. "I can help you move upstairs, if you want," he offered.

She snorted and shook her head at that. "No, I've got help. Thanks."

"And an extra pair of hands wouldn't make it go faster?"

She just shook her head. Elliot was helping. She wasn't sure she needed to add Cassidy's re-emergence to the mix in her and her former partner trying to re-establish a friendship. Elliot would either ask her questions about what was going on between them, which would just piss her off on so many levels. Or she'd have to tell him that Cassidy was potentially coming back to SVU and possibly becoming her partner – and she didn't think that would do great things for Elliot's mental state. Not to mention, Alex had volunteered to help out too – and she wasn't really sure how much she wanted the detective and the attorney hanging around each other.

"OK – well, I've got a truck too, if you need help moving Jack instead," he offered as an alternative.

She eyed him a bit at that. "What happened to your car?"

He shrugged. "That was the city's. U.C. vehicle. Not in my possession anymore. It was a cover."

"But you are still sinking money into a car in Manhattan?" she teased a little. She'd done that for about a year – unto; she realized that she was spending ridiculous amounts of money on parking and insurance for a vehicle she was rarely taking out. Oh – and it being used to try to frame her in a murder – had done something for her decision to get rid of it too.

"No, I'm sinking money into building a cabin on a piece of land I bought upstate. The truck is just to drag my shit up there."

She examined him at that. "You know how to build a cabin?"

He shrugged. "I didn't say I know how to build a cabin. I said I'm building a cabin."

She snorted at that. "Sounds great – and I'm sure you get lots of time up there with the hours a detective pulls."

"I got lots of time up there this fall," he said flatly. "You should come some time. In the spring. Bring the kids."

She sighed and looked at the ground. "Brian …" she muttered.

Maybe she'd been reading a bit too much into the bits of flirtiness between Alex and Cassidy based on that comment. Some of the vibe had been coming more from the attorney than from Brian. Brian had just been being himself. He eyed pretty much anything that moved. She found it inappropriate and a little disgusting. It made her unimpressed with the twinges she'd found herself feeling about him and the ripples of jealous she'd felt when she'd seen Alex measuring him up a bit too. Normally she wouldn't tolerate that in a man.

"What?" he asked.

"You know what," she spat at him and met his eyes. "I'm not available," she said purposefully again.

He let out a breath and watched her a bit. She kept the eye contact but it was hard. She felt some stirrings with the way he was looking at her. She knew the look – and it wasn't a look you gave a potential on-the-job partner. She couldn't do it so she looked away and back to the floor.

"Would it make a difference if I didn't come back to SVU?" Cassidy asked after several long, awkward seconds. She could still feel his eyes on the top of her head the whole time.

She shook her head but also felt herself shrug. Maybe it would make a difference. It would make it at least an option – maybe, at some point. But it really didn't make a difference – not with where she was at with establishing a home for the boys and getting them settled into a more normal life. It was just bad timing. Her and Brian just … wasn't an option.

"No, Brian," she said quietly. "I have the boys to think about."

"So you just aren't going to date for the rest of your life?"

She sighed and met his eyes. "Cass it's not personal …"

He laughed and looked down at that. "You've told me that before," he said.

She rubbed at her eyebrow at that – and almost felt her mind turning back the clock to him leaning on Elliot's desk while she worked on her make-up to get ready to go on a date and she told him the exact same line.

"It's really not, Brian," she said quietly. "My focus is just elsewhere right now."

"So you're telling me you aren't feeling any of this?" he gestured between them. "You aren't even curious if it could work this time?"

She sighed harder at that and looked down again. She could feel it – but she didn't really want to think about it. She'd felt it working with him in May. She'd felt it even more after he'd been shot. It had only intensified with the kiss – and she'd certainly wondered since then. But she hadn't let herself think about it. She couldn't dwell on it. And – now – it just wasn't even an option to be explored anymore. They'd both missed their window of opportunity. So she certainly wasn't going to admit it.

"Cass – we don't even know each other anymore," she sighed. "And, really, even knowing that this is where your head is at, makes me really uncomfortable with you talking about coming back to Special Victims and the Captain talking at me about if we can be partners. Clearly – we can't."

"You know me," Cassidy stated, ignoring the rest of her comments.

"What do I know about you Cassidy? Most of the knowledge I have about you is 13 years old and even that was limited. We didn't spend a lot of time chatting. Oh – and you have a truck and a piece of land upstate. Your mom knits. That's about it."

He shrugged. "Good start. What do you want to know?"

She sighed and shook her head and looked at the floor putting her shoulder against the wall too to look at him. "Nothing, Brian. The less I know – the better at this point."

She didn't want to learn more about him that might endear her to him. She didn't want to feel like she was missing out on something or having to give up one opportunity to be able to have another she so wanted. She didn't want to get that close to another potential partner either. She just wanted to drop this – to pretend that they hadn't had that one night together 13 years ago, to pretend it hadn't stuck with her, to pretend that there wasn't some sort of chemistry or something drawing her to him again now. She really didn't need to know anything more about him – at all.

"There must be something you want to know," he pressed.

She shook her head in some disgust. She didn't even know why she was still standing there having this conversation. It was her building – her apartment was just back down the hall. She didn't need to keep participating – she could go home and to bed. But she sighed and looked at the ceiling.

"OK. Why do you know so much about Transformers?" she asked.

He clearly suppressed a small laugh at that and looked at her. "Out of anything you could've possibly asked there – you want to know why I know about Transformers? You had a clean slate there – and that's what you're picking?"

She nodded. "I told you – there's nothing I want or need to know right now. So, if we have to play 20 questions – that's what I'm asking."

He snorted at that but shook his head. "OK," he said flatly. "Transformers was on when we were kids, Liv."

She rolled her eyes. "Transformers was not on when we were kids," she countered.

He nodded. "Yes it was. It was a cartoon. It started airing … when we were 13 or 14 likely."

She shook her head harder at that and examined him. "You were watching cartoons when you were 13 years old?" she mocked. "Why am I not surprised?"

He leaned his head against the wall at that and gave her these eyes that both expressed his distaste with her comment and relayed that he thought she was ridiculous. "And what was the sophisticated Olivia Benson watching when she was 13?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Not cartoons. Maybe Knight Rider."

Cassidy snorted and took his turn to roll his eyes. "And you had a poster of the Hoff up in your bedroom, didn't you?" he said drily and almost a little too harshly.

She gave no reply but eyed him more and he just kept the eye contact very nearly glaring a hole into her. She didn't think he was doing a very good job at winning her over if that's what he was even attempting to do at that point. She got the impression that some of his interest in her was coming in waxes and wanes as he interacted with her again.

"You know, Liv – I think maybe I know you better than you know you," he said after a long silence of their shared glare.

She snorted at that and shook her head. "I don't think so, Brian."

He nodded. "I do. I know you date all these guys in suits. These Wall Street guys and these lawyers and these media types – and then you wonder why you're in your mid-40s and single. Maybe it's because you spend so much time fucking running away from who you are and what you are – that you skip over spending time with people who actually get you. Get what you do, what you've seen, what you've been through."

She watched him again – and tried to come up with a reply. But it was an answer she'd created for herself years ago and she'd stuck with it.

"I've dated cops before, Brian," she said flatly. "I stopped – not just because I don't want to get involved with people I have to work with, but because I do know the insanity this job creates. I work in that chaos – I live it. I don't want that outside of work. I want stability."

He snorted and gestured back down the hall. "Looks like you're doing a real good job at that. This looks really calm, not chaotic at all."

She shook her head at that and rubbed her eyebrow before standing up straight again. She wasn't going to be lectured by Brian Cassidy about how she was trying to create a family. She was providing the boys a hell of a lot more stability than they'd known for the previous three or more years. They had someone consistent in their lives who cared about them now – and they had somewhere safe to call home. That counted for a lot as far as she was concerned. And, having them in her life was providing her with more stability than she could even explain. It was giving her a new purpose and direction that she hadn't felt in a long, long time. It was a calm and a happiness she'd never quite experienced before. Her apartment may look a mess and the current living situation might not be ideal – but those boys were safe and they were generally happy and that counted for more than Brian clearly was capable of realizing. Another strike against him being ready to come back to SVU, she thought.

"OK, Brian – have a good night. I'll see you when I see you," she said and started to turn.

"You aren't getting me," he stressed at her as she moved to go.

She gave him another glance. "Bri – there's nothing to get. You and Cragen figure out what you are going to do about SVU. But I really don't think you coming back is the best idea – for more reasons than just this discussion we're having AGAIN now."

He sighed and slouched harder against the wall. "You aren't a fancy person, Liv. You may have grown up a faculty brat – but you didn't go to no Ivy League school. You don't have some fancy degree. You aren't working some six-figure job – you aren't even shooting for brass. You don't have the fancy clothes or the fancy things. You're the fucking illegitimate child of a falling-down drunk. You're a fucking cop. You're average. Maybe you're below average on the social scale. So why the fuck do you over look what you know so often and go after these assholes with a fat pay cheque and a nice suit?"

She didn't like him critiquing her life or pretending like he somehow got her because he knew some things about her past. They may work in the same profession but that didn't make them potential soul mates. And, again, his word choice had done more to piss her off than make his case. But Brian and words never meshed together that well.

She shrugged at him, though. "Well, it sounds like you know me pretty well, Cass – and it sure sounds like we aren't each other's type. So I guess it's not a bad thing that I'm unavailable."

He shook his head again and sighed hard. He looked somewhat hurt and defeated.

"Know what's been getting me since I ran into you and Benji …"

She knew it was a rhetorical question but she piped up anyway. "No, Bri, I don't – and I really don't care at this point."

He just gave her another glare. "Back 13 years ago – you said you probably weren't ever going to get married. You were the job. It took me quite a while to accept that – but I did."

She went back to watching him with that comment – her movements to leave stilling, and she made herself stop and listen to what he had to say, maybe against her better judgment. She rested her shoulder back against the wall and let him continue.

"But back then I thought, you know, by 32 – maybe 35 – I'd be married, have a couple kids. Thought I'd be one of those cop dads …"

"You mean absentee father who only shows up at a couple of his kids ballgames a season and spends it in the bleachers with more of the Blue Line swigging beer and cat-calling the other team," she said. She meant it half jokingly but Brian's face got an even darker cast to it.

"I wouldn't have been like that, Liv. I wanted a family – I wanted a wife and kids. I wanted that to be part of my life. I wouldn't have been … if I had kids, they would've seen me."

She sighed and looked down on that. It made her feel a little bad for him that he'd clued into that being what he wanted in his life while he was still young – but having not achieved it. She knew how lonely it was to be alone. But she also thought he had an idealized version of what being a junior level – third grade – detective and having a young family would've been like. She knew Elliot had the best intentions as a father – that he tried to be a good father in the way he knew how – but he'd still been an absentee dad in a lot of ways. It was like that in too many police families.

The more she thought about it – the more she realized Cragen was likely right, she couldn't expect to be a detective and a mom, not when she was doing it on her own. The hours and the flexibility just weren't going to mesh. It was proving hard enough to juggle it now. It would only get harder as Benji got older and had school and activities she needed to get him back-and-forth to. Not to mention, she just wanted to be there for him and to spend time with him. She couldn't be staying to work on a case until all-hours of the night. She didn't even like the idea of being called in to a scene in the middle of the night or it disrupting her weekend. The reality was that her priorities had shifted. Benji – and Jack – that was the priority now and was going to be for the foreseeable future. She couldn't be as dedicated to the job. She could still be there for the victims – but they weren't the absolute now. There were other people – just as important, if not more so – in her life now who needed her.

Brian might've thought he could have it all back when he was a young man – but he would've had to find an understanding wife and he would've had to been willing to make sacrifices. And, really, it would've been his family – his wife, his children, his marriage – that would've born the brunt of those sacrifices and become the scapegoats and the victims, the ones who sacrificed and missed out and lost just as much.

"What gets me, though, is now you're me and I'm you. I'm the job. It's all I've got. And now you actually do want a family – and you actually seem to have it."

She shook her head. "Yeah. We're the regular Waltons back in there. I might as well move out to Connecticut and get a nice house with a picket fence and I'll be living the dream, Brian," she said more than a little sarcastically.

He just stared at her, though. "I just mean – you figured it you. You changed. You aren't the person you were. I'm not either. But I really don't like where my life is at."

She sighed. "Cassidy – your life is fine. You're just … the shooting rattled you. Talk to your counselor. Get sorted. Maybe you really aren't ready to come off D.L. yet."

He looked at her. "I'm 43. I'm single. I haven't had anything that has resembled a long-term relationship since … I was patrol. And, I'm a benched cop. Who fucking knows if I'm ever actually going to get back on the job."

He sighed and shook his head but then hit it against the wall again, perhaps a little to harshly for Olivia's liking.

"Things will work out," she offered as some encouragement.

"Yeah? How?" he asked.

She let out a sigh and rubbed at her eyebrow again. "I don't know, Brian. Keep talking to Cragen and Munch. Talk to your rabbi. Just … keep reaching out to people – some one will put you on a desk."

"I don't want to be an ass-jockey," he said harshly, "and it's not just the job, Liv. Fuck. You were the only one who even visited me in the hospital – until you stopped visiting. And my mom. That's what I've got. That's all."

She shook her head and shrugged. "It's more than some people, Brian."

He looked at the ground and crossed his arms and then glanced at her. "I like what you have in there," he said and nodded back down the hall again.

"Ah. My chaos?" she said a little harshly after his previous comment.

He crossed his arms more tightly at that and seemed to be staring blankly past her, over her shoulder, back towards the door of her apartment – like he was thinking about what he'd gotten to participate in that evening and what he could potentially have if she'd let him back in.

"You don't even want to try?" he asked hoarsely after an extended silence.

"Brian – it's not that I don't want to try. It's just that it's not a possibility. Not with you trying to come back to SVU …"

"So tell me if there's a reason I shouldn't come back," he said and looked at her.

She let out a hard breath at that and shook her head. "Cass – I'm not going to tell you to make a career decision on a big what-if. And, like I've said multiple times now – the job isn't the only factor – there's the boys."

"I think the kids are fun. You having a kid … or kids … or whatever – it doesn't scare me. I want to get to know them too."

She sighed and looked down. Him saying that the kids were fun was likely just another nail in his casket. The kids could be fun – but they were a lot of work. She didn't need a man who thought kids were fun. If and when she tried a relationship – she'd need someone who knew exactly what was involved in parenting. It wasn't just cute moments under the Christmas tree. She hadn't been doing it for long but she sure knew that much. It was an emotionally draining and exhausting rollercoaster of coaxing, caring, mending, chastising, praising and tolerating. There were fun, happy, mushy, lovey moments that made it all worth it – but there was a whole lot of shit between each and every one of them.

But she didn't tell him that thought process. "It's too soon for the boys, Bri. They've been through a lot. They still have a lot to work through and I'm still in the process of establishing this family. I'm not going to be looking for a relationship for … quite a while. We can't keep having this conversation – and I'm really not going to have it with you again until I hear what you're doing about Special Victims. Because this is really inappropriate, Cass. We shouldn't even be talking about this."

"You don't think we could potentially have something?" he asked again.

She exhaled again. "Brian – I was there for the kiss too. I started it. I'm sorry. But now – the timing is all wrong. It's just … not an option. I'm not saying it again."

He eyed her in silence again but then nodded. "The more things change, the more they stay the same," he mumbled and then moved from the wall and pushed the button for the elevator.

She shook her head. "Bri – com'on, don't be like that. You get that it just doesn't make sense right now."

He nodded again. "Yeah. I hear you. I get where you're coming from," he said, his arms crossed over his front as he waited for the elevator.

"Then don't be like that," she said again more sternly. "We can be friends. Maybe we can even manage working together – we just can't …"

He nodded. "Yeah. Got it," he said. "It's OK. I'm used to feeling about you differently than you feel about me. Takes me back to being 30 again."

She sighed and slumped against the wall again, trying to meet his eyes. "Cass – if we'd talked in June, it likely would've been different. I just … can't now."

He nodded curtly again. "Yeah," he said as the doors opened. He gave her another glance as he stop partway inside to keep them from closing on him. "So thanks for dinner – and give me a call if you change your mind about either of the moves. Or whatever. See ya."

She sighed and shook her head at him, but shrugged. "OK. See ya," she agreed, watching him as he got the rest of the way in and the doors shut.

She almost felt like she wanted to cry – but she didn't much want to shed tears over Brian Cassidy, not when it wasn't when he was laying on his deathbed. She felt hurt but she also felt a little upset that he'd ended her Christmas that way too.

"Merry Christmas," she whispered as she heard the elevator start to move down its shaft.


	103. Chapter 103

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"That took a while," Jack muttered as soon as she got back in the door of the apartment.

She crossed her arms in front of her and examined the floor for a moment, composing herself again and readying herself to apparently get right back into Mom-mode without much of a break from it. Standing and staring at the elevator door for what must've at least been a couple minutes and walking slowly back down the hall had done little to reorganize herself and her emotions.

She was hating Cassidy a bit for bowling that over her at the end of a visit that had mostly gone OK. She was tired. She had so much on her plate right now. She didn't need him nagging at her and creating emotional confusion in the midst of it all. But she rubbed at her eyebrow, tucked a piece of her hair behind her ear and stepped more into Jack's view and just gave him a small shrug.

"We were just talking for a couple minutes, sweetheart," she assured him.

He glanced up from his game at that and eyed her with a deep consideration for a minute, almost like maybe he was the parent and he was checking her face for any signs she was lying – trying to determine if her assurances to him earlier in the day had been a fallacy. "About what?" he asked.

She just shook her head and walked more into the living room, grabbing her and Alex's wine glasses from the end tables.

"He's just … " she shook her head again and sighed. "I think the shooting and where he is in his recovery has him a little wound up and screwed in the head," she offered.

She gestured down at the bag of corn chips and bowl of salsa that Jack had sitting on the floor next to him. "Are you done with that?" she asked.

She didn't know how Jack and Cassidy had room to eat anything else after the massive dinner. They'd both tucked heaping portions of food into their bellies at the table. She'd been surprised that Jack had tried just about everything Alex had cooked – with the expectation of the squash. She learned that apparently all squash are 'beyond nasty'. He'd even gone back for seconds of the bean casserole. And, he'd eaten dessert.

The teen hadn't been too interested in the mincemeat pie – nor had Benji, who was determined to make sure he got to eat every last one of the Christmas cookies they'd baked. It was like he sensed that she was preparing to take them in to work and get them out of the apartment and he was trying to slip into a sugar coma before she denied him that opportunity. Jack, though, had taken a shining to Alex's re-gifted, re-gifted Christmas cake. He'd gone through about half the loaf himself at the table for dessert – and Olivia wouldn't have described what he was taking as slices. They were chunks that he was mashing up with his candy cane ice cream and devouring. It was actually a little disgusting to watch. He was so hunched over his bowl with his elbows on the table and shoveling the sweets into his mouth at one point she'd actually asked him, "Did you grow up in the barn – and not just on a farm?" He'd eyed her for a moment but seemed to realize what she was saying to him and sat up straighter and slowed down.

The boy was always eating like he was starving. It concerned her. She knew teenaged boys could pack away food but there was just something about the way he went at his food that didn't seem normal to her. He was thin but he wasn't gaunt and now that she had him in some clothes where she could actually see some of his body, it was apparent he had some muscle mass to him. He must be eating – but likely not enough and clearly not what his body wanted or needed. She'd seen his complexion change a bit since he'd come into her life too – and she started providing him with fruits and vegetables and sending home at least some food for the week with him each time she saw him. He wasn't quite as pale or pasty looking – but his skin hadn't settled into a look that was as healthy as Benji's had been evolving into.

Still, even with all the food he'd eaten at the dinner table, she would've expected that he'd be full for the remainder of the night. But at some point in his and Cassidy's videogame playing he'd padded into the kitchen and brought back the chips and salsa. She hadn't been watching closely enough to see if Brian had been eating them too – she suspected he would've at least had a bit when it was sitting right there. If he hadn't, though, Jack had put quite a significant dent into the bag all on his own.

He glanced up at her and then looked a little longingly at the chips like he really had to think about if he was done yet. Apparently mentioning the food was enough to distract him and get him off her case about Cassidy too.

"You might want some for tomorrow," she told him. "And, you really shouldn't be eating so close to when you're going to sleep."

He shrugged and looked back to the screen. "I'm going to be up for a while," he said flatly.

She didn't wait for him to give any direction on the chips and salsa at that point, though, and bent over the rest of the way to pick them up off the ground. He made no comment – so she just glanced at the screen as she headed into the kitchen to do what she hoped would be the final cleanup for that night. She didn't recognize what he was playing. It definitely wasn't Skate and it didn't look the way she imagined Halo.

"What are you playing?" she asked.

"It's just a racing demo I downloaded," he mumbled and revved the engine of the car on the screen and screeched the wheels. She could tell from the face he made that she'd likely distracted him enough that whatever he'd just done he wasn't happy with – but at least he managed not to swear.

"That what you were playing with Brian?" she asked, as she rinsed out the wine glasses at the sink.

He shook his head. "No. We played Skate for a while. He sucked. So we played Castle Crashers – more your generation, run-through beat 'em up crap. Amusing but boring."

She snorted at that and shook her head, as she opened the dishwasher.

"I'm likely going to put Halo in in a minute after I'm done this demo," he mumbled.

She watched him for a second and rubbed at her eyebrow. "It's almost midnight, Jack. Maybe you should think about getting some sleep. Start that game with a clear head in the morning," she suggested.

He just shrugged at her though.

She sighed. She could tell he was setting himself to stay up all-night again. She was actually starting to wonder if he just planned to pull all-nighters through his entire Christmas break and do nothing but go to work, eat and play videogames.

"Do you work tomorrow?" she asked.

He shook his head. "Nah. Gecko says you need at least two days to celebrate Christmas so he's keeping the store shut. Putting in some hours the rest of the week, though."

She nodded at that. Gecko didn't seem like a bad boss – or a bad guy. He was slowly growing on her. He seemed to like Jack – or just generally care about his employees and what he saw his store as doing for the community. She'd give him too that he'd been helpful in getting some of Jack's Christmas sorted – and she supposed he'd been helpful in getting her in touch with the teen during his disappearing act. She thought that the man understood that the kid had himself in a situation that he needed help with. She appreciated that he wasn't blind to it.

"Well – I won't let Benji bug you about playing Halo tomorrow, if you just want to call it a night," she tried.

He glanced at her at that. "I just … want to play it in alone time …" Jack said quietly.

She gave him a sad smile at that but shook her head and wiped off the counter. "I understand, Jack. But I don't think you're in the right headspace tonight. You're tired. I don't really want you sitting out here alone playing it at this point in the day. I'll get you some alone time tomorrow so you can play. I was thinking about taking Benji to a movie anyway."

He looked up at her at that. "What movie?" he asked.

She shrugged. "I haven't looked yet to see what the options are. Is there something you want to see too?"

His eyes went back to the screen and more racing sounds emitted – followed by what sounded like some sort of crash. "Django," he said.

She snorted at that – and shook her head at him. "Jack – do you really think I'm that old and out-of-touch that I don't know what Django is?" He gave her a blank, almost innocent look. "The new Quentin Tarantino movie? You think that's an appropriate movie to take a four-year-old to?"

"You know who Quentin Tarantino is?" he said.

She snorted again and looked at the ceiling. "Jack – I don't live under a rock. Some of his movies have been around about 20 years. Reservoir Dogs?"

"You like Reservoir Dogs? It doesn't seem like your kind of movie. You hated Seven."

She shook her head again and came back into the living room and lowered herself onto the cushion that Brian had clearly claimed for his ass in their hours of sitting on the floor with their backs against the rear of the couch.

"I forgot I'm the epitome of boring, right?"

He shrugged. "So what's your favourite Tarantino movie then?"

She watched as his sports car chased after a green line painted across the screen and he weaved in-and-out of traffic to avoid colliding with other vehicles.

"I guess Pulp Fiction."

"I would've picked Reservoir Dogs," Jack said quietly.

She gave him a small smile at that. "Maybe one night I can see if Alex can come over and play with Benji – or stay with him after I've got him to bed – and we can go to Django then," she offered.

Jack shot her a look but made a face. "No way. That'd be weird."

She rolled her eyes. "Why would that be weird, Jack?"

"Because you're like 50 …"

"I'm not anywhere near 50 yet," she interjected. She didn't want to think that that birthday was creeping up – and likely smacking her in the face far sooner than she anticipated.

"Whatever," Jack said dismissively. "You're old. I'm young. People will look at us funny."

"Oooh," she nodded. "You're right. At the holiday season it's really unlikely there would be any other mother-like people in the theatre with their teenaged sons. People are definitely going to be looking at us – and not the screen - and thinking we're dating."

"That's gross," Jack said but kept his eyes on the screen.

"And – again – you're the one who turned a nice – innocent – offer into something gross," she said and shook her head. She watched him play again for a moment. "I think Monsters Inc. is out. That might be a good option to take Benji to if it's at Kips Bay."

"I'm not going to that with you. Boringest movie ever. Turned me off Pixar for life," Jack mumbled.

Ah – she thought. That might explain some of his strong reactions to her getting the Toy Story trilogy and the Cars movies out of the library for Benji to watch. Overall she thought they were pretty good. She actually planned on working through most of them with the little boy over time as they picked a movie out on their library trips. She didn't really care that Jack didn't much care for them.

"I thought the point of me taking Benji to a movie was to give you some alone time," she said flatly.

He shrugged. "What about The Hobbit?" he suggested, apparently having forgotten the initial purpose of the movie at all.

She looked at him. "Have you read the book?" she asked.

"Dad read it to me when I was a kid," Jack said.

She nodded at that. "I'm not sure that's something Benji would sit through," she allowed. "It might be a little long and boring for him – and a little scary."

She heard Jack release a small sigh at that but he gave no verbal response. She watched his body language again for a bit and then watched what he was doing on the screen. She thought she might be better at it than the skateboarding game. It just looked like he was driving around in circles really fast. She could manage that. It didn't even look like he was really hitting any buttons on the controller but one of the joysticks to steer the vehicle. She actually thought it looked kind of fun.

"If you'd prefer to spend some time together tomorrow, Jack, maybe we could go up to your apartment, pack up some stuff, grab a cab and take a load over to residence. Get an idea of how much back-and-forth we're going to need to do this week, how much clean up or junk removal, if you need anything for living in the dorms so we can get out and pick it up."

"That doesn't sound like much fun," he mumbled.

She snorted and shook her head at him. "I wasn't finished. After we could go take advantage of the snow while it's here. Maybe go sledding in the park?"

He laughed at that and gave her a glance with some sort of smart-ass grin on his face.

"I take it you don't like that idea," she said.

His smile smiled to grow wider but he shook his head. "OK – first – YOU'D let Benji sled? You've been like … the concussion nutsy or something."

She rolled her eyes at that. "I thought we could pick up his skateboarding helmet at your apartment."

Jack laughed harder and looked at her. "You're going to make him wear a helmet to toboggan?"

She eyed him seriously. "I'm sure other kids will be wearing helmets."

He seemed to be trying to suck back laughs at that and his shoulders shook a bit. "I'm sure they won't," he said.

She shook her head. "Maybe not out on the farm – but I'm sure there will be kids in helmets in the city, Jack. And even if there's not – Benji will be in one. Maybe his wrist guards too."

He rolled his eyes at her. "Then he'll really want to go sledding," he said sarcastically.

"He won't know the difference unless you make a big deal about it in front of him," she told him sternly. "So don't say anything – and for him, it will be normal."

The teen shrugged at her. "Do you even own a sled?" he asked.

"No," she said a little defensively. She noticed, though, and calmed herself. She supposed some of her guard was still up after her chat with Cassidy – but she didn't want to be bringing that back into the apartment. Jack would sense it and the walls she'd been working on tearing down would start going back up. "I know a few places that I'm sure will have something we can pick up. If not – we'll make do. Cardboard box or something."

He snorted at that and looked at her again. "OK – that's the other thing. I've heard about you and tobogganing. I'm not sure I want to go sledding with you."

She watched him at that. It was the first time he'd really given her any indication about some of the stories his dad may have told about college or about her. She was straining herself a bit to think of what he might be referring to – but she thought she might have an idea. She wasn't sure he'd share more, though.

"What's that mean?" she asked, testing the waters.

He shrugged. "I'm not sure you know how to sled," he said flatly and gave her another look.

She allowed a small laugh at that. "I grew up in New York, Jack. Not only did I grow up in New York – my Mom was a prof at Columbia. I grew up near there. I did a whole lot of sledding at Morningside Park as a kid."

Jack gave another snort at that and looked at her. She gave him a smile. "You know Morningside Park?"

He nodded and looked back at the screen to spin his car around in circles with the smoke of burning rubber rising from the wheels and asphalt. "Yeah. City kids go down there too. I went last year … in the dark."

She rolled her eyes. She'd never been on the hill in a dark as a kid – she had a couple times as a teenager. But it was always apparent what the college kids were up to on the hill in their drunken antics. The cracked, broken and scattered dining trays, soggy cardboard boxes and just about any other household appliance or dorm room furniture that could be converted into makeshift sleds were always left scattered across the hill in the winter. Even if Jack wasn't drinking – sledding that hill in the dark had a certain thrill to it – though danger too.

"OK – so you know sledding isn't rocket science. I think I'll be able to utilize my lifetime of experience to get Benji to the bottom of Pilgrim Hill," she informed him.

"Without hitting a tree?" Jack teased after a couple beats and looked at her, waiting for a reaction. But then he smacked his palm against the side of his forehead and made some sort of dazed look, flailing his arms in the air and pretending to fall backwards before he looked at her more with a shit-eating grin.

She shook her head at that and watched him. "I don't know what you've been told – but I'm pretty sure you were misinformed."

Jack shook his head. "I don't think so. I can see it in your eyes. You know what I'm talking about."

She did. She shook her head more and looked at the ceiling. "I did not hit a tree," she mumbled.

"No hit – full-on, bounce-off face plant," he said and looked at her again with the same ridiculous smile on his face. He clearly thought he was winning some sort of battle here – of embarrassing her maybe, or of actually knowing some story from her past that she'd all but forgotten about.

"I did not do a face plant. At least not off a tree," she spat at him.

"So tell your side of the story," Jack teased. "I can tell you want to."

She looked at him and shook her head and held her hand up in the air near her face in some frustration. "Who sleds using a mattress, Jack?"

"Dad," he said and smiled like he thought it was the most brilliant idea ever.

"Yeah – your dad," she agreed, "and I think it will go down the history of Siena as one of the stupidest ideas ever."

Jack shrugged. "He said everyone did it. I think it sounds awesome."

She shook her head and rolled her eyes again. The whole night had been ridiculous. Getting involved with a group of students and taking the plasticized mattress out of the dorm room of a floor nerd, who seemed happy to let them potentially destroy school property assigned to him as long as he got to participate for the evening. Smuggling it down the hall and out of the residence without getting caught by one of the RAs or monks or an uptight student who would report them. Dragging it across campus and to the nearby park and up the hill to take turns flying down the hill on it.

It went surprisingly fast – but considering the weight of it, after it got moving, that wasn't that surprising. The guys had discovered if they stood back 10 or so yards and ran full-tilt at it before taking a flying leap onto it, they could make the thing bumper-car down the hill in an even more ridiculous manner. Others were jumping on top of it and trying to surf it down the hill almost like a giant uncontrollable snowboard. Some of them thought it was even better to leave their girlfriends sitting on the front waiting for them to make the leap and send both of them down the hill on the skidding, twisting, wild makeshift sled.

Olivia had already gone down a couple times with a group but had decided to take on her own flying leap at the mattress. She wasn't going to let the guys have all the fun. That had been a bit of a mistake and had ended up resulting in some embarrassment – and teasing for the rest of the winter, if not her university career.

"How do you control a mattress, Jack? You don't," she informed him.

He shrugged. "That's part of the fun. But I don't think anyone else ran the mattress halfway up a tree," he informed her and did his face-plant deflection bounce motion again.

"I did not do that," she told him again, but she couldn't help but smile at his imagined mimicking of what had happened to her. "I rolled off the mattress before it hit the tree," she said. "I just didn't stop right away."

"So you did face plant?" he stated flatly.

"Not with a tree," she said and eyed him sternly.

He nodded. "Yeah. You just rode a mattress into a tree and then eat snow for how far down the hill before you stopped?"

She rolled her eyes and whacked him in the chest with the back of her hand, giving no response. He had her version of the story – the more accurate version as far as she was concerned – pretty much figured out at that point. She wasn't going to add to it further. So she went back to looking at him play his game.

He raced around the track a bit and didn't bug her about it anymore. It actually looked like he won a race and then he flipped around through some showroom and picked another car, selecting a dark red paint job to go with it.

"What do you think Dad would say about all of this?" Jack asked quietly after a while.

She looked at him again but he just let her eye up the side of his head and ear while he kept looking at the screen and flipping around menus and pushing at buttons on the controller.

"I think your dad would be happy that you and Benji are in a safe place," she said after a while.

Jack gave his head a small shake. "That's not what I mean. I mean … do you think he'd be OK with all of this?"

She sighed and looked down at that thinking for a moment. She uncrossed her legs and stretched them out, reaching out and pushing down on her knees a bit for a second before meeting looking back at the teen. She rubbed at her eyebrow.

"Stop playing for a minute, Jack," she said and he gave her a small glance before looking back to the screen. She thought he was going to ignore her and she knew if he did, she wouldn't be saying this to him now – she wouldn't have this discussion now. But he flicked some more things around and a menu came up seemingly having paused the game and he set the controller on the floor between them. She looked at it for a moment and suddenly wondered if one of the controllers he had there was "Jay's controller". She figured one likely was and it was likely the one Jack had just set down. He wouldn't have let Cassidy touch something of his dad's. She reached out and handed it back to Jack, letting him still pull at the triggers and push at the buttons of the deactivated piece of plastic while she spoke to him. She thought he likely needed it.

"I've actually given that a fair amount of thought, Jack," she admitted and watched the teen carefully. "You know … your dad always had this way of getting what he wanted back then. It was an attractive quality in him – but it could also be incredibly frustrating. I liked your dad a lot. We were pretty different people though. I was … a lot more uptight than your dad was, at least how he was then. I was pretty focused on my studies – kind of like you, wanting to keep my scholarship money so I wouldn't have to depend on my mother or wouldn't have to wrack up even more debt than I already was. So sometimes your dad … he'd get me into these situations that I'd be so resistant to or just … hadn't wanted to participate in. But usually when I gave in I ended up having a really good time with him. I had fun. Your dad was a really fun guy. He was just … happy. He had this love of life about him. And he'd always given me a shit-eating grin – pretty much like the one you were giving me just now – and he'd tell me, 'Told you so' a lot."

She sat quietly again at that and looked at the ceiling for a minute. It was so strange to her the amount of thought she'd given to Jay over the past few months after not thinking about him so long. Now it was like some ghost was living with her. It was all these what-ifs.

What if she had been pregnant? What if she'd agreed to marry Jay? What if they'd moved back to the city together? What if she had a son and he was Jack's age now? Would it mean Jay would still be alive? Would she be working as a detective? How would've having a family – children – while she was young changed her?

It was all this wasted time spent on thinking about things that never could be. Sometimes it was hard not to think about, though – especially when Jack said something or gave her a look that made her feel even more like Jay was in the room with her. Or when she was holding Benji – especially when he was sleeping – and she thought about how she was clutching onto this little piece of Jay – that she now had something he'd wanted to share with her, something he'd wanted to give to her all these years later. He wasn't there to see it – but she was being tasked with taking care of it for him.

It was a strange feeling and sometimes she had to tell herself she was really reading too much into it. That all of it had just really been happenstance – and it really wasn't much of anything more than that. Sometimes she had trouble convincing herself of that too, though.

"I know I hurt your dad when I stood my ground and said that I wasn't ready for marriage, I wasn't ready to start a family - that I wanted to break up, that I wanted to go and live my life the way I wanted to live it. He didn't like those answers. He didn't like not getting his way," she said and gave Jack a thin smile at that.

He was looking at the controller, not her, though. Still she reached out and gave his shoulder a small rub and a little squeeze – more because she needed to offer that to him at the moment rather than him necessarily needing it or wanting the physical connection.

"He told me something a long the lines of 'You'll regret that decision' back then and I shot back something that amounted to 'I'll live with that.' And – I have. But I do have regrets, Jack. As I've gotten older some of them have become much more real – not having a husband, not having children. But, you know what I sort of think … I think your dad still found a way to get his fucking way," she said and shook her head at the ground, "and he's somewhere right now Jack with that shit-eating grin on his face saying 'Told you so.'"


	104. Chapter 104

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Why Santa don't come every night Mommy Fox?" Benji asked her.

He'd flopped himself completely on top of her. He was sitting on her lap facing her but he wasn't looking at her. He was carefully examining Optimus Prime and Heatwave – holding each of them up in opposite hands and occasionally butting the two toys together. They were clearly the winners of the Transformer war that had gone on the previous day in the sudden explosion in the number of the robots he had in his possession. He had too many really to even play with now. Though, when he was flopped in front of the play sets, he seemed to be doing pretty good at making sure all the toys got their chance. But when he moved away from the play sets – which wasn't happening that frequently yet – it was the two Rescue Bots that had come with the play sets that were being dragged away with him.

She bounced her knees under him a bit and played with his still damp hair. She'd done bath time in the morning after she'd gotten him up and on-the-go – after he'd missed that aspect of their routine two nights in a row. She knew she probably didn't really need to be throwing a four-year-old in the tub every night. But three full days between bathing seemed to be stretching it a bit. Generally, after a day at daycare, Benji was usually a bit of a mess. He seemed to be good at getting things all over himself. And, now that she'd picked him up some cheap bath toys for the tub – he seemed pretty content to get playtime in the tub each night anyway. Even with her being able to take the brace off him for his bathing now, Benji hadn't given her any indication that he wanted to switch back to the showers that Jack had had him taking. She was a little happy about that. Benji did a fairly decent job at bathing himself – but he still needed some help, especially with his hair, and she didn't much feel like trying to navigate that if he wanted to switch back to showering. That sounded to her like she'd end up soaked every night well before hopping into her own evening shower.

"If Santa came every night Christmas wouldn't be very special would it, sweetheart?"

He gazed at her and scrunched his face in consideration. "But it be very cool and very fun," he informed her.

She smiled and smoothed down his slightly damp hair some more. She thought she'd try to swing him by the barber one night after work that week too. His faux-hawk was a little long at that point and mostly looked like a floppy stripe in the middle of his head more than anything else. It wasn't as cute as it had been when she could easily get it to messy up and stand on-end for him.

"I don't think Santa's workshop could manage having toys ready for every night of the year," she said. "His elves would be working so, so hard to do that – and think of all the work they already have to do to make sure all the children get their toys one night a year."

"So when Santa come 'gin?" he asked.

"At Christmas next year," she said.

"When that?"

"In a year, Benj. Three-hundred and sixty-five days."

He gaped at her – his jaw falling slack and his eyes going big. "Dat LONG, 'Livia!"

She nodded. "It is long. It's a whole year. But, you know what, sweetheart? I think it's likely going to go by really quick. AND! There's lots of other things to look forward between now and next Christmas."

Benji butt his Transformers together again and then handed her Optimus Prime while he pulled at the ladder of Heatwave, making him transform back-and-forth between the robot and the fire truck. Olivia LOVED that she didn't have to transform them for him and that Benji seemed fascinated with his ability to do it so quickly and easily on his own. She'd sat watching him earlier in the morning while he lined up Optimus Prime, Heatwave and Boulder and just kept on doing the one-step switch back-and-forth on each. He'd sit and look at them proudly for a few moments – bouncing on his knees – and then he'd switch them back to their robots.

"What to look forward to?"

She put down Optimus Prime and grabbed at his little feet that he'd rammed against his butt in his straddling of her. She gave them a tickle and he shrieked in giggles, burying his face against her chest and then halfways rolling off her, kicking a bit in his fit now. But she pulled him back upright as he was still laughing and set him more across her lap, both his legs now hanging over the same knee. She gave him a small kiss on the temple as he started to still.

"There's lots of fun things to do in the city in the winter, Benji. And there's even more fun things to do in the summer. And there's your birthday in September. AND! There's Easter in a few months – and I'm sure the Easter Bunny will bring you something."

"What dee Eat-er Bunny?"

"EA-STER Bunny, sweetheart," she corrected gently. "He's a magic bunny that comes at Easter and brings you some treats."

"Like Santa? Because he a magic elf and his reindeer magic too."

She gave him a smile. "The Easter Bunny has magic kind of like Santa's."

"Bunny bring toys too?"

She shrugged. "I don't really know what the Easter Bunny brings, Benj. We'll have to wait and see. I think he usually brings chocolate and eggs, though. He fills up a basket like Santa fills up a stocking."

"CHALK-CO-ATE!" Benji declared and looked at her excitedly.

She gave him a fake equally excited face. "Chocolate!" she agreed.

Benji's eyes got bigger at that. "When dee Eat-er Bunny come?"

She snorted and shook her head. "I'm not sure, Benj. Easter's a different weekend every year. So we'll have to check and mark it on our calendar."

"I hope Eat-er soon!" he declared.

She rolled her eyes. "I think you still have lots of chocolate from Santa right now, Little Fox."

"How Santa and Eat-er Bunny find us if we move 'Livia?"

She sighed a bit at that. The superintendent had come up and given her the keys for the new apartment earlier in the morning. She really hadn't been expecting to get them that early – especially since it was technically before her lease began. But he'd indicated that management had decided to be almost human since she'd been a long-time tenant and was stuck paying for two units in the same building for January just with how things had worked out. She appreciated the week early accommodation, though she wasn't really sure how much she'd get to take advantage of it. At least she could start getting Benji acclimatized to the place – taking him up each day to just get used to it. She'd get to let Jack take a look at it too, which would be nice since he hadn't yet seen it. But she didn't have anything packed yet and none of the pieces of furniture she'd ordered were scheduled to be delivered until January 3rd. She supposed she could maybe start dragging some things up there, though – maybe linens and other items that didn't need much packing.

But even with the keys in hand, it didn't sound like it would be an ideal week to be trying to move in anyway. The super had said that the place wasn't slated to be cleaned until the following day and then the painters would be in to do a touch-up and repaint some of the rooms back to white – unless she wanted to keep the colours of the previous tenants. She'd rather quickly agreed to keeping the colour in the kitchen, living room and master bedroom. But she was happy to get a clean slate in the dining room, which had been painted a deep red, and the boys' room, which was yellow and sea foam.

"Benj, it's not really moving. We're staying in the same building. We'll go to the same playground and the same library and the same grocery store. You'll still be going to the same nursery school. The only thing changing is the apartment. And – I think you're really going to like it when we get up there. You're going to have your own room! And, so much more space to play in the living room. I think it's going to be pretty great. Mommy is really excited."

He rested his head against her chest more at that. "But here good, Mommy," he said quietly.

She rubbed his arm. "Here's too small for us, sweetheart. You're going to keep on growing and growing and growing – and you're going to need more space to grow and play. And Mommy needs her own bedroom and to be able to sleep on a bed again. Her back is too old to be sleeping on the couch for ever and ever."

"But sleep in bedroom then," Benji suggested and looked up at her hopefully.

She shook her head at him. "No, Benj. Mommy needs her own bed – and you need your own bed too. Remember how much you liked your big boy bed when we went and picked it?"

He gave a small nod against her.

"Well – now you're going to have a big boy bed in a big boy room. And we'll be able to put your new blankets on it – and we'll decorate the room a bit for you. You're going to have so much space for all your new toys and to play with them."

He rubbed his cheek against her and was quiet for several moments. "Peedg move too?"

"Jack is moving too – but not here, sweetheart."

She'd already told him that after Jack got up and on-the-go they were going to be heading up to the teen's apartment and working at getting him packed to move. She was testing the waters a bit to make sure Benji would be OK with the idea of being back in that apartment even. He hadn't had an adverse of a reaction as she thought he might've. She took it as an indication that he was starting to feel safe and secure in his current situation – and that his fear that Jack would pull him away from it had diminished a lot. His interactions with his uncle had definitely become much more normalized than they had been in the first couple visits after the doorstep abandonment. The little boy seemed to enjoy being around the teen again. She also felt she was getting to see more glimpses of Jack getting enjoyment out of the little boy again now that he wasn't burdened with trying to be a parent. Of course, Benji's reaction to verbally being told they were going to be spending time in the apartment compared to when they were actually in there could end up being two very different things.

The apartment wasn't a happy place. It was a scary place. It was an uncomfortable place. And she thought it was likely a place full of bad memories. Not just for Benji – but for Jack too. She was really happy that he'd seen the light and accepted he needed to get out of there. Not only was the environment he was living in there toxic – it didn't make sense for him to continue to wallow in it and sink his meager pay cheque into its rent when his grades had earned him a place in the dorms. She hoped that him being out of the apartment and back living with other university students – with other kids to interact with and socialize with and to study with – might help pull him further out of his rut and get him back on track. She hoped he'd make some real friends and form some more normal relationships. That he'd start to find his place in the city or at least the university community there more.

She was thinking about putting some feelers with Elliot about where Dickie lived in the dorms and if he had a friend group that might be open to letting Jack at least take a look inside to see if he fit in. She wasn't sure if Dickie had friends or what kind of friends the teen would even have. Elliot had had some pretty significant up-and-down moments with Dickie during high school. His dad hadn't always approved of who he was hanging out with – but Elliot was like that with all his kids. And, she thought most parents wouldn't approve of some of the other kids their own kids were hanging out with. But Dickie seemed to have turned out OK – all of Elliot's kids had, more-or-less. And, it had been nice to see Jack getting along with the other teen at church the other day. It seemed like maybe they had some things in common, or at least a similar sense of humour.

Olivia just really wanted Jack to start having a more normal university experience and to get back into acting more his age in his socialization. She liked having him around for Benji – and she enjoyed his company in a way too. But him not going out with friends or going to parties or chasing after girls … it just wasn't normal. He at least should be getting out to his skate parks more – or something, she thought. If he made friends there and didn't just 'shred' and go home. She got the impression he didn't do a lot of talking while he was at the parks.

Jack seemed like a bit of a loner. It made her a little more sad and concerned for him. She suspected though from stories Elliot had told during the twins' high school careers that Dickie was a bit of a loner too. But at least it might be a starting point into getting Jack to integrate into the university community and dorm life.

"Why Peedg not move here, Mommy?"

She rubbed his back and put another kiss in his hair. "Because Jack is a really big boy, Benji. And when little boys grow up, they go away to school – and they live at school. That's where Jack needs to be living right now. It's part of him growing up."

"But he could live here, 'Livia," Benji protested.

She shook her head. "Jack isn't going to live here, Benji. Not during the school year. But he is going to come and visit whenever he wants – likely every weekend. And we got him a special bed – so you can invite him to come and have sleepovers in your bedroom when he's visiting us."

"What if Peedg misses us, 'Livia?"

"If Peedg misses us – he'll come over – and if we miss him, we'll invite him over or go see him, Benj. We're still going to see lots and lots and lots of each other."

At least that's the family structure she hoped for. To have her little boy around every day and to have her other boy home on weekends and holidays – and to get to watch the both of them play. It sounded like a pretty good arrangement to her. She just had to get through a few more hurdles – then it could be a reality … she hoped.


	105. Chapter 105

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"I can't believe you did that," Jack mumbled at her with embarrassed anger as the elevator worked its way up to his dorm floor.

She sighed and looked at him – and then moved to follow after him, as the doors dung open and he started off down the hall like he now really didn't want to be seen with her.

"I'm sorry," she called after him, a little frustrated. She jammed her back against the door of the elevator and tried to gesture for Benji to come out, dragging the garbage full of clothes and the shopping bag that looked like it was just full of random pieces of paper that he'd been assigned to carry.

"My hands are a little full," she said at Jack, who was more than halfway down the hall already and who didn't seem to be having any problems with the weight of the three weighed down milk crates that he had piled in his hands, resting against his chest and tucked under his chin while jammed full plastic grocery bags hung off his wrists.

Her and Benji started following, making their way down to the door he was standing outside of – apparently having finally been slowed down by having to put the crates down and shuffle around trying to find his keys. She shook her head. Maybe now he'd understand, she thought.

Olivia worked at getting to him with her own two crates and two more garbage bags that were filled with random crap. As far she was concerned – what was in the garbage bags should likely be just headed for the trash, not being moved into the dorm. Ratty, thread-bare sheets, holey wool blankets, towels and wash clothes that were fraying, damp dishcloths that smelled disgusting, clothes that looked they hadn't been washed for ages and that she didn't need to see on Jack to know they didn't fit him. And, that was just the garbage bags. There really wasn't much in the milk crates that she thought need salvaging either. But she didn't much want to fight with him while they were in the apartment.

Benji had been wringing and was just clinging. She had thought he was near tears for half the time they were there. She kept having to pick him up and sooth him or get down to his level and talk to him – trying to redirect his energy into helping or playing with one some of the toy dinosaurs she'd stuffed into his jacket pocket to use as a distraction. But she ended up having to spend at least half her time there keeping the little boy stable and from falling into an emotional turmoil – rather than trying to organize Jack's move a bit.

She really had wanted him to just take the essentials – the things that meant something to him or that he needed for school. She wanted him to toss the rest. She'd already accepted that she was going to be dumping more money into getting Jack established too. Though, some of the items that she thought she'd be buying for him – they'd now dragged his old, worn, ratty and makeshift versions of across town – because she had just wanted to get out of the studio apartment as quickly as possible.

Jack seemed in a tizzy being in the apartment too. She could feel the agitation rolling off of him and could see the tension in his body language and breathing. He was hardly even looking at what he was throwing in the milk crates and plastic bags and garbage bags he'd pulled from under the sink. He was just throwing everything in randomly.

It was going to be a mess to unpack and sort through. There was no order or reason behind it. It was just whatever was within reach at a particular time. If there was still space – he'd toss more in as he moved over. But at least the reality was that there really wasn't much more to go back for. Olivia thought that most of what was left at the apartment – both in cupboards and in terms of 'furniture' could be dragged down to the trash or the curb when they went back in a few days.

That was a bit of a sad reality, she thought. At that moment, Jack's entire life could be fit into five milk crates, three garbage bags, four plastic shopping bags and the duffle bag and backpack he had at her apartment. She really thought if they'd done some sorting and tossing, his life more would've been contained in one milk crate (maybe two) and the two bags he had at her place.

"I didn't know which … garbage bag my purse got tossed into," she said as they got to the door. "I knew my ID was in my pocket. I reached for it."

He glanced at her giving her another glare, as he bent over and started shuffling through the milk crates now, still in search of his keys.

When they'd gotten to his residence building, the security officer had eyed them up and even as Jack moved to head by him and to the elevator bay – he'd called the teen back and reminded him that he needed to sign his guests in and out of the building.

"We're only going to be a minute," Jack had protested. "We're just dropping this off upstairs."

The officer had eyed him more. She thought if Jack hadn't had the transponder to swipe them into the building, the guard wouldn't have believed he was a resident there. Maybe more of a homeless person trying to take up residence in a vacant spot in the building while most of its residents were away for the break.

"I'd like to see your student card too," the officer had told him at his protest – and had plopped down a sign-in sheet for her and a form for Jack to sign taking responsibility for her and Benji's actions while in the building.

Jack had put down his haul of junk and had dug his wallet out of his jacket pocket and then found his student card and showed it to the security officer. It seemed to be enough for him but he looked at her. "Need to see some ID from you too," he'd said flatly as she finished signing in on the log sheet.

Despite what she'd just told Jack, the reality was she hadn't even thought about looking for her purse to pull out her licence. It was habit – people asked to see her ID or her badge and she reached for her breast pocket on the inside of her coat. It wasn't until she had it out and was holding it open for the officer to examine that she could feel how much Jack was dying at that movement. She looked at him and he glared at her, his cheeks flushed red with embarrassment.

"Now he thinks I'm some sort of criminal and have police taking me to my room," Jack mumbled as he kept digging around in the crates. "Like I'm on parole or probation or something."

"Yeah. I'm sure he thought I was your police escort," she said sarcastically and rolled her eyes.

He could get so easily embarrassed and could be so ridiculous sometimes. She didn't think it was that big of deal. The officer just needed to write down some sort of ID number into his log. The guy hadn't cared what it was. She wasn't even entirely sure the rent-a-cop had registered that she was showing him her NYPD ID. She'd kept her fingers over the badge portion as he looked at her identification side and jotted something into the log.

"I can't find my keys," Jack exploded out of nowhere – clearly onto his next thing to be angry about.

Being in that ratty studio apartment really hadn't done anything for him. He was still agitated from it and they hadn't been in there more than 45 minutes in his whirlwind 'packing'. If this was what being in there made him like, it explained a lot about his temperament when he was around on the weekends. It always took him a while to settle into someone that she could actually stand being around when he came over. With him having been over at her apartment now for several days – she was actually seeing sides of Jack she really liked and his manner and demeanour was much more likeable. He still had his moments – but there wasn't as much of a dark cloud over him. He was more relaxed – than this! It made her that much happier that he was getting the hell out of that shit-hole he'd been living in unnecessarily.

"You must have them," she said calmly. "You had them to get into the building and to get us up the elevator."

"I KNOW THAT!" he yelled at her and she gave him really stern eyes.

She didn't tolerate being screamed at by him. She thought they were past that at this point. He still talked to her like she was an idiot and he'd raise his voice or have his little temper tantrums and immature fits. But all-out yelling? That had tempered down.

"I must've dropped them or something," he said a lot more quietly and a touch apologetically.

She sighed and glanced around and back down the hall. She shook her head harder at him and put down all the junk she was bogged down with.

"They're right there," she said and pointed before strutting back down the hall to pick them up off the floor and came back to hand them to him.

There was no thanks or even eye contact at that. He just accepted them and popped open the door and then started dragging the crates and bags across the threshold. Olivia hoped she'd start to see the bits of the young man she liked quite a lot again soon – because she thought she had the angry, sulky teen with her again. She didn't like that version of Jack as much as she liked the young man. Sure, he was a scarred young man who had his share of baggage and was in need of some help and hand-holding – but he was a lot more pleasant than the Jack she was trying to help at the moment.

She glanced around as they got inside. She'd read up about the residences the school offered out to scholarship kids - and she had living in dorms herself while in school - so she wasn't completely surprised by what she was seeing. She knew that most of the rooms given to sophomores and up where in suites – not just a bunkroom. So she could see that there was a small living space cluttered with furniture just ahead of them and a small kitchenette with a microwave and stovetop to their right. But the space seemed a little dark with not as much sunlight streaming in that she might've liked for the boy. The floors were concrete - and cold. Though there were some industrial-style space-rugs trying to save feet and to preserve heat a bit, she supposed. At least she was pleasantly surprised that, generally, everything looked fairly modern and new-ish. She knew the building had only been open about six years. Long enough for some of the suite – especially the furniture in the living area – to start showing its wear-and-tear but new enough that it didn't feel too dingy and dated.

She could see four doors off the corners. Jack hadn't said anything to indicate that he might have a roommate – though she had known from her own recognizance that he would have suitemates. There was really no way to tell how many he did have from standing in the shared space. She knew some of the rooms could have bunks in them.

"How many people live in here, Jack?" she asked as he worked at dragging his stuff over to another door.

"Four," he mumbled.

So it must all be single-bed rooms, she thought. She was a little relieved to hear that. She knew that part of the university experience – especially if you were living in dorms – was to be living in crowded, less-than-ideal living situations with a lack of privacy and a lack of quiet. Really, while you were a young person in the city, small living spaces that weren't anything too write home about and roommates was just part of the deal. Still, even with four people, she thought the residence space they were crammed in looked a little tight – especially if they were all using the living area, and it kind of looked like they did.

There were definite indications that the suite was lived in by young men. It wasn't the cleanest and the posters on the wall in the living space, the visible television and gaming system and the scattered cans of pop and potato chips that they'd apparently decided to leave there while they were away on winter break gave it away even further. She didn't want to think about what the kitchenette looked like when she got over that way to take a better look at it. But it looked like she was going to get her chance – Jack was dragging his belongings in that direction and it looked like is bedroom door was just outside the kitchen. She thought that actually might be better than him having a space bordering the living area. At least it might be a bit quieter for studying and for sleeping. She really doubted that young men living in residence would be using the kitchen for much beyond heating up pizza pockets in the microwave.

She'd already decided that she'd be putting some money on Jack's dining card to get him started. She'd follow it up with a small amount each pay. It wouldn't be enough to buy him three meals a day – but it would be enough to ensure he'd always have enough credit that was eating something. He had a job to cover off the rest. She wasn't his parent – even if she did get temporary guardianship of him. She wasn't responsible for covering off all the costs of his education. Even if she had a child – even if she did get permanent custody of Benji – she'd never expect to have to cover an individual's post-secondary education in its entirety.

It was the child's education – they had to be contributing to it and that meant more than just showing up to class and getting passing grades. Jack was clearly trying to do it himself – and she thought that was a positive step towards adulthood. She was going to make sure he kept going in that direction. So she would do enough to keep him mostly afloat and ensure he had enough resources within his reach to be actually taking care of himself physically, mentally and emotionally. Eating properly was part of that.

The door to the room next to where Jack was piling his belongings opened in the ruckus they were creating. A young man who looked about Jack's age came out and looked them up and down, causing Benji to huddle against her. He was a skinny wisp of a kid in glasses and with greasy looking hair. He was just wearing a white undershirt, showing off skin that looked even paler and pastier than Jack's. But Olivia didn't think his was from under-nourishment. It looked more like the kid lived in the dark – possibly playing World of Warcraft for endless hours while swigging on Red Bulls. Maybe he'd be a message to Jack about the perils of spending too much time on his videogame system. Though, she also didn't think the two of them would likely have much in common in terms of what they thought made a good videogame. She didn't envision this kid playing endless hours of Skate or Halo.

The kid grinned at Jack, who was doing his best to ignore him. "Your parents figure out they're paying for rent in two places?" he teased.

Jack shot him a look and pulled out the keys again to open the bedroom door. "Fuck off, Trevor," he mumbled.

"So you moving in then?" the kid asked, apparently undeterred by Jack's language and glare.

"What's it look like?" Jack spat at him. "Why are you even here?"

"Because I didn't go home, retard," the kid muttered at him and retreated back into his own room, closing the door loudly. Apparently he didn't much like the angry version of Jack either, Olivia thought.

She eyed the teen but he still made no comment and pushed the door open to his bedroom. She'd been a little surprised that the two suitemates seemed to know each other. She'd initially thought that maybe they were classmates. But as she stepped into Jack's bedroom, it became very clear that the teen had been coming and going from the room. There weren't any sheets on the bed or clothes hanging on the rack. There wasn't even books on the bookshelf. But there was some scattered paper and pens on the desk – and there was the smell.

The air in the narrow little room was so still and stale. It smelled of pizza grease, sub sauce, sour orange juice left at the bottom of cartons to rot and the faintest smell of sex seemed to still be lingering in there too. Though, in her continued scan of the room – it was pretty clear, it wasn't specifically sex she was smelling. Jack had left a roll of toilet paper sitting on the bedside table, along with a small tub of Vaseline. If that wasn't enough evidence of what he'd been up to in there, it looked like he'd just been throwing the wadded up balls of discharged toilet paper in the general direction of the trash. Even if they had made it to the bin, there wasn't room for them. The trashcan was overflowing with fast food wrappers and junk food packaging. He had empty pizza boxes sitting next to the bin as well.

Olivia made no comment, though. She knew that Jack would likely die of embarrassment if and when he realized that she'd seen the leftover mess and knew what he was doing. She didn't much want to think about it – but in a way she sort of understood. Jack wouldn't have had much privacy with Benji in the studio apartment while they were both sleeping on the floor in air mattresses. Benji didn't really get or respect the concept of bathroom privacy either – even if the door was closed and locked, he'd stand and whine outside it. Benji couldn't stand being left alone and he hated closed doors. So Jack finding other places for privacy wasn't that surprising.

From how stale the room felt, she suspected Jack might not have been in the dorm room for a while. He likely forgot that he'd left evidence sitting in plain view or hadn't even thought about the fact that he might've wanted to give the place a bit of a clean-up before he let her and his little nephew walk in. So, she just wordlessly walked over to the window, pulled up the venetian blinds to let in some light and cranked open the window the small crack that able to open. She then picked up the trashcan and the empty pizza boxes off the floor and carried them over to the door to be taken to the garbage chute and recycling bins. There was still the trail of toilet paper balls around the area the can had been – but she had no intention of touching them without latex gloves. Even if she had the crime scene gear on her, she wasn't sure she'd bend over to pick them up on Jack's behalf. She'd just have to hope he realize they were there and clean them up himself.

"Have you been using the room?" she asked a little rhetorically as she got Benji settled at Jack's desk.

"Yeah. Sometimes I came over on the days where I have big gaps between classes," he mumbled at her as he rooted through the one crate and pulled out the picture of him with him, his dad and his sister and looked at it before turning to put it on the bedside table.

Olivia saw his movement and kept her eyes on Benji, helping him take his jacket off and pulling the dinosaurs out of his pocket again, while also giving him one of the pieces of paper on the desk and handing him one of the pens there, reminding him to colour on the paper not the desk. But even as she chattered at the little boy, she heard Jack pull open a drawer on the bedside table and the thump of his evidence hitting the bottom of the empty drawer. She wondered a bit if he thought he'd caught it before she had. The teen likely didn't have much of a concept of how quickly she could scan a room and take in the scene – the sort of things that quickly stood out to her. There wasn't much to stand out in that room – so the few items that were in there were even more glaringly apparent.

She grabbed another piece of paper and another pen and pushed it off to the corner of the desk away from Benji.

"I want you to write down some things you're going to need," she told Jack, giving him a glance. "You can start with some clothes hangers and bedding."

Jack looked at her. "I have bedding," he told her.

She shook her head and took a seat on the corner of the bed, starting to look in the garbage bags until she found the one they shoved all his linen in. "We're getting you new bedding. This stuff is going to the trash. Write down bath towel and wash clothes too," she ordered, though gently.

Jack glared at her. But she shook her head. "Clean start, Jack. You aren't going to live like a pauper anymore. We'll get you up to living like a borderline-starved university student. Com'on. We're going to sort through some of this stuff and toss it."

"There's nothing to toss," he said. "It's my stuff."

She shook her head again. "Jack – I don't even want to know where you picked up some of this junk. Stuff you have from home – things with sentimental value – you'll keep. The rest – clean start," she stressed again.

She opened another bag. It was full of his dirty clothes. "Do you wear any of these clothes?" she asked.

"I wear all my clothes!" he said with a growing edge to his voice.

She rubbed at her eyebrow and pulled out a tshirt from the top of the bag. It had a hole in its armpit and the neck looked frayed, almost like it'd been gnawed on by an animal.

"You wear this?" she asked.

"Sometimes," he said defensively.

She sighed. "You have a bag full of clothes at the apartment that look in better shape than these. So what is all this?"

"Other clothes. I only brought enough for a few days to your place!"

She nodded. Jack tended to wear the same clothes over and over. She wasn't sure how often any of it actually got washed. Another bonus for him being in residence – accessible laundry room that was included in rent. He wouldn't have to be trying to find a laundromat or spending money on that.

"Let's go through this bag and toss what you don't wear anymore," she told him and met his eyes. "We'll go out and buy you a couple new outfits too."

"I don't need all this new stuff," he protested more at her. "I can't afford it."

"I can," she said flatly, and started rooting through the one milk crate that he'd put a couple plates that still had old dried up food caked on them, clearly used utensils and three mugs that had their bottoms stained brown with coffee.

She'd have to go out to the kitchen and take a look to see if it looked like the teen would even need his own tableware. She thought the items might be salvageable, though, if she gave them a good scrubbing at the sink. She'd have to check out the fridge too – see how much space there was, try to get a sense if the suitemates shared some of the staples or if Jack would need to be stocked up with his own. Either way, she knew they'd be going on a little grocery shopping trip too – whether Jack liked it or not.

"I don't want you buying me all new crap," he spat at her again.

But Olivia just shrugged. "You wanted me to take on guardianship of you?" she said and looked at him. "So you get to humour me when I want to do things like this. No parent would be letting their son walk around in a shirt like this or sleeping on sheets like that," she said gesturing towards the two bags.

She sure as hell knew that that's not what Jay would have his son wearing or sleeping on. The pictures Jack had given her as part of her Christmas present had proven that all the much more. The boys were clearly clothed and fed and cared for far better in the pictures taken while Jay had still been alive and even before his grandmother would've been placed in a room. It was clear in flipping through them on her laptop that things had progressively gone downhill after his father's death and Jay's children – though at least under a roof – weren't being parented or cared for. Seeing how Jack was living now just brought it into an even starker reality. She was so glad he'd found her. He couldn't go on living like that – he couldn't try to raise Benji like that. It was heartbreaking for her to think about.

She knew that the clothes in the garbage bag were things he'd likely had since before Jay died and blankets that he'd probably picked up at a thrift store if even that. She didn't even want to think about where they'd come from really. One of the blankets he'd referred to as his 'horse blanket' when he was stuffing it into the bag. She was pretty sure horse blankets were for horses not people – so she was starting to wonder if some of the bedding had been things he'd smuggled out of the barn when Greg hadn't been watching.

"You aren't my parent," Jack informed her.

She met his eyes and nodded. "I know," she said "But I'm technically your guardian. So we're going to start working on acting like that, Jack. You're an adult – you're 19, I respect that. But I'm your safety net – so I get to give my input and I get to help. You don't have to like it. But that's the way it's going to be for the next few years. You signed a paper saying that's what you wanted. So … here we are. Humour me. We're going to sort through these things and keep the sentimental items and the schoolwork necessities – maybe some of the kitchenware. The rest of it – you're going to write down on that sheet of paper – and on the weekend, we're taking a shopping trip, Jack."

He let out a deep breath and continued to give her a small glare. But she mostly ignored it, holding up the ratty tshirt again. "Still wear it, sentimental value or trash?" she asked.

Jack sighed. "Trash," he said quietly.

She nodded. With him giving the initial indication that he would be co-operating, she dumped the bag of clothes and the bag of linens onto the floor in front of where she was sitting on the bed. She stuffed the tshirt into one of the now empty bags.

She held up a pair of well-worn jeans that were so big that she didn't think Jack would even be able to find a belt that would keep them up.

"Trash," he said quietly again.

She nodded. "Good man," she told him, not looking at him. She knew he didn't like her looking at him when she trying to give him praise or comfort him. She hoped that's something he'd move beyond and start letting her do soon too. He needed it and deserved it. But for now, she just reached for the next item on the floor and held it up at him.

"Trash," Jack said again.


	106. Chapter 106

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Whooa!" Olivia gave in a small exclaim as their sled reached the end of its run down the hill, skidding slightly to the side and tipping with their weight.

There was a momentary jarring with the tumble as the fell on their sides and tangled a bit together. But her and Jack both seemed to land on their elbows and righted the sled. Benji didn't seem to feel the need to wait for that, though, and was in a fit of giggles, pulling himself out from under the shaped plastic and crawling through the snow.

"AGAIN!" he cried jumping to his feet and looking at them expectantly as she waited for Jack to get out of the sled, so she could too.

It was the first three-person run they'd done down the hill. She'd gone down a few times with Benji already and had stood at the top of Pilgrim Hill watching Jack make the same run with the little boy for several more. But after the two of them had returned to the top of the hill on their previous ride, in deciding who would accompany him next, Benji had declared, "BOTH!"

"No way," Jack said.

"It's a three-seater," Olivia commented at him, as she helped Benji position it at the top of the hill again.

But she knew that having to sit that close to her in a plastic toboggan would classify as a no-go zone for Jack. Not only would it be beyond embarrassing if some of the other families at the hill happened to look at them and see another family having a good time – they might actually have to touch each other. Horrors of horrors.

Olivia was really just starting to truly accept that Jack hadn't had a mother around growing up and just how deeply that was affecting his interactions with her. His mother's absence would likely impact his interactions with all women for the rest of his life. She knew that growing up without a father had implications on her perception of, interactions with and relationships with men – not really for the positive in a lot of ways. She knew beyond her mother's rape the absence of a father-figure in her life was also likely a driving force in her ending up working in a male-dominated environment and ultimately in Special Victims - and what drove her work there.

Olivia already knew too that his mother's actions meant that Jack didn't much trust most women. She could understand that too – but she didn't much like it. She didn't really want it to so deeply affect his perception of women that it would have negative impacts on his relationships – professional and personal – for the rest of his life. She was slowly trying to correct some of the ills the other woman had committed against the boy. But she knew that was going to be a long road. It wouldn't be like with Benji – who might be too young to truly remember he'd been 'abandoned' by his mother. Benji would hopefully only have had a six-month or so period where he was motherless. Olivia hoped he'd grow up always thinking and knowing that she loved him and he was deeply wanted. But that wasn't something Jack had – at least not from a woman.

Somehow, as much as Olivia knew the pain of not having a father, she thought that knowing your mother left you when you were barely a toddler seemed that much more hurtful. There was something so backwards and wrong about that. Mothers aren't supposed to just walk away from their children. Olivia had worked Special Victims long enough that she knew that didn't always play true. But she thought no matter how long she did the job – there were always going to be some things that she'd just never quite understand.

Jack would've had his grandmother. She was sure that his Nan would've been affectionate with him to a point. But she suspected that the hugs and comforts he got from the older woman still would be different than what he would've - or should've -received from his mother. His grandmother would've been a lot older than what Jack would consider to be a proper mother's age. The teen just wasn't that used to being around an adult woman, Olivia thought – or a potential maternal figure. He wasn't used to having contact with a parental figure who wasn't a man.

Jack would've received his hugs and affections and comfort from his father. Olivia knew from the few photos that she'd seen of the boy and his dad, that Jay was physically affectionate with his son. By the looks of it Jack had seemed to thrive on it. In almost every photo she'd seen, Jay had his arm draped across his son's shoulders or the boy caught in a headlock. Jack was all smiles – either with a goofy grin or that shit-eating smirk – in every one too. The teen generally spoke so highly of his dad. It was clear to her that they'd been close – likely making that loss that much more jarring for Jack.

But the whole situation meant that Jack just wasn't used to receiving much in the way of comfort or assurances from women. They were making progress – but it was slow and they still had a long way to go. Still, he was starting to have a bit more real conversations with her and with the small affections and comfort she was offering to him while they were home – he wasn't jerking away anymore. She'd even been allowed to touch him a couple times. Though, she would've liked to give him a hug the day before – in thanks for the nice Christmas and to just offer him a bit of comfort on a day she knew he was struggling. But she'd known that would be a threshold that Jack wasn't ready to cross yet. She wasn't sure he ever really would be.

Jack was at that awkward age too where he was somewhere between child and man. Things like hugs or even being seen with your family or mother (even if they weren't your mother) was still pretty mortifying. Real men didn't need hugs and certainly didn't spend time out in public with a 40-something woman and his little nephew participating in much an immature activity as sledding.

She'd been told that most kids snap out of it somewhere between 17 and 21 … or maybe more like 25 in boys. So maybe she was just getting the tail-end of that fun-and-games. But it still sounded like a long time to wait to her. Based on watching the Stabler kids' interactions the previous night, she wasn't sure if and when any of them snapped out of it - boys or girls.

She'd tried to remember when she stopped being as mortified and as embarrassed of her mother. She wasn't really sure she ever completely was. As much as there was to be proud of in her mom – her professional and academia achievements, the establishing a life and home and raising a daughter on her own – there was so much to cringe about too. But Olivia supposed as she got out of that house and started being able to establish her own life and live it on her own terms, worrying less about her mother's choices because they weren't so in her face day-in and day-out, she had slowly moved beyond that teenaged instinct to push and pull away. She'd started to tolerate her mother more as she worked her way through university and than started her career. Though, she always looked at Serena somewhat disapprovingly and with a lot of sadness. Her mother could've helped herself more. But for all the strength she did have – she never seemed to have the strength to do that. Her mother never seemed to be able to cope with Olivia around, as she could tell. So maybe the pulling away was what both of them really needed as rough and emotionally abusive as that process had been for both of them. Some scars never really heal, Olivia thought. She knew Jack too had some that really never would.

It was a weird point in Jack's life to be forming a relationship with the teen. It was a point where he should be pulling and pushing away and establishing a life of his own. But meanwhile, here they were trying to establish something that resembled a family and she was being designated to become a parental figure in his life. Not only that, but he'd basically voluntarily stated (after a lot of arm twisting to recognize) that he wanted and needed that.

While most parents likely would be trying to push their kids out – Olivia was working at trying to get the teen to let her in. It was a strange balance of meeting one need while meeting another. Jack needed a parent, a mother, a safety net but he also needed someone to tell him to get on with his life, to live it the way he wanted, and that he was a grown-up. Olivia wasn't quite sure she'd figured out the proper formula for that. She wasn't exactly sure she ever would. But she was trying.

Still, it was clear that the teen was struggling with some of their interactions – especially in public. He seemed so concerned about if people were looking at them and what they were seeing if they did. She thought he was really over thinking it and getting himself worried about nothing. She knew from little comments she got from people in public, that what people who actually bothered to look at them saw was just a family – like any other family. Some of Jack's worries were just ridiculous. For all the assumptions that Olivia got that Benji was just hers – the reality was that in terms of physical features, Jack could more justifiably be mistaken for her son than the little boy.

Jack had the darker features – the brown hair, the hazel eyes. He was his father's son – not a fair child like Benji. Olivia actually wondered if the little boy had inherited his looks from his mother or his father-unknown. It was hard to tell in any photos she'd seen of the girl. Izzy always had jet-black hair and dark make-up on in them – accentuated by her pale face, which Olivia was pretty sure had something on it to make it that much whiter too. Though, even with the blond hair and the blue eyes, she could see the Lewis in Benji – especially in those dimples when he smiled.

Olivia had settled herself into the back of the sled and looked up at Jack. "So are you coming?" she asked.

He looked like he was considering it – but had kicked at the snow – and just scrunched up his face in thought while Benji hopped up and down impatiently next to him.

"Hurry Peedg, hurry!" Benji had urged. "I wanta slide 'gin!"

Olivia had known Jack even participating at all in the afternoon was a bit of a step for him. He was actively participating really – and they were very much in public. The hill was pretty busy too - but that wasn't surprising to her. Lots of people would have the day off. Lots of kids would have likely ended up with sleds under their trees the day before. That - combined with the fresh snow – and it looked like at least half of the Upper East Side was sledding in that area of Central Park. There were lots of people to potentially look at them or see that a 19-year-old 'man' was doing something silly like running down a hill in a toboggan. Not only that, but he was wearing winter boots and a winter jacket and a winter hat and gloves. So very uncool of him to be dressed in proper gear for an outdoor activity or any winter weather. Though, Olivia was pleased to see he was actually using the items she'd bought for him and could only hope he would continue to and not just pull them on around her to avoid her nagging at him.

She could tell, though, that as 'uncool' as the family activity might be – Jack was having fun. She'd seen him smiling and laughing. He'd been scurrying back up the hill nearly as fast as Benji. A couple times, she hadn't even been provided with the option of going down the hill. The boys had gotten to the top, plopped the sled back down and jumped in to go whipping down again.

She was loving every second of it, though, whether she was in the sled with Benji or not. This was exactly the kind of thing she'd been feeling so much like she'd been missing out on and longing for the chance to do. Just spending time together with a family – doing simple things, but taking great joy in the togetherness. She was loving the chill on her cheeks. She was loving how rosy pink from the cold the two boys cheekbones looked and the tip of their noses. She was loving how cute Benji looked bundled down in his winter gear topped off with his skateboarding helmet. She was loving the sound of Benji's laughter and shrieks as their sled flew down the hill. She was loving the crunch of the snow under her feet as she made her way back to the top of the hill, dragging the sled behind her. She was loving the bumpy-bumpy-bumping on the rough ride down that she knew her tailbone would be hating later that night. She was loving the chatter of the other families and children around her amid the stillness of the winter scene that had blanketed the city. She was just loving the chance to finally get to be a part of it. A part of something that she thought she likely wasn't ever going to get to experience at that point in her life – but her we was now, and she didn't want to let go of it for a second.

"There's not enough room," Jack had said after examining her sitting in the sled for several seconds.

"There's lots of room," she told him, meeting his eyes. "Get in."

He dug the toe of his boot into the snow a bit more. "Maybe 'Jamin should sit in the middle."

Olivia shook her head. "We should keep the weight at the back," she told him.

"I'm taller than you," he informed her. "I probably weigh more too."

She snorted. "OK. You want the back? You'd be more comfortable with me sitting between your legs?"

He looked horrified. "NO!"

"So – then – sit down," she said.

He just shook his head. "I'll go down next time."

"PEEDG!" Benji protested impatiently.

"I'll go next time," Jack told the little boy, shooting him a look.

Olivia sighed. "Jack – things are only weird if you make them weird. Sit down," she said a little more sternly and met his eyes, waiting for him to listen.

Several beats passed but then he moved to get in.

"I don't even know how to do this," he mumbled.

"Just sit your butt down," she told him and rolled her eyes a bit at him now that he couldn't see. He had to make everything such a production – and such a big deal out of nothing. He sat down closer to the front of the sled and she grabbed his shoulder. "OK. Move back. Make room for Benji."

"Your legs are in the way," he mumbled at her again.

She punched the back of his shoulder lightly. "My legs aren't even in the sled right now, Jack. I've got my heels dug into the snow. Just move your butt back a foot or so and make room for Benji."

The teen moved back a couple inches – not making anywhere near enough room for the little boy – but being perfectly sure that he wasn't potentially touching her.

She sighed and gestured at Benji, though. "Get in Little Fox," she told him.

As she suspected, Benji landed on Jack who made an oofing noise and then slide back closer to her. They weren't touching at the moment but she figured when they started going down the hill there was a reasonable chance that he might end up leaning back into her – hopefully that wouldn't be too horrifying for him either.

"You holding on tight, Benj?" she asked, leaning around Jack a bit to make sure the little boy was holding onto the hand grips.

"YEEEEES! Let's go, Mommy!" he near screamed in his excitement.

"Everyone's feet in?" she asked, and moved her heels out of the snow and into the sled, causing her knees and boots to knock against Jack's side and he shifted a little uncomfortably.

"Yea," he mumbled, though, and moved his own feet from the outside of the sled.

"OK, Peedg, help me give us a good push off," she told him, tapping his leg with her foot. "On three…"

Jack put his hands outside the sled like her and they both rocked it back-and-forth with their weight, giving it a bit of a starting momentum for the run down the hill.

"One … two … THREE!" she counted off, with Benji spitting out each number in his excited little voice too. At three they let go and went hurtling down the hill until they skidded to their stop.

But now she was just left waiting as Jack tripped and fumbled out of the sled. The embarrassment and trepidation about doing a three-person run – or potentially having to brush against her – seemed to be gone now, though. He had a smile painted across his face and after he staggered out of the sled, he actually held out a hand to help her up.

"Thanks," she said, as she managed to get back to her feet too.

"Again, again!" Benji hollered at them – already a few yards away from them and working at hastily making his way to the top of the hill.

"Again?" Olivia posed to Jack, who'd grabbed the string on the sled to start lugging it behind him.

He nodded. "Yea," he said.

She smiled and started to follow after him – but then her phone started to ring and buzz in her coat pocket. She sighed and took it out. She knew from the ringtone that it was the Captain but she still looked at the display and sighed a bit harder.

"Benson," she answered and looked up to watch the boys. Benji was going at a fairly good clip but Jack had stopped and turned back to look at her. "Watch Benji," she whispered at him and gestured up the hill, while trying to listen to the Captain. "Sorry. What's the address?" she asked realizing she'd missed it in her distraction. She nodded into the phone. "OK. No. I'm pretty close. I can probably be there in about 20-30 minutes. Yeah. OK. Bye."

She sighed as she hung-up the phone and shoved in back in her pocket. She should've known that she wouldn't be lucky enough to manage to escape being called in on a day she was on-call. But she was feeling a wave of disappointment unlike anything she'd felt when she'd received one of those calls before. This wasn't being called in on a Saturday where she had to put off doing the usual nothing that made up her time-off previously. This was being called away from spending time with her boys. It was an invasion on her newfound family time.

Olivia was feeling guilt and regret mingling in her. She'd already had some moments where she'd found it hard to leave Benji at the daycare or she'd struggled about if she should leave work at the end of the business day or stay as long as she could – right until she had to pick the little boy up at the last possible minute. This felt so much more different, though. This was being torn away from something already in progress and something she wanted to continue to participate in. She knew that it was her job. This was going to be part of her new reality if she continued to do her job while raising Benji. She'd be called away. She'd miss out on things. He'd miss out on having her there or he'd have to see her leave. But this was her first time experiencing it – and it felt awful.

She wasn't sure she wanted it to become a habit. She didn't want Benji's childhood to be riddled with miss sports matches and missed recitals and rescheduled parent-teacher interviews and excuses about work and decisions about what was more important – the job, the victims or him. She really wasn't sure she wanted to deal with this instantaneous feeling of guilt that was washing over her. Nor did she want it to become a feeling that she might get used to with time.

She started to make her way up the hill. The boys had almost made it back to the top. She wasn't looking forward to having to tell them she had to go. But she could tell Jack had already figured it out. He kept on glancing at her on his final ascent.

"Work?" he asked her as she met them at the top.

She gave him a thin smile and nodded. The teen actually looked a little disappointed. Though, she doubted it was her absence that had him upset. Maybe it was being stuck playing babysitter for the rest of the afternoon – and likely the evening, based on the initial briefing Cragen had given her.

"Com'on Mommy!" Benji hollered at her, working at positioning the blue sled himself.

She gave him a genuine smile and went over to him, crouching down and holding his shoulders in either hand, meeting his eyes. She didn't know the right way to explain her departure to him.

"Little Fox, Mommy just got a phone call from Captain Cragen – and I have to go into work now," she tried weakly.

Benji's eyes fell at that and he gazed sadly at her, a frown painting across his face. "No Mommy!" he protested, sounding like there might be tears.

She pulled him to her and rubbed his back through his thick winter jacket. "It's OK, sweetheart. I won't be too long. And, you and Uncle Jack are going to stay here and go down the hill a couple more times. Then you're going to go and get some hot chocolate and a treat before you head home."

"Mooommmiee!" he whined.

She rubbed his back again. "Shh, Little Fox. None of that. You and Jack are going to have lots of fun and I'll see you later tonight."

She glanced at Jack and held out her hand. "Give me the backpack for a minute," she requested.

After it was handed to her, she pulled out her purse, while Benji continued to lean against her and cling to her. She pulled out her wallet and opened it – grabbing a twenty and holding it up to Jack. He looked at her questioningly.

"Stop somewhere on the way to the subway," she told him. "Get something warm to drink. A snack. Whatever. Use the change for your fare."

He seemed to consider it for a moment and she thought he was going to tell her 'I have money', but he did reach out and take it, pulling his own wallet out to put it in.

She riffled around in her purse some more, pulling out a few more of her belongings that she'd need and shoved the items into her various pockets. It was a little challenging working around Benji with how he was whimpering against her. But then she stuffed the purse back into the bag.

"I'm leaving this with you," she told him and then handed the whole backpack back to him.

She looked down at Benji again and placed a kiss against the side of his head, rubbing his back one more time.

"I'm standing up, Little Fox," she warned him and then held her one hand against him as she rose back to full height. He whimpered louder and clung to her waist, trying to find something to grab on without much luck between her coat and his mittened hands.

She looked at Jack. "You know where we are?" she asked him. "How to get back to the apartment?"

He nodded. "Yea. I think so."

She allowed a small nod but then told him anyways. "The nearest subway should be 68th and Lex – just a few blocks southeast when you leave the park."

The teen nodded again at that.

"OK," she said. "This helmet doesn't come off until you're well away from the hill," she told both of them, tapping on the top of Benji's head.

Jack just nodded yet again. He seemed to look a little unsure. She eyed him.

"You're going to be OK?" she asked. "Few more runs? Getting him home? Watching him?"

She knew he should be. He'd been independently caring for Benji for a couple months. He had it in him. But he still looked so unsure about being left with the responsibility at that moment.

Jack gave a small nod, though. But he broke the eye contact and looked at the ground, kicking at the snow with his boot some more. "But when will you be home?" he asked.

She watched him for another couple beats at that. She wasn't sure if he meant anything by it – but she'd never heard Jack refer to her apartment as home before. She wasn't sure if it was just a colloquialism or a slip. Was he finally starting to see it as his home base? As a safe place? As a place he could actually call home? She'd really like that, if that was what it was. But she wasn't sure they'd actually made that much progress.

"I'm not sure, sweetheart," she told him. "I might be a while."

"Is it bad?" he asked quietly.

She gave him a sad smile at that. "It's bad enough that I'm being called in, Jack. Nothing I ever deal with is really very good."

She got another small nod at that.

She sighed. "Give me your phone for a second," she said.

He gave her a questioningly look again but she just made a give-me gesture with her hand and he moved to dig it from out of one of his inside pockets. He handed it over to her and she looked at it for a moment, taking a second to familiarize herself with the different menus and icons than what she was used to. But she found his address book and opened it up. Her new touchscreen gloves seemed to be working. Though, she wished she wasn't getting to test them out in a moment that was seeing her pulled away from her kids.

"OK. I'm entering Nick Amaro's number – he's my partner. So if something comes up, and you can't reach me, call Nick. If you can't reach me or Nick – I'm putting in the dispatch desk number. Call them – tell them who you are, say you're my ward, say it's an emergency and they'll track me down. And if something comes up and you need someone to come over right away, call Alex, OK? Her number is in there now too. She'll get over to you guys ASAP."

She held the phone back out to Jack as she finished and he took it wordlessly and put it back into his pocket.

"You're going to be OK?" she asked again. He still looked so hesitant.

But he nodded. "Yea," he said quietly.

She gave him a thin smile. "OK," she said and looked back down to Benji. "OK, Little Fox. It's time for me to go."

"No Moommmieeee!" he whined.

She nodded. "Yes, Benjamin." She crouched down again and planted another kiss on his rosy cheek that was barely visible with his scarf and hat and helmet covering so much of his head. "Give Mommy a hug," she told him – though she barely had to. He whacked his weight against her and she rubbed his back a few more times and put another peck on the side of his head. "OK. I'll see you later tonight, sweetheart," she told him and then extracted herself and stood again.

"Moommmieee!" he wailed harder.

"It's time to be a big boy," she told him, feeling like they were having one of their early daycare discussions again. "You're going to play with Uncle Jack now and Mommy will see you at home later tonight."

"Nooooooo!" Benji cried and stomped his little feet in the snow and clung to her.

"Com'on 'Jamin," Jack tried and leaned down to adjust the sled more. "I want to go down again."

Olivia pulled the little boy away from her, as much as she hated to do so, and directed him towards Jack, who picked him up and placed him in the sled. Benji was still whining and looked near tears.

"Call me," Olivia stressed again, as Jack moved to get in, "if anything happens. Any hits to the head, knocks of his arm – call me and then go straight to the ER."

Jack nodded. "Yea," he mumbled and got into the sled.

Benji cried harder and started to move to get out but Jack wrapped his arms around him, stilling him and then used his feet to launch the sled. They started to disappear out of sight but Olivia could still hear Benji crying out for her. It was making the guilt of leaving feel that much worse. It was making it that much harder to turn her back and go – but she knew she had to and now, before they reached the bottom and she could see the little boy still looking for her. So with a bit of a heavy heart and a deep regret – she watched for a couple more seconds as they zoomed away from her. Then with a sigh, she turned away to make her way to something much more horrific than the little oasis she was working at creating in her life.

She wasn't sure she was going to much like having to leave her family life to go to her work life. She wasn't sure how she was going to manage to learn to separate the two and not thinking of one while she was living the other. At that moment she liked the idea of being mom more than continuing to be a detective. She was going to need to learn how to be both. She didn't think that was going to be easy either.


	107. Chapter 107

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia's head was still on the boys even as she walked up to the police barrier and held out her badge to step across and head up to the brownstone that had become SVU's latest crime scene.

She'd been about halfway there when she'd realized that she'd given Jack Nick's number as an emergency contact. She would've been better off giving him Fin or Munch's – or even Cragen's. She'd been so living off in her own little world with the boys in the past few days with Jack's birthday and getting ready for Christmas and the big day – she'd really lost some concept of what day it was. Nick would still be in D.C. – or driving home.

She hoped something didn't come up and Jack did feel the need to try to reach her and ended up calling Nick. She could only imagine the momentary undue panic that would create with her partner while he was on the road with his daughter in tow. She really hoped Nick's short Christmas break had gone OK. She supposed she'd hear all about it tomorrow. But even if she didn't hear about it – it would tell her all she really needed to know.

If Nick talked about it – if he ranted, and even if he had upset things to say about Maria, it would at least mean it had gone OK for the most part. If her partner didn't say a thing about the trip – she'd know it had gone disastrously and he was bruiting about it. Beyond hoping Amaro had survived it OK, she just really hoped that the experience – and the tension between the two parents –hadn't completely destroyed the holiday for little Zara.

Fin came trotting down the stairs of the house just as she was about to head inside. He glanced at her.

"You got here fast," he commented at her.

She gave a small nod. "Yea. Had the kids over doing some sledding in the park," she said as she peeled off her gloves, knowing she'd be grabbing a pair of latex ones as soon as she got in the door. "Just walked over."

Fin allowed a curt nod with that. "Good Christmas?" he asked, apparently in an effort to make some awkward small talk. Any chatter at a crime scene always just felt a little off. Everyone was usually just trying so hard to keep their headspace in work mode.

Olivia kind of wanted to just get into the townhouse – do the job – and get out as quickly as possible. They likely wouldn't be able to do much that day anyway. Most of the bureaucracy they dealt with would have ground to a near halt until after the New Year. A lot of their offices, their labs, their precincts, their ADAs would be on a skeleton staff as people took time away from the job to try to get some precious time with their families and to try to prepare themselves for yet another year of the shit they saw day-in and day-out.

"Yea. It was good," she allowed though. "You?"

Fin shook his head. "Distant memory," he muttered.

She could tell even by looking at him whatever was awaiting her inside was bad. Fin didn't like to think that his emotions played on his face that much. He didn't like to let on how much the job – the victims – affected him. But she'd known him long enough that she could see the changes in his countenance. The cloud over him was darker and the frown that usually creased his face seemed that much deeper.

"What we got in there?" she asked.

Fin shook his head and looked partway up the street where at the barricade the media were starting to gather. It wasn't surprising that the vultures were swarming. They would anyway when they caught wind of a homicide in a brownstone in that area of town. But add in the fact that it would be a slow news day for them too with the holidays – and the scum would just be practically frothing at the mouth to get their sound-bite for the evening news. The journalists' (and their producers', editors' and news directors') jowls would be dripping with the anticipation of actually getting to have a real story to go on the air or the front-page rather than touchy-feely holiday baggers.

"There was a lot of ho-ho-ho-ing going on in there by the looks of it," Fin said flatly. "But no one should have to go like that."

Olivia scanned him again. He looked distant and it became clear that he wasn't out on the steps because he was off to talk to someone from CSU or to give instructions to some of the patrol officers who were trying to manage the crowd and to keep them back. Fin had stepped outside to take a break from what was inside.

"Familial homicide," he muttered again, still looking down the street and not at her. "Looks like the wife had some company in the bedroom that wasn't her husband. Guess that didn't go over so well. Took out the threesome – and then their kids. The ME rep they got in there seems to think it all went down last night. Didn't get called in 'til the in-laws came by for a visit today and walked into the slaughterhouse. Say the couple's been separated. Husband wasn't supposed to be spending Christmas there. But looks like maybe he decided to pay an unexpected visit. One guy's face is blown off so badly we can't make a visual ID. Thinking it's the husband, though. If not …" He sighed and shook his head and met her eyes.

She took a deep breath and nodded. She could see how Christmas felt like a distant memory to Fin. She wasn't even inside yet and it was already fading.

"John inside?" she asked.

Fin shook his head. "One of the kids hand't bled out yet. Munch rode with him and the grandparents. They're pretty fucked up about it. Shock. If the kid survives, though, he might be able to tell us something about what went down. He wasn't conscious when we got here. Haven't been able to talk to him."

"How old?" she asked.

"Six," Fin said more quietly and gazed straight ahead. "Other kids were three and seven. Fucking waste. That kid makes it – he's going to be fucked for life."

She sighed and started to make her way up the stairs. "I'll see you in there in a bit?"

He nodded. "Yea. Cap's upstairs. Christmas slaying in the Upper East Side … The vultures are going to be all over this. All hands on deck."

He was right. It didn't have to be Christmas for this to be the kind of incident that would attract significant media attention. A potential murder-suicide? A familial slaying? Those always created too much buzz and usually left too many unanswered questions. It would be worse if they weren't able to identify all the victims quickly and confirm that one was the husband and that he was the likely … shooter? At least she assumed it was a shooting – but she suddenly realized Fin hadn't said what weapon it looked like had been used. It sunk in that the scene inside might be much grimmer and grizzlier than some bullet wounds. And, if the husband wasn't there – or they couldn't stick the killings to him – that meant they were going to be looking for someone else – somewhere out there in the city. That would make the case even more high profile.

She was about at the door when he called out at her again. "Liv," Fin said and she looked back. "Word of advice. You're doing the Mums thing now. This shit is different after you've got kids around. Take a minute and make sure you're ready to go in there. It ain't good."

She gave him a nod and a thin, sad smile for his efforts at words of wisdom. She did stop at the top of the stairs for a second and examined her feet for a moment. She tried to push thoughts of Benji and of Jack out of her head. She made herself try to step away from her time playing Mom and step back into her role as an SVU detective with the NYPD. But she already knew that everything about the job was going to be different now that she had the boys. She'd already experienced how it was changing her – how it was distracting her, how things ate at her in different ways, how she saw things differently, how sometimes she could see her little boy in a case or how she feared about what would've happened to him if Jack hadn't gotten him off the farm or if the teen kept on just trying to raise the boy on his own.

The disassociation wasn't quite as easy anymore. If it ever had been easy in the first place, it was definitely more complicated now. She wasn't ever going to be just an NYPD detective again. She wasn't ever going to look at cases or hear the stories of victims in quite the same way. She knew it was only going to be worse every time she caught a case involving a child. She knew that no matter how long she stood on that step trying to prepare herself – she was never going to be quite ready to step inside anymore.

She glanced back at Fin. He was still standing at the bottom of the steps, looking a little dazed. He almost looked like he wanted a drink – or at least a cigarette, something to calm his nerves and numb him to what he was working that afternoon.

With a sigh, Olivia then stepped inside to see what was waiting for her. Figuring out how to balance what she saw at work with going home and looking at her boys was going to have to be something that would wait for later. Right now she had to do her job and she had to be there for the victims.


	108. Chapter 108

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Benji was at her before she even got in the door. He must've heard her key in the door because she very nearly whacked him in the face with the door as she did push it open. She actually initially couldn't tell if she'd hit him. He was such a blubbering fit of tears. His eyes were so red and bloodshot, his face puffy and his nose dripping with snot while his mouth was stringing with mucky thick salvia from his extended wails.

"Mooommmmiie," he cried at her.

She immediately dropped down to her knees to check his face and forehead, thinking she had managed to strike him.

"Oh, sweetheart, you shouldn't stand so close to the door like that," she told him, running her fingers along some of his face, searching for the starts of a bump. "I didn't know you were there."

"He's alright," Jack called from the living room. "He's been like that all afternoon."

She sighed at that and looked at the crying little boy, wiping some of his tears away with her thumbs and then pulling him against her for a tight hug.

"It's OK, Benj," she assured. "I'm home now."

She'd been out for hours – far longer than she wanted to be but about as long as she expected to be. Still, she would've preferred to have been about anywhere other than that crime scene – especially if that anywhere was with the boys.

The townhouse had been beyond horrific. There was so much blood all over the bedrooms. She really didn't want to think about what had gone in there. But that was her job. For the moment, though, she didn't know how she was going to erase it from her mind enough that she'd be able to function normally with the boys for the rest of the evening or how she'd manage to actually sleep. And, if she did fall asleep, how she'd manage to not wake with nightmares.

She still felt the visuals haunting her and she knew they would for a long time. It was just making her hug at Benji a little tighter – to look at his frail little, weepy face and his pure innocence. She didn't know how people could do such horrific things to other people – but it perplexed her even more when it was a child. She was feeling a sense of helplessness – like even with Benji safe there with her, she'd never really be able to protect him.

She already knew that One P.P. would be ordering them all to the company shrink after working that scene. She was going to have to get her head back on straight overnight or else she'd be pulled from the case. She wasn't entirely sure that would bother her too much – but it would. She would've failed at the job and failed the victims – especially those children, the two dead and the one little boy in the hospital clinging to life. And what kind of life would it be? How much therapy and counseling would he need to be able to function normally?

She stroked at Benji's head and placed two long kisses on him – one on his temple and one in the middle of his forehead.

"My beautiful little boy," she mumbled at him and rubbed his back firmly one more time, before slowly rising.

She kept one hand on him, as he huddled against her leg, still whimpering. But she managed to take her jacket off and bent over to remove her boots. Then she pulled him up to her, holding him tightly again, and walked them into the living room.

Jack was laying sprawled out on the entire couch playing Halo. So she batted at his feet until he pulled them up and away, making room for her to sit down with Benji in her lap. She cuddled the little boy, watching his uncle play for a minute.

Jack ignored her. He seemed engrossed in his game. She didn't get a 'hi', she didn't get a 'how are you', she didn't get a briefing on how their afternoon went. What she did get though was for him to almost absentmindedly shove his feet back down the couch after about thirty seconds of her sitting there and for him to rest them against her thigh. Olivia jumped a little bit – not in protest of the motion and the physical contact – but because they were so cold. She looked at him.

"Your feet are ice blocks," she told him. He barely made a sound of acknowledgement. So she put her hand on the top of one. "Your socks are still damp," she said and shook her head, reaching and touching Benji's feet. She sighed. "So are his. Jack – you should've changed both of your socks when you got home. You've been sitting around here with cold, damp feet all afternoon? You'll both get colds."

The teen just shrugged – causing her to roll her eyes more. She pulled off Benji's socks and held his cold little feet in her hands, rubbing them in an effort to start warming them up.

"You want to do that to mine too?" Jack teased her.

She shook her head at him and grabbed the still damp cuffs of his jeans to remove each of his feet from resting against her. "I'm not touching your wet, cold, stinky feet – and you can take them off me, please."

Him laying on her light beige couch in damp, dirty clothes was going to do nothing for its appearance. She didn't plan on running out and buying a new couch that would better survive boys just yet. Still, she was pretty sure if everything worked out as planned, she'd be investing in some living room furniture that was a darker colour, and more boy proof, by that time next year.

"My feet are always cold," Jack mumbled at her, his attention being split between her and his videogame, which at the moment just looked like a shoot 'em up to her. Though Jack wasn't actually firing a weapon at the moment. It looked like he was scurrying around trying to find a position to do something.

"So are Benji's," she said, as she continued to rub at his little feet.

He was cuddled right into her – to the point he'd brought his thumb up to his mouth. She reached up and pulled it down. She'd caught him doing that several times in the past month or so – since the doorstep abandonment. She was sure he was likely managing to get it in there when she wasn't looking too.

Olivia knew the thumb sucking was the little boy's efforts at self-soothing. But she was trying to discourage it. She didn't need him to have the mark of being a thumb-sucker in kindergarten. Benji already had enough baggage and difficulties socializing with other children. He didn't need to be teased or bullied about that. She also didn't want to deal with the dental bills involved with correcting with any damage to his teeth's structure and development if she didn't manage to break him of the habit.

"You're too big for that, Benj," she told him again. "I'm right here for hugs – you don't need to be sucking on your thumb."

He gave another small whimper at that but just cuddled into her more. She rubbed his bicep a bit and rested her chin against his head before moving her hands back down to her efforts to warm up his feet.

It was just after 7 p.m. After finishing at the scene, she'd gone back down to the precinct to fill out her DD-5. One P.P. had ordered Cragen to have all their reports on the brasses' desks in the morning. So it had delayed her return home that much more – though it had given her some time to spool down away from the crime scene before having to walk in the door of the apartment. Still, it meant that it was now nearing Benji's bedtime. The little boy really needed to get a proper night's sleep, if he was going to survive daycare the next day.

"Dad always had cold feet too," Jack offered in delayed commentary.

She glanced at him, before moving her eyes back to the screen. It was strange how hypnotizing the videogames could be. She found herself sitting and watching Jack play, even when he hadn't held a controller in her direction and she really should be doing something else. She wasn't yet experiencing the adrenaline addiction and self-gratification factor that so many boys seemed to fall into with the games. But she could see how the kids could turn into zombies playing the things. There was something about the movement on the screen that just kept her eyes on it, scanning the changing scenery.

"I remember that," she muttered while still looking at the television.

She hadn't really until he said it. But she did. Little things Jack said about his dad were slowly bringing back more and more memories of the long ago and near forgotten relationship. It was strange to feel this renewed fondness for a man she'd known what felt like a lifetime ago. It was also a little hurtful and sad in a way - to know that Jay was gone and also to reflect back and think about the what-ifs that could never be now. At the same time, though, she liked hearing Jack's memories of his dad. She liked getting to know the man again – and she liked remembering little things about him and the relationship. It had been such a different period of her life compared to what it looked like now.

Being in bed with Jay, he'd often try to illicit a reaction from her by pressing his icy cold feet against her warm calves. He'd be trying to see if he could get her squeal and try to get away from him. It turned into some sort of strange game – somewhere between a wrestling match, a tickle war and cuddling. But it almost always had the same predictable ending. Jack didn't need to know all those details, though.

"I should've gotten you guys slippers for Christmas," she put out there instead.

"No way. Nerdy," Jack said.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Yea, Jack. Being warm is extremely uncool." He offered no comment and she let it sit there for a couple seconds while she thought. "You'll actually probably want some with those concrete floors in your residence. You should put it on your shopping list."

"I think I'll be OK," he muttered, clearly ignoring her and trying to shut down that conversation.

She knew it was likely going to be some sort of Battle Royale to get him to go out on the shopping trip. She'd have to call Alex tomorrow, she thought. See if her friend could come over and watch Benji on Saturday or Sunday.

Benji wasn't much for shopping. It would be faster and easier without him. It was going to be enough of a challenge completing it even with Jack. Besides, she didn't really want to take the little boy back to the dorms again – or to Jack's old apartment. She hoped that she might convince the teen to pair the shopping trip with going back over there and finishing up what they needed to do to have him officially moved out and to get back any sort of deposit. Maybe she'd end up having to make a day out of it and offer up going to Django too, if she really wanted to get him to co-operate.

She wondered if Benji would be able to manage a day without her or Jack, if he was left in Alex's care. If today was any indication, though, she wasn't sure how realistic that would be.

"Did he sleep at all after you got home?" she asked, accepting his efforts to change the topic. She wasn't going to fight with him about it at the moment – especially before she looked at her available options on how to even conduct the shopping excursion.

Benji looked like he was near falling asleep now that she was home – cuddling him and rocking him and warming him up. He was clearly physically and emotionally exhausted. It had been a busy few days for the little boy – even beyond him having to endure the jarring of the apartment trip, new people in the dorms and her having to leave him on the toboggan hill with his uncle. She could feel how drained he was.

"Yeah," Jack mumbled some more, finally firing off his weapon in three short pows before shuffling his character to a different area on the screen. "He cried and cried and then cried himself to sleep on the floor with his shit. And then he woke up and you weren't back and he started crying again. He's just shutting up now."

She sighed and ran her hand through Benji's hair. "Oh, sweetheart. You can't be like that every time Mommy has to go to work."

He nodded against her.

She shook her head. "No, you can't, sweetheart. You'll just make yourself sick. It's just like daycare – you don't have to worry. I'll always come back to get you. I always do, right?"

He nodded again.

"Then why are we crying so much?" she asked and put a kiss in his messy hair.

"Becuz you leave Mommy," he said quietly.

"Just to go to work," she said. "Only for a few hours."

"Forever," Benji said.

"Not forever. I'm back right now," she told him and rubbed at his arm.

"Forever," he stated again.

She just sighed and looked at Jack. "You didn't like playing with Uncle Jack?"

Benji shook his head hard at that and then flopped it hard back against her – almost giving his uncle the stink-eye in the motion.

"That's not very nice, Benji," she told him. "Usually you like to get to play with Jack."

"NO!" Benji protested.

She knew that was a lie. Uncle Jack was the epitome of cool for the little boy. If Jack liked it – it must be cool. She'd watched them interact and play together for most of the weekend. Bickering and fighting with each other more like brothers than an uncle and nephew. But still getting along. Still, she understood that being left with Jack – especially when it was an unplanned absence on her part – was something different. That kind of alone time when combined with the rest of the day was just asking for the emergence of bad memories.

"He wouldn't even go down the hill again," Jack informed her, "and he wouldn't stop for hot chocolate. He just wanted to come back here and cry like a little baby."

"I NOT A BABY!" Benji screamed at him.

She rubbed at Benji's bicep some more trying to calm him. "Little Fox – there's no yelling here," she told him gently but sternly.

Jack just rolled his eyes at the little boy. "I'm glad you're stuck with his B.S. now and not me," he mumbled.

He wasn't making eye contact with her and she knew he didn't entirely mean it – but he also did. Jack didn't know how to be a parent. He didn't want to be a parent. She didn't blame him. She didn't know many 19-year-olds who would want to be a parent – especially boys that age. Benji's uncle wasn't equipped to take on that role. He was at an age where he was just trying to get equipped to live his own life – and that's what he should be doing. He wasn't meant to be Benji's father. Though, she hoped that Jack would accept that he was still going to need to be a strong and important male role model in the little boy's life – and a key connection for his nephew about where he came from.

But she was glad to take on Benji's B.S. for Jack. She didn't think most of it was bullshit. Some of it was frustrating. A lot of it was exhausting. But it was all just a little boy being a little boy. That's what she wanted – a little person in her life, to raise and to love. So she didn't think she'd ever quite think of any of it as bullshit. Maybe when Benji was 18 or 19 and pulling some of the attitude and stunts that Jack was pulling on her now – maybe then she'd start thinking that she was stuck with his bullshit. For now she was just glad to have him in her life. For her sake, for Benji's sake and for Jack's sake.

She thought about commenting on Jack's mumble. To put him in his place – to remind him what he was saying, and that she'd heard it. But she quickly decided it was just another shit-storm to wade into. She'd dealt with enough of that today. She was tired and it was going to be a long day at work tomorrow.

"Did you guys eat something for dinner?" she asked.

"Yea. Just some of last night's leftovers. He sort of ate," the teen mumbled again – setting off another stream of explosions on the screen.

She put a kiss on Benji's head. She wasn't really surprised he wasn't eating when she wasn't around – not when he had himself that wound up. He was in an all-out stupor about if she'd come back. She hadn't quite expected him to take it quite that badly. A bit of whining – but not an afternoon of tears and blubbering. She knew that the disarray in Benji's routine and the visit to Jack's apartment likely had something to do with it, though. There'd been way too much instability to the day for the little boy's likings.

She'd quickly discovered that Benji thrived on routines. Most four-year-olds did – it was part of that development stage. But her little boy took it to a whole new level – likely because of all the chaos he'd experienced so far in his life. He liked knowing now what was going to happen next and when. He liked to be able to recite for himself what would happen next on his little schedule.

He knew he'd get breakfast. He knew they'd walk to nursery school. He liked to be told what day of the week it was while they were going there and he'd figured out for himself the little routines of what activities they did what days at daycare – dancing, music, badminton, gymnastics, swimming. He knew he'd soon get to go on the swimming outings too now that his arm was almost healed – and he added that commentary every Friday so that she knew, he knew. He knew that Wednesdays and Fridays were the best snacks: goldfish and Oreos. He knew he didn't like Thursday's snack because it was cantaloupe. He knew she picked him up after daycare and sometimes they walked and sometimes they took the bus and sometimes they took the subway. He knew he liked the subway the very best. He knew how to go through the turnstile and he liked watching the train doors open and close. He knew he got to play with toys until dinner. He knew they ate dinner at the table and which chair was HIS. He knew that there was cuddle and TV time after dinner – and then bath-time, followed by story-time in her bed. He knew that on Saturdays they went to the playground in the mornings and did groceries on the way home. He knew that he got Mommy Fox time in the afternoon – and that could be playing or TV watching or baking or a craft. He knew on Sundays they went to circle-time at the library and that he got to pick out books for the week and a movie for that afternoon – and he got to do a craft! He liked that routine. He liked the predictability. He liked feeling like a big boy and smart and responsible with his ability to be able to recite what came next in his mind. Any deviation from it required some planning and a lot of comforting from her.

She'd done her best that morning to prepare him for going to the apartment and the dorm. She put the idea in his head early – nearly as soon as he got up. Everything they did that was outside of the usual routine she was establishing for him required giving him advanced notice so he had time to mentally prepare for it, to ask questions about it, to express concerns about it and for him to seek out comfort from her to get him through it.

The problem was she wasn't going to be able to prepare him for every eventuality that came up in their daily lives. She wasn't always going to be there to hold his hand, or to pick him up, or to give him hugs when something unexpected was thrown his way. The reality was that with her job there were going to be very real times when she was going to be pulling herself away from his embrace after she'd been unexpectedly called away. If this evening was any indication – Benji wasn't going to cope with that too well. And, really, she wasn't too sure how well she was going to cope with it either. Walking away from him that afternoon had been so hard – and tonight, she was so exhausted on so many levels, she knew she wasn't properly addressing it either. She was just trying to calm him and comfort him – mostly so he'd go to bed and they could start again fresh in the morning.

"Are you hungry Little Fox?" she asked him. "Do you want me to make you some peanut butter toast?"

He shook his head against her.

"My Little Fox is saying no to peanut butter toast? Are you feeling alright?" she teased him gently with a little shake.

It managed to illicit a small giggle from him and the faintest smile – the first she'd seen from the little boy since she came in the door.

"Well, if you aren't going to eat, Benj," she told him, "I think we're going to throw you in the tub and get you warmed up – because you feel like an icicle."

He made no protest at that, so she moved to stand up, carrying him to the bathroom to start running the water. She knew she'd already bathed him that morning. But he felt so cold – and she thought beyond warming him up, it might help calm him some more so she could get him into bed. Beyond that she found something really relaxing about sitting with the little boy during bath-time too – listening to him play and his little splashes in the water, helping him ready the washcloth with the body wash so he didn't squirt half the bottle onto it, listening to him recite 'head and shoulders, knees and toes' while he worked at bathing himself, washing his hair for him and rinsing it clean, wrapping him in the big bath towel and helping him dry off before doing his demanded 'cuddles and shakes'.

Bath-time was quiet time for them. And, she knew it was a limited time engagement. She'd missed out on him being a newborn, a baby, a little toddler and having those moments of bonding with him with that skin-to-skin touch of a mother and her child – at bath-time or otherwise. She knew it would probably be only a very small window of time left before Benji expressed to her that he was a big boy and didn't need her sitting in the bathroom with him during his bath. She'd probably only be left with the responsibility of making sure the water wasn't too hot and maybe washing his hair for him a couple times a week – and even that would be gone quickly.

She felt like she'd missed so much some times and other times she felt that the time he had left in his childhood was going to be gone in a blink of the eye. Soon Benji would be a grouchy teenager like Jack, expressing to her on a daily basis just how much he didn't need her. But for the moment, bath-time was a part of the wind-down routine for Benji – and it had quickly become part of her wind-down routine too.

"Jack, I'm just going to get him down for the night and take my own shower. I'll be back out in a while," she told the teen.

She felt so dirty from spending the afternoon at that crime scene. If the boys hadn't been there – she would've striped down about as soon as she got in the door and headed straight for the bathroom to try to wash away what she'd seen. To try to forget. To shed any tears she had about it in an arena where they'd be washed away before she could even admit to herself that she was crying. But she knew from experience that no matter how long she showered – or how many showers she took in a night – the grime, the disgusting feeling after being at some crime scenes could never be washed away. Nor could the images of what she'd seen at them.

Some of the crime scene – those images - just stuck with you no matter how hard you tried to forget or tried to disassociate. She knew she'd be seeing the bedrooms of those children in her mind's eye for days, months, years. She knew colours she wouldn't be painting Benji's room when they got into the apartment and decorations they wouldn't be adding. Pajamas and bed sheets she'd now never consider buying him.

This was one case – her first case with children since Benji had been in her care. If it was affecting her like this – and she hadn't even had to dig into it yet, she hadn't had to go and talk to that little surviving boy – how would it affect her as more and more cases piled up in the future and she came home and saw her little boy? How could she keep from looking at him and not having her mind drift to the horrific things she'd seen that day?

She hugged him tighter to her in she walk to the bathroom. There was nothing horrific about Benji. And she wouldn't let what she saw at work have negative implications for her relationship with him. He was too important to her for that to happen. She'd have to figure out a way to cope. She was going to need to relearn how to be a detective. Fin was right – it was different now, and it was feeling even more different than she expected.


	109. Chapter 109

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Jack peaked up over the back of the sofa as she came out of the bathroom from taking a shower.

"I warmed up a plate of food for you," he told her.

She gave him a small smile at that. It was unlike Jack to take that kind of initiative, especially when it came to her.

She wasn't sure that she really planned to eat. She wasn't really that hungry and she wasn't sure if she felt up to stomaching much. But she didn't want him to become jilted by her turning down his efforts. So, still working at towel drying her hair a bit, she wandered back over to the couch in her sleepwear.

Visiting with him for a while – having a bite to eat and winding down a bit more wasn't going to kill her. It might actually help her calm and sleep a bit better. At the moment, she knew if she went and lay down in the bed next to Benji – she'd just be laying there watching him sleep and trying not to think about work. She might as well give Jack some of her time. Hopefully he wouldn't pull a stunt to wind her back up. She wasn't sure she could handle that tonight. Well … she could, she just didn't really want to.

Jack had left a heaping portion of food sitting on the side of the coffee table nearest to where he'd left her some vacant space on the couch. She was sure that it might not look like that much to him. But even if she was feeling particularly famished that night, she didn't think she could stomach it all. It looked like enough for about three meals, possibly with second helpings, to her. Still, she sat and started picking at the Christmas dinner leftovers. She'd eat a bit at least.

She glanced at the screen. He was done playing his videogame for the moment apparently and had some show going. She didn't recognize it right away but then she did – Criminal Minds. She sighed at him.

"Jack – I can't watch this tonight," she told him. "Pick something else."

He glanced over from where he was curled on the opposite end of the couch and examined her for a minute like he didn't understand. She thought he was going to protest but then something painted across his face like it had clicked. He picked up to the remote and started flicking around.

"Ahhh, what do you want to watch?" he asked. "There's not really anything on."

She shrugged. "I don't care. Just not that. Why don't you pick something off your Netflix thing?"

He looked at her like he didn't really like that idea but reached for his Xbox controller and turned the console back on. She didn't really blame him for his hesitance. Jack seemed to think their tastes in movies were about as far apart as they could get. She supposed he was likely right.

The teen seemed to run pretty mainstream and like the big name actors and the big blockbuster films. He liked thrillers and violence and things blowing up. That wasn't really what she'd submit herself to on most days. She was more likely to sit down in front of some sort of foreign film or an old classic or a documentary. At least that's what she watched on the rare occasions that she did actually get out to a movie or watch one of her own accord. Until she'd taken Benji to Frankenweenie she thought about the last movie she'd been to had been on her date with David. She wasn't really sure of anything she'd watched just on TV before Benji and Jack had been around either. It was usually just background noise to zone out to or to provide distraction to try to lull her to sleep. She hadn't really had purposeful viewing until the boys waltzed into her life. So she wasn't really going to argue with him about preferences. She didn't even watch her preferences often enough for them to be preferences.

"What do you want to watch?" he asked as the thing started up and he started flicking through menus.

"I don't know. Something light and mindless."

That was about all she could handle, she thought. She didn't want something heavy. She didn't want to watch things blowing up. She just … wanted something to zone out to. Enough distraction to keep her mind from wandering too much. She wasn't going to be able to do anything more on the case until some of the reports came back from the medical examiner's office and until ID was made on all the adult male victims (and possibly perp). Or until the little boy was conscious enough that his doctors and grandparents let them actually speak to him. Then there was the possibility that it might all just get handed over to homicide – though, she got the sense that Fin was going to put up a fight about that. He'd been the first on the scene. He'd be taking the lead – and she didn't think he was going to let it go, not with kids were involved, not when a clear sex act was occurring when it happened, not when they'd been the unit that had to comb through that scene and see that horror.

It was the scene she wanted to be distracted from more than the pending work. But there wasn't any reason to get too worked up about the work either yet when there wasn't anything more she could do at the moment – not until they had more information available to them.

He glanced at her again at that and seemed to examine her carefully. She felt him watching her and met his eyes briefly but it only caused him to look back to the screen and flip through the rows and rows of movies more rapidly, as he tried to pick something out.

"The news update for the nightly news was on while you were in the shower," he said quietly and glanced at her again.

She sighed and just looked back to her plate, picking at the cabbage a bit. Alex had done a nice job on the cabbage. She'd really enjoyed it the night before. But tonight all she could think was 'too bad it's red'. She pushed it away from some of the other food and scooped up a small taste of the mashed potatoes. She was surprised there were any of them still left. It had seemed like Jack had been determined to eat through the entire pot the night before.

"You were kind of around in their footage," he tried again with her lack of response.

But she still wasn't going to bite. She didn't know what he wanted her to say. There wasn't anything to say. She did her job – sometimes the media showed up. Sometimes she ended up in view of the cameras. Sometimes she ended up with the responsibility of speaking to the cameras. Sometimes she had trouble biting her tongue at the journalists' ridiculous commentary and questions and ended up saying something to the cameras or voice records that hadn't been approved. It was just a reality of the job. If it bleeds, it leads. But it being on the news didn't open it up for discussion. She wasn't used to having to talk about any of it outside of work or with someone who wasn't a cop or a lawyer – and she really wasn't going to talk to Jack about any of it.

"They said a family died," he said flatly. "They were calling it a massacre in the Upper East Side."

She shrugged. "That what they said? I don't know what information got released to the media. My boss deals with that."

Jack bit on his bottom lips and examined her more – no longer even flicking around on the screen.

"Was it bad?" he asked.

She snorted and looked at him and then leaned forward and put her plate back on the coffee table. She didn't think she could eat anymore – and being dragged into this conversation was really killing her appetite.

"Jack – I can't discuss details of investigations – and even if I could, I honestly really don't want to talk about it. I just … want some quiet time tonight before having to go back into work."

He looked a little hurt but gave her a small nod and looked back to the television, flipping around some more. She sighed and wrapped her arms around herself a bit tighter, tucking her hands into the sleeves of her sweater. She started to think again about heading back to the bedroom and just laying down rather than watching some movie that she'd likely hate with Jack.

"You're OK though?" he asked the side of her head.

She hadn't even felt him looking at her again, she'd become so set on staring off into the kitchen at nothing in particular. But his voice brought her back and she looked in his direction. He looked genuinely concerned and was actually maintaining the eye contact, meeting her eyes and she turned his way. He could be a good boy – a caring boy – when he wanted to be.

"I'm fine, Jack," she assured him.

"You just … look different … " he said. She gave him a questioning look at that. He sighed and shrugged. "You usually look … I don't know … pissy."

She let out a small laugh at that and shook her head. "Thanks, Jack."

He wouldn't be the first person to tell her she looked like a bitch, or a tight ass or a sour puss. She supposed it came with the job. She was used to giving stern looks. She was used to dealing with assholes. Maybe it was true … if you held your face in one position too long, it got stuck that way. But she thought she'd been trying to smile more with the boys – to not look too sour with them, to only pull her stern looks when she was trying to be stern. She felt like she was smiling more around them – especially Benji. She felt it on the inside. She felt happier, calmer, more stable when she was around them. She liked it. She wasn't sure she liked that Jack felt she looked pissy all the time. Though, she supposed she was probably more pissy with him than she was with Benji. The teen definitely needed her to be stricter and sterner – and he did more to piss her off. He wasn't any where near as cute as Benji.

"No … I just mean …" He sighed again. "You look … like … sad, I guess."

She shrugged and rubbed at her eyebrow – but then she gave him a small smile. At least he was trying. He didn't know how – but he was trying, and that counted for a lot.

"It's just that sometimes the things I see at work make me a little sad, Jack. But I'm fine."

"Because … I mean … I can listen and stuff, if you needed to talk," he awkwardly offered.

She gave him a bit more genuine smile at that and reached out at gripped his one socked foot. He still hadn't gone and changed into something drier and warmer.

"Thank you, sweetheart," Olivia said. "But I don't want you and Benji to ever have to think about the things I see at work. OK? So, please don't worry about it. I'm fine. I promise."

Jack sighed and looked at her harder. "I don't get why you do it if it's … so bad," he said. But it was clear he was trying to pick his words carefully, like he was afraid he might offend her.

She gave him a thin smile at that, one that was a little sad. "Lots of reasons, Jack. To start – someone has to. But that's a heavy conversation – and I don't feel like having it tonight. So let's talk about something else," she said and gestured at the television. "Let's watch a movie."

Jack let out another sigh and started flicking around the menus. He was hovering the selector over some movie called Lords of Dogtown that looked like it had a skateboarding theme. Olivia really wasn't sure she wanted to watch that at all – but figured maybe it'd be educational for her. Before she could say anything, though, he started flicking again. She was starting to wonder if and when he was going to pick something. Maybe Netflix provided a little too much choice.

"Whatever it is … does it mean you aren't going to have the weekend off now?" he asked suddenly.

She looked back at him. "No. I should still have it off, sweetie. We aren't going to be able to do much until some of our labs and techs do some legwork. The case is a priority – but they're short staffed this week with the holidays. So it shouldn't affect my weekend. Why?"

He shrugged. "You said you had it and like Monday, Tuesday off."

She nodded. "I do."

He flipped around some more on the screen. "So are we doing something for New Year's?"

She snorted at that and watched him. "I hadn't really thought about it, Jack. I don't usually do much for New Year's."

Sometimes she worked – sometimes she volunteered to work. Sometimes she was on-call. Sometimes she tried to get a date and went off to some party. Other times she ended up at someone's party. Fin usually organized something. She'd gone a couple times but it wasn't really her idea of a good time.

The other detective hadn't mentioned anything about it this year, though – or at least hadn't issued her an invitation. But the atmosphere in the squad room had changed a lot. There wasn't really the same sort of community for that sort of thing anymore. If he invited one of them – he'd have to invite all of them, and she didn't think he much wanted to do that. He'd been able to before since he knew Elliot would never take him up on the invite. Now some people he didn't want to be there might – so best just to not offer it up at all.

"You haven't been invited to a friend's party or anything?" she asked.

He gave her a glance and a small shrug again. "I don't really have friends," he said quietly.

That made her let out a bit of a sad sigh and watch him again. "What about people at work?"

"Most of them are older than me or don't have school. They don't really get it, you know?" he said.

She allowed a small nod at that. "There's no skaters you hang around with?"

"I don't really have a crew," he said.

"Not even after going to that … Friday night skate thing? What about the people there?"

He shrugged. "Gwen goes to those sessions."

"She doesn't have a monopoly on that event or the people there, Jack," Olivia told him. "I'm sure there's lots of other people you can talk to and develop friendships with there."

"Yeah … but she'd be there," he said.

She sighed at that. She wasn't really sure she wanted Jack hanging around her based on the little story he'd told – though it was only the teen's side of what happened. But still. It sounded like the girl might be trouble – and she really didn't need Jack getting himself into any sort of situation. She had enough to sort out with the boys. She didn't need something else to be added to the plate. Still, she hated that the girl's presence now suddenly meant something that he seemed to have been enjoying was something he now felt he couldn't go to.

"What about school?" she suggested.

"I don't know. I don't talk to a lot of people. I just go to class. Everyone would be home anyway."

"Well – some of them must be coming back around New Year's. Didn't you say that winter-term course you're taking starts on the second?"

"Yeah. But must people don't want to spend their winter break doing schoolwork. And … I don't … there's no one I hang out with at school, Olivia," he sighed.

He sounded hurt. She really hated that he was so lonely in so many ways. She reached out and gave his foot another squeeze.

"Maybe you'll be able to start working on that when you're back in residence, sweetie. Your suitemates, other students there. The lounge area we walked by looked fun to go and hang out in – play some pool, watch TV."

He just shrugged at that.

She sighed again and watched him. "Did you get Dickie's phone number the other night?"

He gave her a disgusted look. "Guys don't ask guys for their phone numbers," he spat at her.

She rolled her eyes. "They do if they go to the same university and both live in residence and think that maybe they might want to hang out together at some point in the future," she offered.

He shook his head. "That's so queer."

She snorted at that – and posed her next question, even though based on that response she knew what his reaction and answer would be. "How would you feel about me getting his number for you from Elliot?"

"I can't just randomly call some dude I don't know and be like what, 'I need a friend'. He'll think I'm a fag … and retarded."

"I really don't think Dickie would think either," she told him.

Jack shook his head at that, though. She wasn't going to argue with him about it – not tonight. She'd let him think on it now that she'd put the idea in his head. She just really wished Jack had some friends and some people to start getting him to feel more established in the community – to start getting him to act his age, to not worry quite as much about school and work, to have a few more interests and activities other than skateboarding.

"Well, Jack … we can do something for New Year's. But Benji isn't going to be able to stay up until midnight – so we aren't going to go somewhere for the evening. It'd be too crowded anyways and he doesn't really like that. Maybe we can do something during the day or on the first. But I think on New Year's Eve it might be best to get some take out, maybe a couple treats and just watch movies or the countdown on TV."

Jack sighed at that and quickly flipped through more things on the screen. "Cartoons?"

"Cartoons are generally what is appropriate viewing for your brother," she said.

"Nephew …." Jack mumbled at her.

She looked at him. She didn't know what he was talking about.

"You just called him my brother," Jack spat at her.

She rubbed her eyebrow. "Sorry," she said. "Your nephew."

Jack didn't seem overly offended by it – just a little unimpressed. But she could see how it could potentially be upsetting for him. Still, she really saw how they interacted to be more brotherly than how she'd imagine an uncle-nephew dynamic. It likely had a lot to do with them both still being children in a way, though, even with their age gap. Not to mention, the fact she was basically having to mother them both when they were living in their little family situation while Jack was at her apartment.

"It sounds like a crappy New Year's," Jack said.

She sighed and stopped looking at him. She really didn't want to play that game tonight.

"Jack – you're a big boy, you're welcome to go out if you want. But Benji and I will be having a quiet night here."

"Then why'd you even take the day off?" the teen asked.

"Because I thought it would be nice to have a four-day weekend with the two of you," she told him directly and met his eyes. "Because we need to get you cleared out of your apartment and into residence. Because I need to start getting us moved upstairs."

"When do I get to see upstairs?" he asked.

"I can take you up tomorrow after work," she said.

"I'm working tomorrow night," he responded.

"So? You'll be home by what? Eight?"

"Then you'll be putting 'Jamin to bed," he mumbled.

"So he'll come up and take a look in his pajamas. Problem solved."

He looked at her and again changed the topic. "We watch trilogies on New Year's Eve," he informed her. "And, we get ripple chips and dill pickle dip. And we get to drink soda."

She laughed at him and shook her head. "Is that so? You just sounded about eight and like you're laying out some sort of list of demands that I'm supposed to follow – or else."

He shrugged. "I'm just telling you the way it is."

She snorted. "Ah. Well, I might be able to accommodate that. But I bought you pop already for the holidays. I'm not getting you anymore."

"You got me two bottles for like a week," he protested.

She shrugged. "I told you that was all I was buying. You want more – you can buy it yourself. Or maybe you could make a New Year's resolution to stop drinking that crap."

"That's retarded," he informed her.

She didn't bother to respond to that comment. He knew how she felt about soda.

"So what movie trilogies do you watch on New Year's Eve?" she asked.

He shrugged. "Star Wars. The originals. Episodes four to six."

She looked at him blankly. "That comment just made no sense. But I'm not sitting through multiple Star Wars movies."

"OK. Die Hard."

She laughed and looked at him. "Does that sound like a movie series that's appropriate for a four-year-old, Jack?"

"OK. Pirates of the Caribbean," he said.

She shook her head. "No. You know what trilogy I bet Benji would really like?" Jack looked at her. "Toy Story," she informed him.

"NO WAY," Jack protested.

"I'm pretty sure he'd love sitting through three-plus hours of Toy Story. We've watched the first one about five times already."

"I'm not watching Toy Story."

"It's pretty good," she informed him.

"I'm NOT watching Toy Story," he informed her again.

"You're the one who just insisted we have to watch a trilogy if we're going to be stuck at home on a lame New Year's Eve watching movies."

"Well now you're just trying to make it even lamer," he informed her.

She snorted. "I actually think I'm improving on it from your suggestions."

"You suck," he told her.

"Mmm," she nodded. "You tell me that regularly."

Jack fell quiet at that comment, though, and his movements stilled on the screen.

"I don't really mean it, you know," he said quietly still looking straight ahead.

She looked back at him and gave him a small smile and a little nod. "I know, Jack."

She did know. She knew he didn't hate her – even though sometimes he didn't like her very much. She knew he was recognizing he needed her though he was still having trouble verbally admitting it – but, they were getting there slowly. She knew he knew she cared about him – and he was starting to show her that he cared about her. It was all a process. She also recognized the attitude, some of the little comments about how much she sucked or how something she was doing sucked or how much he hated whatever – it was normal, teenaged behaviour. In some ways him telling her that she sucked, he might as well be telling her that he was acknowledging her as taking on a parental role for him. Those words didn't hurt her when they came out of his mouth.

Com'on, sweetheart. Pick something," she urged. "Or I'm going to go to bed. You went past Empire Records. Have you seen that before?"

He shook his head.

She reached out and this time leaned over closer to him and ran her hand down his bicep, before giving his shoulder a small squeeze – trying to let him know that she didn't care about the bullshit he spewed at her. She saw him underneath it. She wasn't going anywhere. He was stuck with her as long as he let himself be. She was starting to see him as just as much her kid as Benji. It would be a different relationship than with the little boy. But they were still going to have a relationship. What exactly that was going to look like – it would depend on how much he decided to let her in. He was letting her in, though.

"Let's watch that one. I think you might like it," she told him.

"What's it about?" he asked, as he started typing the name into the search function.

She snorted and gave him another small smile. "Being a teenager."


	110. Chapter 110

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Hi," Olivia said, barely opening the apartment door for Alex before moving back into the apartment.

"Jack!" she called out towards the bedroom. "Alex is here. Get a move on."

Olivia pretty much felt like she operating in the centre of a tornado at that point. It had technically only been a three-day workweek – with a mid-week break. But Thursday and Friday had felt like about the longest workweek she'd ever had.

The case was still weighing heavy on her – and it had left everyone in a foul mood, especially with the added stress of dealing with a high profile and emotionally jarring case in the midst of the holidays when everywhere was short staffed. So the investigation was moving at an even slower pace than usual – even with the added pressure from the brass.

Nick was back and possibly in an even fouler mood than her, Munch, Fin or Cragen – and he hadn't even had to see that crime scene, he didn't even have his name next to the case as an assigned detective. But things hadn't gone well in D.C. and he was even angrier at Maria than he had been when he left. Not to mention, from the bits and pieces she'd gotten out of him in the brief moments they'd had to talk, it sounded like the whole separated parents at Christmas thing hadn't done wonders for Zara's temperament either.

And, that was just her work situation!

Olivia was glad that Jack felt comfortable enough to be spending the week with her and Benji. But he really had been at the apartment for over a week. He may be 19 but it still felt like she was having to do double-time parenting while he was around. She was having to pick up more crap up from all over the apartment – socks, empty glasses, videogame controllers, plates covered with crumbs, pens and pencils being left everywhere, little scraps of paper with the most random sketches he'd made that she wasn't sure if they were trash or treasure to be kept, dirty laundry on the floor in the bathroom and bedroom and towels left in scrunched damp balls even when they were hanging. She was having to cook twice as much food – really about four-times as much food to feed them all with Jack's appetite. And, then there was the little back-and-forth with him.

It wasn't like Benji, where should could give an answer or just say that's the way it is, if he didn't like it. Everything was an argument. And, even conversations that weren't arguments with him were exhausting – because most of them started while after she had any interest in having them.

By the time she left work, picked up Benji from daycare, got them home, made them something to eat for dinner, played with the boy and got him ready and down for bed – really all she wanted to do was tidy up the kitchen, spend a little bit of quiet time unwinding and then go to bed herself. But that always seemed to be the moment that Jack tried to make some sort of chitchat. She felt badly just making listening noises about his day at Funky's or whatever the hell he was achieving on his videogames. She tried to participate and be engaged – but most nights she just really didn't want to.

She'd spent Saturday trying to clean up from the chaos of their week. The mess of toothpaste in the sink and splattered across the mirror, the extra laundry to run through the wash, the stickiness of spills no wiped up in the kitchen, the dirty dishes left in the sink and not rinsed out and put in the dishwasher.

She'd started to work on taking down the tree – which Benji had vehemently protested in his commitment that maybe Santa would come more than just at Christmas if they left it up all year. So that had been a battle. And, not to mention just a chore, in general. As much as Jack had clearly wanted to be involved putting up the tree – he'd clearly had no interest in helping clean up from Christmas and pack up the tree. He'd had even less interest when she'd asked him to come over and pack one of the bookshelves for her. But she so needed to get started on the packing. She didn't want the move to be a drawn out affair.

Olivia was telling herself that within a week to two weeks – things would be easier.

In about three days, Jack would be living in the dorms and would be out from underfoot. She'd have the evenings (after she got Benji to bed) to herself again – rather than waiting for Jack to go to bed to get a few minutes of quiet and privacy. With Jack there quiet and privacy was basically non-existent at the moment. Even to sleep, she was either having to kick him out of the living room so she could claim the couch or she'd been just going and sleeping in the bedroom with Benji.

Jack seemed fairly committed to spending every waking hour he wasn't at work playing his new videogames and was staying up hours after her – and she'd never used to consider herself an early to bed, early to rise person. But Jack was making her sometime between 11 p.m. and 2 a.m. bedtime look like she was that week.

After she got Jack moved, she could focus on finishing the packing. She'd have help moving the furniture upstairs the following weekend – and then her and Benji could finally start settling into what would hopefully be their routine for the foreseeable future. They could really start to get established and then it would just be a couple more weeks – and hopefully all the paperwork would just go through, and they could start their lives together, in a stable environment.

She just had to get through a couple more weeks of the chaos and the disorganization, the lack of privacy and the mess. At least that's what she was trying to convince herself.

Jack came wandering out of the bedroom dressed in a pair of jeans that looked like they were about to slip off his waist even in his casual strides. She sighed and shook her head at him, pointing back to the bedroom.

"You aren't wearing those," she told him. "Go put on something else."

The teen glared at her. "What's wrong with them?"

"They're too big on you!" she told him exasperatedly. He'd been doing his best to push her buttons that morning – after irritating her the day before in his refusal to help with any of the cleaning, tidying or packing.

"I'm wearing a belt," he spat back at her and started rummaging around in his backpack looking for something.

"No," she said and pointed to the bedroom again. "We've got to clean out your apartment and carry that couch and TV out to the trash. We aren't doing that with your pants falling down around your knees."

"We aren't throwing out my TV," he informed her, ignoring the rest of her statements.

She wasn't going to argue with him about that at the moment. She'd save that battle for when they were at the apartment. But there was no way she was dragging the old tube television across the city for him to have in his room in the dorms. His suitemates had a TV in the living area – and there was a communal TV lounge in the building. He didn't need a television in his room – especially if the amount of time he was spending that week playing videogames and watching movies, television and internet videos was any indication of his usual habits. Not only would it affect his studies – and hence his scholarship (which he needed to fucking keep. He sure as hell couldn't afford his schooling – and she really didn't want to be helping out there, even if it was just signing onto a loan as a guarantor for him.). But spending that much time in front of the stupid-box was going to affect his ability to make friends and form relationships. He'd already complained about not having either.

The crappy old television was going in the trash. End of story. He just didn't know it yet. But Olivia had already decided she was winning that battle. She didn't care how pissed off it made him.

"I did the laundry yesterday," she informed him. "Go put on your cords."

"You were bitching about me wearing them too much. I have my jeans on," he said and pulled his wallet out of somewhere at the bottom of his backpack and tossed it loudly onto her desk.

"Don't swear in front of Benji," she glared at him. "And, I said you should put your cords in the wash. You wore them four days in a row, Jack. Full days. Not on for a couple hours in the evening. They needed to go through the laundry. It's basic hygiene. I shouldn't need to tell a 19-year-old man that. But now they're through the laundry. Go put them on. They actually fit you."

He huffed at her but started to move back towards the bedroom. "You're always fucking ordering me around."

"Watch your mouth!" she called at him sternly again. "And, stop acting like you need someone bossing you around and I'll stop doing it."

She looked at Alex who'd removed her coat and boots and stowed them away herself without prompting. Olivia made a face at her and then shook her head.

"We haven't even left yet and … grr…" she said and made a motion like she wanted to wring Jack's neck. She rolled her eyes. "Sorry. Thanks for coming over … for doing this."

Alex nodded. "Sure," she smiled. "I wouldn't pass up this opportunity."

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow. "You might feel differently about that by the time we get back," she sighed.

Alex may have seen Benji being confrontational. She may have seen some minor tantrums and some whining. But she hadn't yet experienced Benji in full out meltdown, which Olivia felt like could be a potential possibility based on how the little boy had handled being left with Jack earlier in the week. She really wasn't sure how Alex would handle that. She knew the woman was capable of dealing with it. But she wasn't really sure Alex would be wanting to deal with it – and Olivia didn't much like the idea of leaving anyone else to deal with it. Or doing anything that would send the Little Fox into such a tizzy again.

"Ahh …" Olivia said and gestured into the kitchen. "I made up his snack already," she said and opened the fridge, pointing at a small bowl of yogurt with sliced peaches in it. "You can give it to him basically as soon as we walk out the door. It will distract him and it's about his snack-time anyways. He seems OK right now – but if he's acting hungry, you can give him a piece of toast or half a bagel.

"He'll try to get you to give him some Christmas cookies or his stocking candy," she added and put her hand on the one cupboard where they were hidden out of his reach. "Not in the morning. He can have that as afternoon snack … around 3:30, if we aren't back yet. Just a bit – or he'll be off the walls. There's some hot chocolate in that cupboard too – or if you guys go out – he can have a cup of that as a treat too. Not multiple cups in the day. And – he thinks he likes the eggnog but he doesn't. So don't let him talk you into giving him a glass. Jack will have a fit if the last of it is gone and it ended up being dumped down the sink because Benji spit it back into the glass rather than drink it."

Spitting it into the glass was actually being generous. It had ended up bubbled down Benji's front. Spit all over the dining table and spit all over the floor in the living area. The little boy seemed convinced he should like it and drink it because his uncle was going through it like it might as well have been cartons of milk. But the taste and thick-heavy texture of the liquid were definitely not appealing to Benji.

Alex gave her a look like she was losing her mind with the directions. But to Olivia it just confirmed that her friend really had no idea what she was getting into. It would likely end up being an eye-opener for the attorney.

Olivia knew she definitely hadn't be prepared for what was involved in the day-in, day-out care of a four-year-old. Even having the time with Calvin hadn't prepared her very well. Dealing with the day-to-day needs of an 11-year-old wasn't really comparable to the needs of a preschooler, especially one with trauma like Benji.

Alex would need to keep his routines as close to his usual Sunday routine as possible or else this might really be a disaster. Olivia thought the day with the little boy might potentially put a hold on the ticking of Alex's biological clock and any maternal longing she was feeling. At least a temporary one. But Olivia was also learning that no matter how frustrating and exhausting Benji could be that lots of the tiniest little moment – looks, hugs, the funniest things that came out of his mouth – made some of the pain, annoyance and frustrations of dealing with a four-year-old fade a little too quickly and seem like it was worth. Maybe it was worth it for her – she wasn't sure it would be for Alex when playing babysitter.

The good part about playing babysitter, though, was that it was only temporary and if Benji was throwing a fit or giving her trouble to the point she was questioning if she really did ever want to have a child – Alex would be able to hand him back over to Olivia and leave in fairly short order. She wasn't stuck with him for the next fourteen-plus years. But how Olivia so wanted to be stuck with him for the next fourteen-plus years.

"Umm… I put his craft bin …"

"He has a craft bin?" Alex said and Olivia just nodded and pointed at the dining table again. "Well, aren't you just Super Mom."

Olivia snorted and rubbed at her eyebrow again. She was far from Super Mom. She'd just quickly realized that Benji needed to always have his hands in something and making something – whether it was with blocks, scraps of paper, his socks, his toys, the cushions on the couch or his food. He loved crafts at nursery school. He loved crafts at the library. And it kept him happy and busy and out from underfoot when she was trying to make them something to eat or fold laundry or do just about anything that didn't need a little boy's help. But it was also just fun to watch. So early on in having him in her care, she'd gone and bought a few cheap supplies: some children's safety scissors, some glue and a stack of construction paper to go along with the crayons, markers and colouring books she'd already picked up for him in the first days he'd been with her.

"The bin is on the table," was all she said, though. "If you decide not to try taking him over to the library circle-time – you might want to spend some craft time with him. Or, if you don't get there early enough to get him into circle time. Sunday craft time is … part of his routine," she sighed a little.

She wasn't sure Alex was completely understanding or appreciating what Benji and routines meant exactly.

"I put his Play-Doh kit out there too," she added. "Just watch him with that, though. He's going to be into it as soon as he notices it sitting there."

"Liv, he's four," Alex said and gave her another look like she was being a crazy person. "I think I've got it under control."

Olivia just gave her another small smile. She didn't doubt that Alex would manage whatever situation might manifest itself. She just wanted to make sure the woman had a realistic perspective of what could manifest itself. And, truth be told, Olivia was nervous.

She'd left Benji at daycare. She'd left Benji with Jack. But this would be the first time she'd be leaving him with someone else. She already so much thought of Benji as her little boy – and she was finding it a little hard to be stepping out for a few hours and leaving him alone.

She wanted him to be OK. To be able to have a good time with Alex – to be co-operative and funny and loving and himself. She wanted it to be easy for everyone. But the truth was she'd probably be thinking about him and worrying about what was going on at the apartment all day while she worked at getting Jack sorted. She worried about him enough when he was just with his caretakers at the nursery school or with Jack. She'd seen the tears in those instances and it pulled at her heart. She knew that this was going to be just as bad if not worse when she walked out the door. She could only hope that there wouldn't be any tears this time as she tried to leave, like there had been on the toboggan hill.

"Where is Benji?" Alex asked, glancing around the apartment.

Olivia nodded towards the bathroom. "He's taking a poop."

"A poop?" Alex teased. "The door is opened," she added as a secondary comment.

Olivia nodded again and shrugged. "Benji doesn't do closed doors too well."

"Oh, that's lovely," Alex said.

Olivia snorted. "He doesn't really like closed doors while you're in there either," she warned. "I talked to him about that. But just be prepared for him to be at the door and there to be some whining – and remember to lock it, or else … you might not be alone in there."

Alex gaped at her. "Ooook. Thanks for that heads up."

"Some more bathroom heads up," Olivia sighed and looked at her friend. "I talked to him about this too – and you should be OK since he's supposedly trying to take a poop now. But sometimes he wants you to check out his efforts or wipe his butt. Just tell him he's a big boy and can manage on his own."

Alex gaped at her more and Olivia shrugged.

"Also – he tends to hold it until he's about ready to burst, and then he doesn't always quite make it in time. So if you've given him something to drink and you haven't noticed him having taken a bathroom break … let's say within about 90 minutes or so … just ask him if he has to go. If you're leaving the apartment – make him go before you leave, even if he says he doesn't have to. Make him try. He usually goes. And, if you've been out for a couple hours and there's a bathroom around – take him in. The playground we go to has a bathroom, so you should be fine. Library – you'll be fine. I don't know taking him anywhere else would be a good idea."

"Does he close doors at public bathrooms?" Alex asked a little sarcastically.

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow again at that and looked down. "Sort of. Just take him into the ladies room – don't send him alone into the men's room," she told her. She hoped that was stating the obvious but it was her little boy. She was covering off all bases and just hoping Alex wouldn't feel like she was being to patronizing. "Or if they have a family restroom – go in there. The library does. If you end up in the ladies room – he'll want you to be in the stall with him."

"To watch him take a crap?" she said a little sarcastically again.

"He won't crap twice in a day," Olivia said – hoping that he'd come out of the bathroom, having declared he'd taken one of his epic poos and they could just take that possibility off the table of something Alex would end up having to deal with.

"Just … " Olivia cringed a bit in how to explain this. "If you do go over to the park and he has to pee … just watch him. The toilet bowl is a little high for him and … just don't let him touch anything against it. They're usually …"

"Gross … OK. Got it," Alex agreed and looked a little disgusted at the concept too.

Putting your ass on a toilet seat in some of the parks' public bathrooms was an only in emergency proposal. Anything else rubbing against it by a little boy was a new level of disgusting.

"You can tell him to sit down if you're somewhere else and it's cleaner, though. If you're more comfortable with that. He will. He hasn't exactly perfected peeing standing up yet. If any man every does …"

"You're making it sound rather unappealing to take him anywhere," Alex informed her.

Olivia gave her a small smile again at that. She knew taking him out in public could sound a little daunting. Dealing with Benji in public could be a little daunting too. But she also knew that after being stuck with Benji inside for a few hours – the urge to get out of the small space and to have a change of scenery, to run some energy out of him, to get some distraction – often emerged.

"If you're comfortable with it, and he's not throwing a fit when we leave, he'd likely really like it if you took him to the library. Do circle time, read him a story, pick some books for the week, let him pick a movie for this afternoon," Olivia told her. "It's become part of our Sunday routine. It might make things … easier on you both."

She tapped on the counter. "Library card, if you do go. Books we're done with are in the canvas bag by the door. Don't let him go rooting through it and dragging them out for you to read. I don't want them to get lost in the move and have late fees and lost book charges."

She glanced at Alex again. The lawyer didn't look nearly as enthusiastic as she had when she'd come in the door.

"Ahh … I had him into the doctor's on Friday afternoon to get him caught up on some of his immunizations with getting him registered for kindergarten. So he's been complaining about his arm being a little sore – and he has been a smidge off," she added, hoping that didn't diminish the appeal of the day even more for Alex.

But it clearly did. "Great," the woman mumbled.

"There's children's Tylenol in the medicine cabinet, if you feel like he needs it. And it means he likely really will need his nap. He goes down really easily anyways, though, even when he is himself. If he doesn't self-initiate it – you can tell him around two that it's naptime and he'll lay down for you. Or he should. He'll usually takes a quiet-time that's about 45 minutes – maybe longer if you wear him out or he really isn't feeling himself. You can give him his afternoon snack after he gets back up."

Alex shook her head. "This is not sounding as much fun as I thought it would be," she groaned a bit.

Olivia allowed her another small smile. "He's just Benji. You know what he's like. You'll be fine. He likes you." Alex still didn't look convinced. "You want to trade? I'll let you babysit Jack for the day."

The lawyer shook her head at that. "I don't think so. Even if I wasn't doing this for free – you couldn't pay me enough to take on that."

Olivia snorted just as Jack wandered back out of the bedroom. Apparently telling him to change his pants meant he'd needed to change his shirt too.

"Are you talking about me?" he squinted at them.

Olivia shook her head. "No. Just the day, in general."

He eyed them both with some skepticism. But then looked at Alex. "Are you going to the library?"

The lawyer shrugged. "Maybe."

"They rent movies there," Jack stated flatly.

Alex shrugged unknowingly. So Olivia stepped in – even though she knew the teen likely already knew the answer to that and it'd been a rhetorical question.

"They lend out movies. Was there something you wanted?" she asked. "For New Year's Eve?"

"Ah. The Road. It's a movie too," the teen said flatly.

Olivia examined him. "Are you done the book?"

He nodded.

"Really?" she asked, a little surprised. She'd seen him put a dent in it on Christmas Day but hadn't seen him with it since.

"Yeah," Jack said and gave her a look like she was being rude to him in some way by asking.

"Did you like it?" she asked.

"Well, I want to see the movie, don't I," he said and looked at her like she was being really stupid now.

"What'd you like about it?" she pressed, almost testing if he'd actually read it, or if he'd discovered there was a movie and was taking the easy way out.

"I don't know. Lots of things. Do you want a book report?" he asked her sarcastically and then looked at Alex. "Can you check for it?"

She gave the teen a small nod. "Sure. The Road," she repeated back.

"IMDB says it has Viggo Mortensen in it," Jack clarified. "And it's a few years old."

Alex just nodded again, clearly looking a little annoyed, at least to Olivia. Though, she wasn't sure Jack was picking up on it. "OK," Alex said again, a little more harshly.

"MOOOOOOMMMIIE FOX," Benji hollered from in the bathroom.

Olivia looked over in that direction. She was actually starting to wonder if he'd fallen in. Or more likely, he'd become distracted by the little bucket of bath toys sitting next to the tub.

Olivia hadn't realized that some foamy shapes and letters, a little boat and a squirting whale could be so fascinating – in and out of the tub. But there'd been more than one occasion where Benji had disappeared into the bathroom for an extended period and she'd gone looking for him to find him sitting on the floor – or once even in the empty tub – with the toys out.

That was again the case this time and she found him kneeling on the bath matt, which was still damp from Jack's morning showering. His pants' waist was all twisted at an awkward empty in his attempts to pull them back up. Still something he wasn't very good at – but had at least improved since the cast had come off. She could only hope he'd prefect his technique in another week or so when the brace finally left his arm. She hadn't yet heard him flush the toilet or the water at the sink, though. But he often ended up calling her when it was time to wash his hands. The faucet was still just out of his reach even on tippy-toes.

"What are you doing, Benj?" she asked, and glanced in the bowl. He had managed to take a poop. She was glad that ordeal would be out of the way for Alex potentially having to deal with while her and Jack were out. She flushed the toilet.

"I can't reach," he told her.

She nodded. "OK. Well – you definitely can't reach when you're sitting on the floor," she informed him. "Put the toys away. Get up, Little Fox."

He ignored her for a moment, still squeezing at the little whale and it made some sputtering sound from the water still caught somewhere inside of it. But he listened after a few more seconds and began putting his toys back in the little pail, with its sprinkler bottom – meant as an additional bath toy and to keep everything drained and less damp in its storage. Though, it sometimes meant the spot on the floor it got left in was usually a puddle. He stood and gazed up at her.

"Did you get your bum wiped?" she asked, as she bent and adjusted his waistband so his pants weren't at such a jarring and crotch-wedgie angle.

"Yeeeeeeeeeees," he agreed and she gave a small nod. She wasn't about to check. She'd deal with the evidence of his success or failure at the next laundry day. He was slowly improving. There'd been strides in that area too now that the cast was off.

She got him over to the sink and turned on the water for his waiting hands, doing the usual ritual of picking up the soap for him and squirting it into his palms.

Benji spotted Alex, who was still at the kitchen island chatting quietly with Jack, immediately when they came back into the living area. The little boy had been informed and prepared for her coming over and that he was going to have a day with her while Olivia and Jack were out, but he still clung to her leg.

"Mooommmmie Fox," he whined upon seeing the other woman.

She stroked at his hair. She still hadn't had the chance to get him into the barber. Maybe the next week. She'd find the time eventually.

"Benji," she sighed. "We talked about this. You and Alex are going to have a fun day together while Mommy and Jack go and finish moving your uncle into residence. You don't want to go back to the apartment again, do you?"

He shook his head hard and grabbed at her leg more.

"So – then – you're going to have to stay here and play with Auntie Alex," she informed him, and felt the other woman glance at her at the reference.

But it was what the attorney was becoming. She'd rather quickly become Olivia's main support and go-to person in getting over some of the hurdles and getting the little boy settled into her life. It was unexpected. Olivia really had thought she'd be doing it on her own. She really appreciated that Alex had stepped up, though. Still, Olivia knew the woman likely had her own ulterior motives. She thought she was likely taking a bit of a test run to see if she thought maybe she was ready to explore her own options and to just see how much of a disaster jumping into that baptism by fire might be.

"Com'on Ben," Alex called out at him. "Do you really want to go shopping with Mom? I know what shopping with your mommy is like. Boring. All these lists and comparing price tags and up and down the aisles. Who wants to do that?"

Benji squinted at her more at that comment and reached his hand up and hooked his finger into one of Olivia's belt loops – clearly illustrating he wasn't just going to let her go. She sighed and crouched down and looked at him.

"Little Fox, Mommy really needs to get Uncle Jack moved. His big boy school is starting again soon and he needs to be all ready. So… you and Alex are going to go to circle time, if you want. And Mommy put out your crafts and your Play-Doh. You and Alex can play and do crafts. She'll read you a story and you'll watch a movie – and then Mommy and Jack will be home for dinner. OK?"

He buried himself against her and didn't give any response – beyond clinging to her and rubbing his face against her chest. She stroked at his cheek, trying to calm him down and really hating the concept of potentially leaving him in a fit for Alex when her and Jack left. The day of dealing with Jack was likely going to be stressful enough – she didn't want to be worrying about Alex and Benji all day. Though, she knew no matter what she would be.

Alex wandered over and opened her purse, crouching down to look at the little boy. She gave Olivia a thin smile.

"Hey Ben," she said and stuck her tongue out at him as his face made on of its movements across Olivia's chest and his eyes briefly met her. But the little boy didn't give her his usual raspberry and instead moved his face back across his mommy and then stilled looking in the opposite direction.

"I bought something for you," Alex tried again and pulled a colouring book out of her purse settling it against Olivia's knee, where the little boy could look at it without having to look at her. "Look," she encouraged. "It has pictures and mazes and it even comes with its own crayons and STICKERS!"

Benji again slowly brought his head back across and looked down at it. "Transformers?" he asked quietly.

"Well, it has to be Transformers or it wouldn't be any good, right?" Alex encouraged. Olivia gave a small snort and a smile to the other woman at that.

"Auntie Alex spoils someone," she told her seriously.

Olivia had already seen the starting signs that Alex was just waiting for a chance to open the floodgates and start showering the little boy with gifts. She could tell she'd been barely reeling herself in so far. It'd been more than obvious on the clothes shopping trip where Alex had thought about every second piece of little boy's clothing was adorable – and even more obvious on the Christmas gift shopping trip. If it had been Alex spending her pay cheque – Benji likely would've ended up with a sleigh-load from Santa and beyond.

The only reason Alex hadn't ended up spending a small fortune of her own on the little boy was because Olivia had basically forbid it. But the detective also knew as time went on – and if Alex continued to play a role in the little boy's life and established an even stronger rapport – she'd be asking less for permission and just buying what she wanted. She knew that that likely meant Benji would be getting more than a few treats a year from Alex. It was likely more going to be like a small gift – she hoped just small at least – every visit.

"You want to get out of here, don't you?" Alex responded quietly.

Olivia snorted at that and rubbed at Benji's back some more.

"Who's that?" Alex asked and pointed at the front cover of the book that the little boy was examining with some reluctant interest.

"Bumblebee," he told her quietly.

"Ohhhh … is that what Bumblebee looks like?" Alex said and picked up the cover pretending to examine it some more. "I think I'd like to colour a picture of Bumblebee. Or! Your Christmas paints?! Who do you want to paint, Ben?"

Benji looked at her a bit more as she started to page through the book. He squinted at her and then slowly moved away from Olivia – grabbing the book and pulling it down so he could see as Alex flipped through.

"Bear-cade?" he asked and looked at the pages.

"Hmm, I haven't seen Barricade yet. But isn't that Ratchet? He looks like a fire truck doesn't he?"

Olivia smiled. She was impressed that Alex had remembered the names of any of the characters. But she supposed that a lot of Alex's career – or at least education – was based on memorization and application of information.

Benji examined the page. "Heatwave a fire truck," he informed her.

Alex nodded. "I don't know if Heatwave is in here, though, either. But I think there's lots of other Transformers for us to colour. Should we go colour?"

Benji puckered in thought and glanced at Olivia but then grabbed the book from Alex's hands and trotted over to the table, pulling out his chair and crawling up on it. He smacked the colouring block onto the flat surface and than reached out and dragged the craft bin over to him – popping the lid off and loudly rooting around in it. Olivia figured he was likely looking for his markers – his weapon of choice when it came to colouring books. All the better to scribble with.

"You should go," Alex said, as they both straightened back up and looked at the little boy, "while he's distracted."

Olivia nodded, though a little reluctantly. She looked at Jack and gestured towards the door – for him to get his coat and boots on and ready. She walked over to the table and stroked at Benji's hair some more and leaned down to put a kiss amid his strawberry locks. Alex gave her a smile and took a seat at the table – pulling the bin over closer to her and working at picking out her own art supplies, starting to chatter at the little boy.

"I'll see you later, Little Fox," Olivia said but he barely acknowledged her. She wanted a goodbye from him. But she also didn't want to rile up the situation. She'd just have to hope that tears didn't come when he realized she was gone – and if they did, it wouldn't be too disastrous for Alex.

"I'll call later," she said to the attorney. "Text me – let me know how it's going."

Alex nodded and looked up from where she was starting her own drawing with crayons. "We'll be fine," she stressed quietly. "Go, Liv."

Olivia gave another small nod and let her fingers rest on Benji's head before heading to the door to get on her gear. It was going to be a long worrisome day. It felt so strange to be stepping away from the little boy. Her little boy.


	111. Chapter 111

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia sighed at Jack. They'd been in the store about 15 minutes and he still hadn't picked anything.

Cleaning out his apartment had been an ordeal. He'd bickered at her about if anything that was still there was salvageable. Her opinion had been that none of it was.

She'd resigned herself to the fact that part of having Jack in her life was going to mean supporting him to an extent too – and that meant getting him established. Jay wouldn't want his son living like this. She was fairly certain that any parent who had the means would at least make sure their child had the basics when they started college – bedding, some bath linens, some tableware, a few items for the kitchen – a toaster, a kettle, a pot and frying pan, a spoon and spatula - some school supplies and a few pairs of clean clothes. She wanted to get Jack to at least that point.

Everything the teen 'owned' was so old and grungy looking. She was sure some street kids rummaging through discarded items and trash bins had a better looking collection of junk than Jack did.

Olivia didn't want to bother trying to wash and scrub and disinfect some of the crap he had. She just wanted to toss it and start over. But getting him to buy into that had been a never-ending circular conversation.

Even getting him to agree that they were just taking the couch out to the back of the building was an ordeal. He'd even thrown out there that maybe he should put it on craigslist and see if he could get anything for it. She thought that was ridiculous. He'd clearly pulled it out of the trash in the first place … and now he wanted to be trying to sell it? It was dirty and smelly, ripped and torn with stuffing coming out of it. But she'd just told him that if that was something he'd wanted to do, he should've thought of it and done it previously. Too late now.

Then there were the air mattresses, which he thought he should keep to use as a bed, if he ended up in his own apartment again. Because without the air in them – they wouldn't take up much space. She didn't mention to him that by the looks of it, one of the air mattresses didn't even need to have the air drained out of it. It clearly had a hole. Whichever one of them had been sleeping on it, might as well have been sleeping on the cold, hard, dirty floor. She just told him if he ended up in an apartment – she'd be buying him a bed. He huffed at that. But the mattresses had ended up in a trash bag.

Then there was the TV. Jack wasn't about to let that battle go quietly. She finally sighed, crossed her arms and looked at him sternly.

"You throw out this TV – and you get the grades you need to close out this year, keep your scholarship, keep putting in at least three shifts a week in at work and helping me out with Benji when I ask and around the apartment – WITHOUT ATTITUDE and you get a summer job lined up - and I will buy you a television for your room come September," she offered in a bribe. "Within reason."

He examined her at that – clearly actually considering it. "You'll buy me a TV?" he asked. "Any TV?"

"Within reason," she stressed again.

Jack was a boy – and he clearly knew things about electronics. He'd already pointed out to her that her television was "small" (she really didn't agree for the amount she watched it and for the size of her apartment) and why'd she have this kind of TV rather than that kind of TV? And why didn't she hook up this or that so she could do this or that (because she didn't know how and she didn't think she'd use those expanded features anyways)? And why didn't she have surround sound (because why would she?!)?

"What does that mean?" he glared at her.

"It's a television for a dorm room – it's not a home entertainment system."

"So is that like a price limit?" he asked.

She snorted. For how concerned Jack could get about her spending money on him in some areas – apparently money wasn't an object when it came to a flat screen.

"It's a price limit – and it's a size limit, Jack," she told him. "You don't need some … 55-inch screen in a dorm room. Stop acting like you're trying to over compensate for something."

He glared at her for that. But she'd been trying to get a reaction from him. It'd distract him.

"It's not over-compensating," he spat at her.

She snorted again and looked down.

"You just need a good screen to play games," he clarified.

She gestured at the piece of junk that was sitting on the floor. "Oh - and that's a good screen to play your games on?" She didn't have to see the picture on it to know it was crap. Not to mention that it wasn't exactly a big screen by today's standards.

"What am I going to play my games on if you make me throw out MY TV?!" he argued.

She shrugged. "The television in the living area of the suite. Your suitemates had a TV and it looked like videogames set up there."

"IT WAS A PLAYSTATION!" he very nearly yelled at her.

"So?" she shrugged again.

"I can't play Xbox games on a Playstation," he told her like she was a complete idiot. "And Playstation sucks."

She rubbed at her eyebrow and gestured at the television. "We are NOT dragging that across town, Jack. It will take up half the cab. We're going to have enough stuff to get into the taxi. I will buy you a television in September – if you prove to me, you can handle a television and videogames and your studies while being a grown-up with everything else we've got going on in getting our family sorted out."

"We aren't a family," he mumbled at her and went back to jamming crap into a trash bag. She hoped it was one actually destined for the garbage and not another one he expected to sort through in the dorms.

"Aren't we?" she glared at the top of his head. "Because I sure as hell feel like we've been playing house pretty well, Jack. And, I'm not signing up for this to be some sort of never-ending babysitter for you and Benji."

He glanced up at her and gave her a dirty look. "You can't just confiscate my Xbox," he said, changing the topic.

The topic change said enough to her. It was at least a partial acknowledgement that they were something. The more time they spent together, the more it sure felt like a family to Olivia. She sure felt like she had two kids and was taking on more than she expected to in terms of being a mom. She hadn't expected if it ever worked out for her that it would include two kids – with one of them being a nearly grown teenager snarking at her and arguing with her.

"I'm not confiscating your Xbox, Jack," she sighed. "Take it to the dorms. Set it up in the living room with the television there."

"They play Playstation," he mumbled.

"And that means they won't play Xbox?" she asked.

Teenaged boys made less and less sense to her the more time she spent with Jack. She thought some of them made little sense – that she didn't understand them – when she dealt with the young creeps at work. But Jack was giving her a whole new perspective.

Boys operated in their own little world that she wasn't sure she'd ever quite understand. That was clear now. She thought after decades of working in a male-dominated environment, hearing the things men talked and joked about, having to participate in the boys' club – that she had a bit of an idea, that she knew how to operate within it, how to navigate it, how to interact with it. Spending time with Jack – and Benji too – was adding a whole new dimension to how she thought about that.

She didn't know as much about Boy World as she thought. Though, she thought if she ever got around to dating again now – dealing with her two boys would send her into dealing with men with a whole new perspective. Seeing what they were like while they were still kids – the things they thought about, how they acted and interacted with each other and other people, what they thought was fun or interesting or funny – it provided some additional insight on what they eventually grew into. She wanted to make sure her two grew into good ones. Maybe helping them grow into good ones would help her into maybe finally having the chance to find a good man of her own.

"Probably not," he mumbled.

She sighed. "OK. Then leave the Xbox at the apartment. You can play it on weekends."

She actually wasn't entirely opposed to the idea of the thing being left at her place. She was liking the Netflix feature of it. It was nice to have so many children's movies and television shows at her fingertips to just put on for Benji – and to not have him being bombarded with advertising either. She knew there were likely lots of other ways to access the service – that she could figure out on her own or have Jack set up for her. But she had this one figured out.

And, if the Xbox stayed in the apartment too – it would mean she wouldn't be worried about him logging on endless hours of Halo either. He could communicate with his suitemates and at least if he was logging endless hours on the videogames – he'd be doing it with other real, live, breathing people sitting in the same room as him. Even if that meant he'd have to be playing on a Playstation – whatever difference that made. Apparently a big one – that she didn't understand. But she wasn't too worried about not understanding that aspect of Boy World.

"I work on weekends," he mumbled again, still storming around and finally cleaning up the apartment a bit.

He'd indicated he didn't see the need to clean it. She'd told him they had to – to get his deposit back. He insisted there wasn't a deposit. But she was pretty sure even a dump like that would've taken something from him as assurance. They were at least going to pick up the trash off the floor, sweep the place and wipe down the kitchenette and bathroom. Jack was less than enthusiastic about that idea. Still, he was co-operating now, likely more so he wouldn't have to look at her while arguing with her. But she'd take it.

"You work Saturdays, Jack," she groaned. "You've been over on Sundays more than not. Eating me out of house and home."

He offered her another glare at that. She'd noted that none of the containers she sent home with him containing food – but that he never brought back – had been in the apartment. So she wondered where that had gone. She suspected that rather than having to wash them out – he'd put the reusable containers in the trash or recycling. He clearly didn't realize that even the cheap containers weren't that cheap. Or he thought she was made of money. Or he was just being a lazy-ass teenaged boy. She figured it was likely a combination of all of the above.

"So I get to play one day a week? Why'd you even buy me the games then?" he demanded.

She sighed and shrugged. "You seem to be enjoying them," she said flatly.

"Yeah. And, I'd like to keep on enjoying them," he said and tossed the trash bag on the floor.

She shook her head. "This television is going down to the trash," she told him again more sternly. "Prove to me you're a grown-up – and you'll have a new one for the next school year, if you still want it."

"You know I handled schoolwork and videogames and my television viewing just fine before you were around," he informed her harshly.

She nodded. "I know. But you also didn't have cable before – and you were playing you games on this. Somehow I don't see you logging quite as many hours when the screen looks like this."

He crossed his arms and glared at her. She had a funny moment her she almost thought she was looking at herself in his movement. That was her stance and her glare. But she knew he wasn't purposely mimicking her, though. She didn't get that sense from him. But she did feel like she was looking into a mirror. It was just so her – to the point that she relaxed her own crossed arms and just shook her head at him again.

"Com'on," she said. "Let's hurry up in here. We still need to find your super to hand in the keys and get your deposit. And go to the store and get over to the dorms. We don't have all day – if you want to get to the movie."

"I don't want to go to the movie," he mumbled at her and dragged his full bag of trash over to the door before coming back and hauling the television over there too. She hoped it was a sign that the conversation was over and she'd won – not that that was a pile of stuff he expected to be taking to rez.

She grabbed the broom to start doing a sweep-through so they really could hurry up and get the hell out of there. Jack was miserable to be around in that apartment. She hoped his temperament was going to improve after they go him into the dorms. She really didn't like this version of Jack much at all.

"You sure sounded like you wanted to see the movie the other day," she informed him.

"Not with you," he mumbled some more. She knew he was now just being obnoxious.

"OK, fine," she agreed. "I really don't care if we don't go see the movie. It means we can get back home to Benji sooner. So, I still want to get the rest of this stuff done – as quickly as possible. So let's move."

The whole thing had been a multi-hour affair and when they finally did get out of there – with a small security deposit cheque in hand, despite what Jack had insisted – the teen had been in a foul mood. He had put in his headphones and not spoken to her on the transit ride up to and then walk over to the shopping complex in East Harlem.

She'd decided that hitting the Target was about the easiest and quickest solution to pick up what Jack needed in a cost-effective, one-stop shopping manner. She just didn't want to have to be dealing with going in-and-out of multiple stores with the teen and his attitude. Getting him through one store was going to be enough of a chore. But there'd been an Old Navy there too and after waving in front of his face for some time before he acknowledged she was glaring at him and trying to get his attention – he finally took out the headphones.

Olivia gestured to the clothing store. "Do you want to go in there first?" she asked.

"I'm not going in there," he informed her with some disgust.

"We're getting you some clothes, Jack," she informed him sternly. "I'm not dragging whatever we buy in here over there and holding bags while you look at clothes."

"I'm not buying clothes in Old Navy," he said and gave her another look like she was being ridiculous.

She shrugged. "Fine. Then you'll be getting all your clothes at Target," she told him and moved for the door.

"I'm not getting clothes here either," he said.

"Well, we aren't going anywhere else. So those are your two options," she told him flatly.

He glared at her for several moments. "You're trying to make me dress like a poor person," he informed her.

She looked at him for several moments. She wanted to laugh. The comment was so ridiculous on so many levels. But especially given the context of how he was living – what they'd just cleaned out of his apartment, what they'd dragged to his dorm earlier in the week. And he was worried about if shopping for NEW items in stores that didn't have $100 starting price tags made him look like a poor person?

"You are poor, Jack," she eventually got out.

It was the truth. He was poor in so many ways – and sometimes she wasn't even sure if he realized it. She thought he did – but maybe he just didn't want to accept it. Or he didn't want her to know how dismal his situation actually was. Like he was trying to convince her that it wasn't quite as bad it was. But the kid had nothing – and the nothing he had was garbage. It was ridiculous.

Silence hung between them for several more beats but he finally moved – and stormed into the Target, going right passed the carts but then just standing there like he was a deer in headlights.

Olivia grabbed a cart and followed after him. She stopped and stood next to him as he glanced around. It wasn't like he was trying to orient himself in a new store layout. He was acting like he'd never set foot in any sort of departmental retail store before. She knew that couldn't be true. Though, she suspected no one had taken him clothes shopping since Jay had died. The wear and tear and the styling and sizing on some of his clothes made it clear that they were dated. She figured that most of his newer clothing was just one-off purchases – and looked like they'd predominantly been made a skate shops or something of that sort since he'd been in the city. It was all graphic tshirts and oversized hoodies.

She just went pushed on his shoulder to get him to stop blocking the entranceway and very nearly had to lead him to the men's section. She thought it would be the best place to start – get that headache out of the way first. But he again just stood there and glanced around like he might as well have been on some alien planet.

She sighed and rubbed her eyebrow. "OK, Jack, here's the deal," she informed him. "Two-hundred dollars. And I want to see at least two pairs of pants – that fit you in the cart. You're also getting a sweater. And you're picking some shirts that aren't skateboard tshirts or hoodies."

"I don't need $200," he mumbled at her and continued glancing around.

She shrugged. "Fine, you don't spend all of it – great. But you're getting AT LEAST those things."

The reality was she didn't think the money would go that far when getting him some pants was on the list. And, she figured, with having to get Benji some warmer coats and boots – she'd spent about that much on clothing him for the winter. At least. So, she'd treat them equally – and watch another pay cheque disappear before it even got deposited in her account. She was pretty sure the bulk of the next one would be paying off Christmas and getting Jack established – and that wasn't even the new furniture for the bedroom, rent, paying Mark's fees and just … the costs and bills of daily life with two boys in her life now.

But now he'd just been wandering around the racks for a quarter of an hour. He hadn't put anything in the cart to try on – or to say he wanted but he wasn't going to try on (she'd been sure to check the size of his cords the day before while she did the wash – in case he did put up a fuss about going into a fitting room). He hadn't even reached out and checked the size or price on anything.

She rubbed at her eyebrow a bit and looked at him. She tried to decide if it would be best to just go pick up some of the other things he needed and to come back to the clothes. But Jack genuinely looked uncomfortable and confused. He seemed absolutely aimless in his browsing of the section.

"You don't see anything you like?" she finally asked him.

He glanced over his shoulder at her and shrugged. Stopping in front of a display table and fingering at some of the clothes there.

"I don't know what you want me to get," he said flatly.

She sighed. "Jack – I don't care what you get. I just want it to fit you properly and to not have holes in it that aren't supposed to be there. I want you to get two pairs of pants, a warm sweater and some new shirts. That's my only guideline. Pick what you want."

But he just shrugged again. She rubbed at her eyebrow and watched him some more as he looked at a stand of flannel shirts.

"Do you like those shirts?" she asked.

He shook his head. "I don't want people to look at me and think I'm from a dairy farm."

She looked at the shirts for a moment and then back at him. "Jack, I think most men are wearing plaid prints and flannel shirts anymore. No one is going to look at you and think you're from a farm. And you have nothing to be ashamed of about that."

He shrugged.

"You looked nice in the plaid shirt you had to go to the show on your birthday," she offered.

Another shrug and he moved over to a table of sweaters and examined it.

"Those look warm," she tried.

Another shrug.

"Com'on, sweetheart," she tried – dropping the sternness in her voice and trying the soft touch instead. "What's wrong? Picking a few new pieces of clothing should be kind of fun. When's the last time you went clothes shopping?"

He shrugged again. "I don't know. Freshman year of high school. Maybe."

"Yeah?" she asked. "And you managed to pick out some things then? So what's the problem now?"

"I just don't know anything about any of this stuff," he said quietly and pushed at one of the sweaters.

"There's not anything to know about it, Jack. It's just a pile of sweaters. Pick one that you like."

He shrugged.

But she knew what he was saying. He'd said enough little things that she got the picture. He hadn't fit in in high school. He was too smart and maybe a little too into skateboarding. She didn't know what he wore back then. But his comment about not wanting to look like a farmer made her suspect that he probably looked more like a farm kid than the whatever the kids in the local towns were wearing – no matter how small the communities around there were. And, he clearly didn't feel like he much belonged in the city yet despite having been there for over a year. He was terrified that people were going to see a hayseed and tell him to go home. It was likely part of the reason he was so committed to wearing skateboarding clothing so constantly. Like having some tshirt that promoted some brand somehow made him fit in more in the eyes of whoever might be looking at him and measuring him up.

Jack clearly wanted to fit in and be accepted. She got the sense that he'd never really felt that way – not growing up and not now. It was probably part of the reason he seemed to have been so close to his dad. The teen likely didn't have a lot of friends as a child. He certainly hadn't made any mention of people he kept it touch with from back home – not even a best friend – that he exchanged emails or texts or calls with. Someone to come and visit him in the city or to give him a small reason to want to go back home.

Most of the time Jack's loneliness was palpable. It made her sad in a lot of ways. She'd been lonely as a child too – as a teenager – for different but similar reasons to Jack. She knew what that was like as a teenager. She went between avoiding people her age in the brutality of the high school hallways and seeking out older men as an escape and as a mechanism of coping with her daddy issues. She wished things were easier for Jack. That he could find himself and feel more comfortable with who he was.

She didn't want to try to change Jack. She didn't really want to outfit him to be something he wasn't. But if maybe looking a bit the part helped him feel more comfortable with his new reality – maybe that would help a bit. Maybe.

She rubbed at her eyebrow and watched him some more. "I don't want to be accused of trying to make you 'look New York', Jack," she told him quietly. "But I can help you, if you want."

He glanced at her again and shrugged.

She let out a slow breath. She knew that was about as close to an answer and permission as she was going to get from him. So she left the empty cart and moved over to stand next to him looking at the table.

"So what colours do you like?" she asked him. "Black and grey are not colours," she interjected after a moment of thought.

He shrugged at the table but kept looking. "I guess blue. Maybe yellow. Green."

She nodded and it began a slow process of pointing out various bits of clothing for him and her effort to offer gentle advice.

"A pullover sweater might be good for warmth," she'd said. "But I see a lot of young guys with cardigans too. Sort of hipster."

"See this shirt you can wear with jeans," she offered at another point. "But you could also get away with wearing it to a casual type of meeting where you'd want to be in a bit more than a tshirt or hoodie."

"These pants you could wear bumming around – but paired with that shirt would dress you up a bit more than you would be in jeans," she tried at another point.

"You'd look nicer in a slim fit shirt," she'd suggested.

"Let's try straight cut jeans rather than regular on you," she told him.

This shirt, that shirt. These pants, those pants. That colour goes with this. This colour goes with that. Pair it with these pants. Wear it with that shirt. Add a tie. Add a sweater. Layer it with this. Tuck in this shirt. Don't worry about it with that one.

Jack had mostly remained silent but he'd clearly been listening and they slowly worked through the section with him picking and choosing clothing and placing it in the cart. She'd checked the size on some items and gone and picked an alternative one for him – and he'd made no comment. He was almost too quiet and a little embarrassed, she could tell.

But they slowly worked at it – and slowly she managed to get him a few outfits that would likely be a bit better for some of the workshops and meetings he'd mentioned he'd have that term. Some clothing that would likely make him look more the part of a scholarship student and an architecture student. Make him look more like a college student in the city and less like a homeless kid who'd robbed a skate shop. Still, she'd nudged him into picking some clothing that was more him. Henleys and waffle knits, a fooler that he'd held up at her with the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles on it, a striped polo that she knew he was thinking it had a skater edge to it, a Ramones tshirt.

She knew the bill was likely going to ring up as more than the $200 she'd budgeted him. But she was just happy he was being co-operative and picking some things. She didn't put a stop to his shopping efforts until they had about a week's worth of clothes in the cart. It would be a good start.

She pointed down an aisle, directing the cart. "Go pick some socks and underwear," she told him, adding a bit of the mothering sternness back to her tone.

He glanced at her and let his own stubbornness rear again. "I don't need any."

She snorted at that. "Yes, you do," she informed him.

It wasn't like she examined Jack's under-clothes but she had been doing bits and pieces of his laundry for the better part of three months now. As she sorted out the loads – it'd become rather clear that Jack likely hadn't purchased any new underwear for himself … probably ever. He hadn't owned anything new since he had someone to buy it for him. His shorts were nearly thread bare. Some of them there were even holes in or the waistband pulling away. His socks were nearly just as bad. Most of them had holes too.

"When were you looking at my underwear to have any sort of opinion on that?" he spat at her.

She just pushed the cart down the aisle. "Every time you throw your laundry into the hamper and leave it for me to do, Jack, I see your underwear. But if you want to take over doing the laundry – or stop leaving your dirty clothes at the apartment – that's fine by me."

He followed after her. "I'm not picking underwear with you standing here," he informed her looking slightly aghast.

She snorted at him and gave him a smile and gestured at the rows of hanging packs of boxers, briefs, boxer briefs and about everything in between.

"It's just underwear, Jack. I'm fully aware that you wear underwear. And, as shocking as this may be to you – I have seen men's underwear before."

He crossed his arms. "I'll buy new underwear later, OK? Satisfied?"

She shook her head and started sorting through a row of boxers that looked like a similar to pattern to what he had thrown in her hamper. "No," she said, without looking at him. "I don't trust you to do it on your own. We're doing it now. What size are you? Medium?"

He gaped at her more. "I can pick my own underwear," he said.

She dropped her hands away and gestured towards the options. "OK. So pick," she said.

He glared for a moment and huffed but then tossed a pack of multi-coloured medium boxers into the cart.

She nodded and gestured to the boxer briefs, which she'd also seen in the laundry. "Get a pack of those too."

She got another glare but he moved over to where a pack holding all black ones was and sorted through until he found his size and again put it in the cart. She held up a pack of socks as he did.

"These OK?" she asked. They were just a bulk pack of black athletic socks. But it was enough to get him through a week. He nodded so she tossed them into the cart as well.

"What about pajama pants?" she asked while they were in that area. She knew that Jack tended to just sleep in his underwear but since she'd given him the flannel pants on Christmas Eve he'd had them on every night. She had found the dorm room a little cold – and just generally from her perspective, she could see the benefits of having longue wear for in front of the television or for if you just needed to run a bag of trash to the chute or pop down to the little convenience store in the building to pick up some milk for his cereal in the morning.

"You got me those already," he stated flatly.

She nodded. "I know. Do you like them? Would you like a second pair for in the dorms?"

Jack shrugged – so she pushed the cart into the next aisle. There was a rather significant number of options but she again just gestured to a two-pack cheapie.

"What about those? Then you'll have three pairs. Lots."

He gazed at her like he was trying to come up with something smart-assed to say. But he eventually sighed and stepped forward, flipping through the various colour options and again a pack ended up in the cart.

"OK, where's the list," she said. "Let's get the rest of the stuff and get out of here."

The teen rummaged around his coat pocket and then handed her a crumbled up piece of paper.

She sighed as she worked at straightening it out enough so she could read it and shook her head at him. "Do you think you could've scrunched it up anymore?" she grumbled at him.

"I just put it in my pocket," he told her.

She snorted at that and stood reading the list for a moment. It had felt like the thing had just kept getting longer with each day that went by. Some of it she wasn't sure they were going to actually get. She thought she'd wait until after Jack's suitemates were back from their winter break – especially for some of the kitchen items.

She wasn't sure how much Jack would be using the kitchenette anyway and she really didn't see the need for them to have four toasters in the place. She really hoped they shared. Though, she wasn't sure they did. She'd definitely noticed some duplicate items in her initial scouting of the area. She hoped, though, that that had just been over zealous mothers back when the kids had moved in in the fall. She really hoped none of the boys Jack was rooming with would be anal enough that they'd care if he put a piece of toast in their toaster or boiled some water in their kettle. But some people were … nuts. She knew that as a fact.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "OK," she sighed after reading down the list. "Let's go start in bedding."

Jack just eyed her for a moment but started to follow after her without protest. The rest of the shopping trip would go a lot easier if they could do it without protest. But that was likely going to be asking for too much. It was Jack.

He maneuvered to put himself in front of the cart – almost leading the way now as they wandered through the store. She just watched the back of his head as he looked around and dodged the other shoppers.

Somehow it was always in those few quiet moments with him that she ended up seeming to think about those what-ifs. She could have had a child Jack's age in a different life – an alternate timeline. This could've been what her life looked like. A teenaged son. Getting him ready and settled into university. Spending a small fortune on him to get him stabilized and started out on the right foot. Pushing him out of the nest but still having to make sure he was ready for the world. Still having to educate him about little things that seemed so plainly obvious to her but that he was having to manage for himself for the first time.

It was strange how much Jack was becoming one of her boys in her head too. Though, she wasn't about to tell him that on those terms just yet. He might not be little or cute like Benji. But he was there. He needed her.


	112. Chapter 112

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"You know you're supposed to turn off the phone in the theatre," Jack informed her.

She just glanced at him. "I will when the movie starts," she said flatly.

But then did a double-take at him. She'd offered Jack a treat from the concession stand when they'd come into the theatre since they hadn't had anything to eat yet. She was feeling a little hungry herself too. But she'd been thinking getting a small bag of popcorn to share. She should've known better with a teenaged boy than to think that that was all she could get away with buying.

Jack had ordered up a hot dog – which he'd about inhaled before she'd even paid for the rest of the treats. He'd then ordered a large drink – which she didn't know how he'd manage to drink without having to go back-and-forth to the restroom during the entire movie – and placed a pack of Sour Kids on the counter. She'd looked at him and shook her head. She wasn't sure after all of that he'd even want popcorn.

So she'd just looked at the counter-kid and said. "A bottle of water and a small popcorn." She thought that would be more than enough for her.

But Jack had interjected, "Large."

She gaped at him. "I can't eat a large popcorn. I probably won't even eat all of the small."

"I can eat a large popcorn," he informed her.

She rolled her eyes at him. "After a hot dog, a bag of sugar and a gallon of pop – you're going to want a large popcorn?"

He nodded. "Butter on it," he added to the counter-kid.

She shook her head – and gestured at the fat-head-sized sacks of popcorn sitting in the warmer. "That's the large. You don't need a large."

He nodded harder. "There's refills on the large."

She laughed at that – and gaped at him more. "You definitely aren't going to need a refill," she mumbled as she paid for their snacks – which ended up costing significantly more than their matinee movie tickets.

But sitting in the movie theatre now – she was wondering if the popcorn would even last until the film started. They were still about 10 minutes out from Django Unchained beginning – she hadn't even touched the popcorn yet – and it looked like Jack had eaten about half the bag.

"You want to leave some for me," she shook her head at him.

"Told you we needed a large," he mumbled at her, shoving another handful into his mouth.

The kid always acted like he was starved. But she knew for a fact he wasn't that week. She'd been keeping him well feed. Still, she was consistently amazed at how much food he could pack away.

She wondered when that was going to catch up to him – as his metabolism slowed down and he wasn't getting the same kind of psychical activity as his chores on the farm would've demanded. Genetics and a teenaged hallow leg was only going to serve him so long. But she wasn't bothering to bug him about that yet. The kid was clearly malnourished and making up for months – if not a few years – of a growling stomach. However, she could think of some more real food groups that he should likely be stuffing into him that didn't include greasy popcorn, sugary Sour Patch candies or chemical-flavoured soda pop.

"What are you even doing?" he asked, apparently taking some interest in her activity on the phone rather than the pre-show slides that were flashing up on the screen.

She rubbed at her eyebrow and smiled at the phone some more, tapping a message back to Alex.

"I'm just checking in on Benji," she told the teen.

"We've been gone like maybe five hours and you're already having separation anxiety," he mocked her.

She just shook her head at him again. She wasn't sure it was her separation anxiety that she was worried about – it was Benji's, and how Alex was coping with it all. She didn't think her friend would be quite as water-off-the-back about Benji having a meltdown in her absence as Jack had been the other day. She really didn't want Benji or Alex traumatizing each other. Otherwise she might lose her alterative babysitter. Not that Olivia was feeling all that great about leaving the little boy – or planning to do it again anytime soon.

Leaving him at the daycare so she could go into work was hard enough a lot of days – especially right now with a shitty case involving dead and traumatized children. It was hard to look at that and to have it fill her being, her soul – and to then have to go home and be a mom. There was a sadness to it – that maybe Elliot had been right: in a way, she didn't quite understand – or at least didn't quite feel it – in the way she was now that Benji was in her life. Now that she was a mom. She wasn't just playing the role – at least she didn't think she was, not anymore.

Besides even outside of all of that – she thought she'd really rather be doing her little Sunday routine with Benji. She liked going to circle-time. She liked watching him as he listened to the storyteller's animated reading of the weekend's stories. She liked interacting with his enthusiasm on the day's crafts. She liked puttering on the cutting and pasting too. She liked feeling like just another mom amid all the other parents as her little boy went to town and his crazy little boy creativity flowed out of him in weird, wonderful and whacky ways.

Olivia liked wandering around the children's section with him after craft as he pulled too many books off the shelf and she had to still his frenzy. She liked how he would smack against her and demand one be read to him. She liked how oddly normal it felt to sit down in one of those low little seats more designed for children than the parents who were more likely to end up using them. She liked how he crawled into her lap and curled against her, looking at the pages and listening to her voice as she read him the book. She liked how even though they'd just read it – Benji would always demand that it be one of the books they take home for the week, and that then she'd have to read it to him again and again over the next seven days.

She liked picking out a movie with him in the little movie room – and how excited Benji was about any movie. It really didn't matter what it was – though they seemed to be very slowly working through everything ever made by Disney, Pixar and Dreamworks. She liked that she was finally getting to see those movies and to listen to a little boy's observations and giggles about them – the strangest things that he got attached to about them and remembered and repeated. One of his favourites at the moment was to yell out randomly "Fish are friends, not food!" She wasn't even sure he knew what he was saying but it made her laugh every time, which she thought was part of the reason he liked doing it. She liked cuddling with him on the couch while he watched the movies – and as she did too.

She liked making all three of them Sunday dinner, which seemed to inevitably be pasta and salad and garlic bread. She'd clearly noted that it was Jack's near favourite request. She liked getting the little boy down and packing up some food while having a short while to visit with the teen and to try to get a grip on what was ahead for him that week.

Olivia liked just how … mundane it all felt but how right it felt. It just felt like the kind of mundanely that was supposed to make up a quiet family Sunday – nothing like she'd ever had. But she had it now – and she really didn't like missing it.

It wasn't that she didn't value getting to spend some time with Jack. She actually thought he deserved some alone time and one-on-one time with her. He likely needed it in progressing their relationship – in getting him to reach the point that he'd also vocally acknowledge they were a family, rather than just give her quiet, backward indications to then blush and sweep them under the rug like she might've not noticed or forgotten. He needed special moments and treats for him too – just like she was establishing little moments and routines and treats with Benji. Jack needed those milestones and signposts too to be able to point to and say this was them, this was their normal, and this was where they were at in the world. And it was OK.

It was just that she didn't want to miss a thing – with either of them. But especially with the little boy. She'd already missed so much in both of their lives. It made giving up a Sunday with Benji seem that much harder – even though she knew it was a necessary absence and that he was in good hands.

The reality was that if it had sounded like things were going disastrously at the apartment, she would've taken the wrath of potentially disappointing Jack and telling him they needed to head home – skipping the movie. But in the little messages from Alex throughout the morning – so far it sounded like things were going OK.

About the worst she'd heard so far was that Alex apparently didn't know how to colour properly. That didn't surprise Olivia – after-all from Benji's perspective the woman was always WRONG!

She'd also received a two-line text from Alex that simply stated, "I make hot chocolate wrong. How do you make hot chocolate wrong?"

Olivia had sent back, "Did you mix the powder with milk before adding the water?"

Alex had returned, "You had to go and make it something complicated."

The woman had later sent, "We're going to the library. He didn't take a piss. He better not need company in the bathroom while we're out."

Olivia returned: "Good luck with that. Watch your boots – don't get peed on."

Alex responded with: "I get peed on – you're buying me new boots. I thought you had him housebroken?"

Liv snorted at that. Alex seemed to enjoy teasing her with the puppy comparisons for the little boy. She wasn't sure if it was a comment on her mothering abilities or an insult to Benji. She sent back, "Potty-trained. He's not a dog."

The reply she got was, "I actually think there are dogs who are better behaved and less work."

Olivia had laughed. It was true. But she wasn't sure dogs were as much fun. Though, she'd never actually owned a dog either. Still, she was pretty sure she liked Benji's slobbery kisses, snotty noses rubbed across her blouses and clinging hugs a lot better than she would having dog breath in her face or sniffing at her crotch and pawing at her legs. She imagined dealing with the little boy's demands were a little more rewarding.

She flashed the phone at Jack. "I think they're having fun," she told him.

He gazed at the photo on the screen. "What the hell is he wearing?"

She smiled. Benji had bright-red construction paper glasses that he'd made at circle-time with 2013 glued above the top rims. He was holding a folded paper plate with strips of paper coming out of it and star stickers decorating it. Olivia knew Benji would've loved getting to go to town with those stickers. She hoped his enthusiasm hadn't been too much of a put-off for Alex as she tried to deal with his grabby little hands and slobbery mouth as he licked at the backs to paste them on the plate. As disgusting as Olivia thought Alex might be finding the craft – she was actually feeling a twinge of regret that she was missing it.

Alex had also sent a video with the message, "You're going to really love this craft. I want to throw it out for you already."

She'd smiled and hit play to find Benji shaking at the plate, which was apparently a noisemaker – filled with rice or popcorn kernels by the sounds of it. It was surprisingly loud. "HAPPY NEW YEAR MOMMY FOX!" he yelled at the phone and shook the plate really hard creating an even louder racket. Before Alex had managed to hit stop, the video showed Benji's little hand grabbing up at the phone and demanding, "LET ME SEE ALEX!"

It only made Olivia smile some more. She wasn't sure how Alex would feel about Benji's grubby hands thumbing at her phone. Olivia knew it had taken her a while to get used to it – and she still wasn't entirely comfortable with it. But the truth was installing a couple kid-friendly apps on the phone had proven to be a good distraction for the little boy in a variety of situations already. Still, it now meant he thought he had the ticket to touch everyone's phone. Jack hadn't been taking too well to the little boy's grabbiness at wanting to touch and explore his new phone.

"It's his New Year's outfit," Olivia told the teen, smiling some more at the photo – and again wishing she was there with him.

Jack snorted. "Now I'm glad we aren't going out in public. He looks like a freak."

She just shook her head at him again. "He looks like a little boy," she told him. "He'd fit right in on Times Square."

Jack just rolled his eyes at that. She hoped he realized that they may not be going in public – but Benji would now definitely want to be sporting his crafts the following night. He'd likely be shaking his noisemaker through whatever movie they watched too – not just at midnight, an hour there was no way he'd make it too.

Olivia thumbed a final message to Alex: "At the movies. Should be home in about three hours."

Then Olivia switched the settings on the phone to silence it and stuck it back into her pocket.

"Give me some of that popcorn, before you eat it all," she told Jack, reaching over into the bag and taking a small handful, settling further into her seat and trying to enjoy the time with her other boy – the big, grouchy one, who was just as high maintenance as Benji, if not more-so in his own way.


	113. Chapter 113

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Com'on Liv, answer your phone," Alex mumbled as she listened to the phone ringing on the other end of the line before it went into her voicemail again.

"How long is this fucking movie?" she muttered, as she again listened to Liv's greeting.

"It's Alex. Again," she said after the tone. "Things aren't going well. Call when you get out of there. Please."

She sighed and looked at where Ben was in tears and pounding on the window of the little dining area with open hands to the point Alex could see them becoming red from the slapping motions.

"MOOOMMMMMMIIIEEEE FOX! MOOOMMMMMIIIIIEEEE FOX! COME BACK! COME BACK! COME BACK!" he was wailing at the top of his little lungs.

She thought things had been going so well. Ben had been arguing with her a bit. He didn't sit still. His hands were in everything. He was constant demands. But they seemed to be getting along. Then it had all started going to hell.

_How was she supposed to know that peeing could be so complicated?_

She thought she'd done everything that Liv had told her. Ask him if he needed to pee before they left the apartment. Give him the opportunity to pee again after they finished circle-time and had collected his own personal library of books from the library. Take in into the ladies room. Go into the stall with him.

She thought from there Ben had it covered. _He's four. Liv claimed he was potty-trained_. But first he'd informed her he was supposed to stand on her feet. She was confused and didn't much like that idea.

She wasn't sure if Liv had been teasing about him peeing on her boots or not. But she didn't think him standing on her feet was going to improve the chances of that not happening, nor did she think his buffed up and wet boots on top of hers were going to do anything for the leather. They were designed to endure slush and snow – barely – not kids standing on them or splashed urine.

So she'd declined that proposal. Only then he just stood there looking at the toilet seat.

"Hurry up and go pee, Ben," she'd ordered.

Standing with a little boy in a stall in the ladies room just seemed too weird for her. She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible.

He still hadn't moved to go about his business with her firm voice, though.

She sighed. "Do you want to sit down?" she tried. Liv had said sometimes he sat down – that she could ask him to do that. _Maybe that would be easier. Liv made it sound like it was easier._

But Ben just looked at her and shook his head hard.

"Mommy Fox lift it for me," he informed her.

She examined the seat at that.

She liked the idea of him touching it more than her. She thought his proposal just further explained the amount she'd seen Liv going at the kid with hand sanitizer - and how it looked like her friend had taken out shares in the stuff even when she was digging around in her purse when the rug-rat wasn't with her. But Alex thought she better accommodate him – or she might still get peed on. So, she rolled out some toilet paper and than lifted the seat for him.

"There," she said.

Ben gazed up at her again.

"It high," he informed her.

She looked at him and looked at the toilet.

"It's the same height as any toilet," she said. She thought. She'd never really thought about toilet height much before. But Liv had only commented on a height problem at the park. She hadn't said anything about the library.

And, really – the concept of Ben being stupid enough to rub his junk on the toilet seat was disgusting.

_Seriously – it doesn't matter if he was four, if Ben thought that was OK, he deserved to get gangrene or something. Was this something mothers of little boys actually had to deal with?_ Alex wondered.

It confirmed that having a boy would be a bad idea. She'd need to end up with a girl, if she was going to survive ever having a child.

"I suppose to stand on your feet," he informed her again.

"You aren't standing on my feet," she told him – finally starting to get that it was some sort of added height trick.

It made her wonder what the hell Olivia was doing? Letting the kid stand on her feet to get a bit of height while taking a piss? That sounded like a balancing act.

_No wonder she's had her boots pissed on before_, Alex thought.

"Go pee," she ordered him again.

_Seriously. She thought that guys used the can quicker than women_. She could've been in there, washed her hands, fixed her hair, washed her hands again and been out the door already. _This was taking forever._

She sort of watched him. Though she was trying not to. _Because you aren't supposed to actually watch, right? _

Olivia hadn't clarified on that. Alex almost felt like she should be turning and looking at the door or something to give him some privacy. But instead she just looked at the one wall, though she could see him in her peripheral vision. And, what she could see was him fumbling around with the winter jacket was partially hanging over his crotch.

It took a few moments to sink in what he was doing and for her to realize that she should've taken his jacket off him – or have not put it back on him before their bathroom trip and ahead of their exiting the building. In the very least, she should have unzipped it for him.

But she thought he was a boy. _He just has to unzip, whip it out and go. Aren't men always bragging about getting to pee standing up being one of the big benefits of being a guy? It's supposed to be easier, right? Faster? _It sure didn't seem that way to Alex – at least not with a four-year-old.

But before that all clicked – Ben had turned back to her, holding up his jacket and showing off a growing wet spot on his pants.

"I mess," he said quietly. Then it wasn't just his pants that were wet – the tears started coming down his face.

She'd gaped at him for a moment – and suddenly felt mortified. She'd just let Olivia's kid piss on himself.

"Oh my God," she mumbled in a bit of a shock and started grabbing at more toilet paper, reaching to try to blot it up, only to realize to do that would mean dabbing at the crotch of the nearly-son of her SVU detective friend. She stopped and looked at Ben. She didn't think she was supposed to be cleaning him up that way either.

"I SORRY!" Ben wailed out. "DON'T BE MAD!"

Alex rubbed at her forehead and gaped at him. "I'm not mad," she said, though she knew there was annoyance in her voice. Even Alex heard it come out – and it was clear Ben did. The tears started streaming harder and he started sniffling and blubbering more.

But Alex was embarrassed. She was horrified with herself. She didn't know how she was supposed to be dealing with this situation.

_OK_, she thought. _What would Liv be doing?_

This was ridiculous. She was a grown woman. She should know how to deal with a four-year-old's bladder issue.

_I should've put in him Depends_, was actually what she thought, though.

_Preschooler-sized diapers. They must make diapers for four-year-olds for this kind of situation. Leaving your kids with a middle-aged single woman who's never dealt with a child before outside of work. That's a situation that warrants a diaper_, Alex thought.

Truth was she'd managed to reach 40 and had never even had to change a diaper. So if Ben had pissed a diaper – changing it likely would've been just as horrifying.

_Liv likely carries a change of clothes with her_, Alex thought. _That's likely in the new duffle-bag sized purse. I should've brought a secondary outfit. Why didn't I think of that?_

_Fuck, why didn't I make him go sooner? Take off his coat for him? Not let him drink anything this morning?!_

Now she had to figure out how to get him home – wet. And it was cold outside. And he was going to smell like urine. Did she make him walk? Did they get on the subway? Put him in a cab?

People were going to look at him – smell him – and think she'd let her kid piss himself! _How embarrassing was that?_ But that's exactly what she'd done. Only not her kid – someone else's that she'd been trusted with. She thought that was likely worse.

_Well, I think this just eliminated me being asked to babysit again anytime soon_, she thought. It likely probably killed any desire to start considering what she wanted to do for a family. She couldn't even handle a four-year-old for a few hours. How could she handle a baby?

She was exhausted and she knew it was still going to be at least a few more hours until Liv got home. She didn't know how the woman was doing this day-in-day-out right now. She wasn't sure why she'd want to? Alex wasn't sure she'd want to. There'd been some fun moments. But it'd been a lot of work – and now there was this!

"Ah. What does your mom do when this happens?" Alex asked still fumbling with the tissue paper in front of him, trying to decide if she should just go for it. It wasn't like she'd never touched a crotch before – and this was a completely platonic crotch touch. A diaper change crotch touch – basically.

_Maybe I should strip him and dab his pants and underwear that way? Wash them out and hold them under the hand-dryer? Was there even a hand-dryer out there or was it paper towels?_

"I DON'T KNOOOOOOW!" Ben cried.

Alex sighed. She bet Ben had never actually pissed on himself in public before – not with Olivia. Based on her observations so far the woman was trying for Mother of the Year or Super Mom or something. She didn't know where the detective was pulling it from or how she seemed to know half the shit that she seemed to be coming up with.

Alex felt completely clueless at the moment. Hell, she'd felt clueless for a good part of the morning. Ben had been sure to point out that she was pretty much doing everything wrong. Him telling her she was wrong was one thing – especially when Liv was right there to bail her out of the ridiculous argument with the toddler. But to actually be told her was doing something wrong by a four-year-old – who seemed to be able to explain to her how to do it 'right' about 80 per cent of the time made her feel even stupider. She clearly wasn't ready to be considering motherhood yet.

Seeing the little boy and even feeling those stirrings – the jealous towards Olivia – had been stupid.

_This has clearly proven I'm not ready for a kid - and why the hell would I be jealous of this?_

She took off her cashmere scarf and examined it for a moment. She couldn't believe she was about to do this. But she took it and wrapped it around the little boy's waist, tying it and adjusting it in an attempt to block the wet spot on his pants. It only did so much. The mark was partially trailing down his one leg. It looked like his bladder had been pretty fully.

She cursed Liv a bit for not putting the boy into a darker pair of pants for her day with the kid. She had the boy in rolled-oats cargos. All the better to show the wet pants in. Alex found herself momentarily wondering if at four Liv had to dress him or if he picked and managed on his own? She thought the kid looked too pulled together most of the time she saw him for him to be dressing himself. Or at least for him to be picking out his clothing. So she'd blame that on Liv. If she'd put him in black or navy - that would've at least kind of hidden what had happened. But instead her $100 scarf was against a child's urine-drench crotch in a half-assed attempt to disguise her mistake. It actually might be making what had happened even more obvious. Still, at that point all she wanted was to just get out of there and get back to the apartment.

She'd ended up getting a taxi for them. She figured that the cabbie had likely seen and smelt a lot worse in his backseat. But it had still taken most of the ride for her to calm the little boy's sobs at all.

Alex had thought it would improve after she got him back to his home. She'd taken him immediately to the bedroom and dug around the drawers – because Ben was being absolutely no help in directing her to where his clothes were. She felt a little strange riffling through her friend's dresser – not that there was anything weird she was running across or that she was even looking at anything when she saw that it was Liv's belongings and not Ben's in a drawer. But Alex knew she'd personally hate someone going through her clothing. Still, it only took three tries before she opened the drawer that looked like it'd been dedicated to some of the little boy's clothes.

She pulled out a pair of little boy's underwear decorated with dinosaurs and a pair of sweatpants. She'd definitely noticed that Liv didn't have Ben in fleeces when they were out in public. But she hadn't seen anything else in the drawer and she wasn't about to start going through the other woman's closet too trying to locate where the kid's other clothes might be.

"There," she told him. "Get changed."

Ben had just cried more. "YOU HAVE TO CLEAN UP!" he wailed.

She looked at him. "OK. I'll clean your clothes after," she said.

She actually thought getting his pee pants into the wash before Liv got home sounded like a good idea.

_Maybe Ben would just forget it had happened and Liv would be none the wiser about the minor disaster._

"YOU HAVE TO CLEAN!" Benji cried again.

"I will. After," she told him, feeling her annoyance creeping up again.

She didn't want to be annoyed. It was her fault. Liv had warned her about making sure he had lots of time to pee. She thought she was giving him lots of time – but apparently not enough or she'd just gone about the whole process wrong. She didn't want to be annoyed with Ben. He was just a little boy and he was clearly upset.

_Who wouldn't be about having to walk around in pissed pants?_

"Take your clothes off – and I'll clean them," she said.

"You have to clean me!" Ben told her and stomped his foot hard and loudly.

She looked at him. _A bath?_ She wasn't about to do that. _With my luck I'd likely drown him or something_. And – bathing duties definitely hadn't been on the list of responsibilities for the day.

"You mom will give you a bath when she gets home," she offered instead.

"MOMMY FOX ALWAYS GIVE ME A CLOTH! YOU DO IT WRONG! YOU WRONG!" Benji screamed at her.

She gaped at him. The anger and agitation – how loud his voice and wails and yells actually were when he was upset was almost shocking to her. The little boy that she'd been playing with all morning – who she'd been getting some cuddles and affections from, who'd been smiles and giggles and all grabby hands and bossy – was definitely gone at this point. She'd fucked it up. Now she had a screaming and wailing and slobbery, crying toddler.

"OK, I'll get you a washcloth," she offered and disappeared into the bathroom, wet it and came back into the bedroom.

Ben was still just standing in the middle of the room crying so hard she was starting to wonder if he was going to hyperventilate and faint or something. That would just make the situation even worse. Than she'd be having to worry about his head and his concussion. Then Liv really would be upset with her.

"Here," she held it out for him awkwardly.

That apparently wasn't what she was supposed to do either, because the wailing just continued. She sighed and fell down to her knees and to his level, putting her hands on his shoulder and rubbing at them.

"Com'on, Ben, please," she nearly begged the little boy. "I'm not good at this stuff. I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing. You have to help me. Tell me what I'm supposed to be doing."

He just kept on sobbing and shaking. It was heartbreaking. This was a whole lot of tears over a little bit of pee. If this was what a bathroom accident looked like – she didn't want to see what it actually looked like when he was really upset or dealing with something way more traumatic than peeing his pants. It again made her wonder what the hell Olivia was getting herself into and why she was submitting herself to it.

But then before she knew what was happening, Ben had collapsed against her – his slobbery mouth and snotty, running nose getting wiped all over her shirt. She probably would've reeled at that too, if he hadn't already smeared glue and glitter and grubby snack hands all over it earlier in the day.

She really hadn't put enough thought into what she should've worn for babysitting either. Dark colours and more versatile for a little boy would've been smarter. A tshirt, a sweatshirt. Something designed for spilled paint, sticky glue, mucky melted chocolate and flung yogurt. Really - anything not white would've been the obvious place to start, if she'd bother to think about it. But she hadn't.

It melted her a bit more, though, and she wrapped her arms around his little trembling body and rubbed at his back, trying to sooth him.

"I WANT MOMMY FOX. WHERE MOMMY FOX?" Ben cried against her.

"She'll be home soon, Ben. I promise. Just let me help you get cleaned up and we'll put you down for nap – and your mom should be home soon after you get up."

She hoped she wasn't lying. It wasn't just Ben who needed Olivia home at that point. Alex had started watching the clock and praying the woman would walk back in the door soon too.

She finally managed to get him cleaned up. Though, he'd taken care of the actual wipe down himself. She still wasn't sure if it would be frowned upon that she'd been in the room while Liv's kid was standing their half-naked. But she decided it must be acceptable behaviour since she'd been granted permission to stand in a bathroom stall with him. Though, she found it a little concerning that being in the same room as a half-naked four-year-old boy somehow felt more intimidating than being in a room with a fully-naked man. And, Alex had had all her clothes on and she'd been the bashful one!

It was ridiculous. She was a grown woman.

_God_, she'd thought_, I really haven't had to deal with kids enough in a situation that didn't involve preparing them for testimony or watching them through a one-way window in an interrogation room. How had that happened? How do you reach 40 and have had that little exposure to kids and then still have your biological clock telling you that you might want one of your own?_

She thought her biology was clearly confused. She wasn't sure she was made for this task at all. She wasn't sure the Olivia Benson, she thought she knew was either. She knew Liv was good with kids. She even knew Liv wanted kids. She knew her friend was a caring, giving person who took probably a little too much of the baggage on of her victims and her friends. She was always trying to fix everyone's problems. This, though, seemed like a long and extended problem.

Alex knew Olivia had thought it through and felt that it was what she wanted. But she just hoped it really was what Liv wanted and she knew what she was getting herself into. Because Alex wasn't sure she knew what she'd even been getting herself into with a day of babysitting.

The attorney had literally breathed a sigh of relief when she pulled the door of the bedroom closed. Ben was finally changed and she'd calmed him enough to lull him to sleep and he was down for a nap. She'd get about 45 minutes of quiet – OF STILLNESS! – according to Liv's estimates. She about wanted to collapse on the couch and not move herself for the duration of it. But apparently she'd breathed her sigh of relief much too soon.

She'd barely had the chance to sit down and to just start enjoying the nothingness of an apartment that didn't have a tearing-around four-year-old for a few minutes when it happened. The wail had been near blood-curdling.

"MOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMMIIIIIIE FOX! MOOMMMMMMMIIIEE FOX GONE! MOMMY FOX GONE!"

She'd gotten to the door as quickly as possible – but apparently at the same moment as Benji. They'd fumbled pulling back-and-forth on the knob for a moment before she let go and the door flew open so hard and so quickly that he whacked himself in the face, sending him into even firmer wails.

"Oh my God, Benji," she said and dropped down to her knees. "I'm sorry. Are you OK?"

But apparently that had been the least of his worries. He'd gone flying past her and scurrying around the apartment.

"MOOOOOOOOOMMMMMIIIE FOX! MOOMMMMMMIIIIIE FOX! WHERE MOMMY FOX? MOMMY FOX LEFT? MOMMY FOX GONE FOREVER! MOOOOOOOOMMMMMIIIIE FOX!"

He'd been at the front door trying to scramble at getting it open – fighting against the deadbolt that wouldn't allow it to budge.

"Your mom isn't gone forever," Alex had tried to calm him, following after him and trying to get a hold of him. But he dodged her at every move – running from window to door to the kitchen, living room, bathroom and back to the bedroom searching frantically.

"MOOOMMMMMMIIIIE FOX! MOMMY FOX LEAVE ME! MOMMMMMMIIIIE FOX GONE!"

"She'll be back soon," Alex tried to sooth. "She's just out with Jack. She'll be back soon."

But the little boy wasn't interested in hearing her and his meltdown just seemed to get more and more severe. Nothing she said seemed to calm him and he wouldn't let her touch him – hitting at her, kicking at her, tugging and pulling and running away from her - until he ended up at the small window in the dining area – pulling a chair over and looking out it screaming.

"MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMMM MMMMIIIIIIIIIIIEEEE FOX!"

The screams weren't enough apparently and he started beating on the glass. Alex was starting to get concerned that he might actually get through it and cut himself – or go flying out the window.

"Com'on, Liv," Alex mumbled again and moved closer to Benji again. "You've got to get your ass home."

She looked at the little boy sadly. _How are you dealing with this, Liv? Was this was your days – her weekends – usually looked like now?_

"Your mom is going to be home soon," she tried to assure him again.

And, then both of their heads bolted around as the bolt in the door turned. Benji was off like a shot – as the door opened.

"Thank God," Alex muttered and followed after him.

"Mommy!" Benji wailed and threw himself at Olivia as she came in the door.

It was almost like she was expecting it. Though, Alex supposed she likely was – if she'd actually been listening to any of the messages she'd been leaving over the last 30 minutes.

The detective bent and scooped up the little boy and settled him against her – whispering at him and wiping at his tears and cheeks, giving him little kisses and smoothing down his hair.

"It's OK, Benj," Olivia told him. "I'm home. You're OK."

"You gone forever!"

She shook her head. "I'm not gone forever," she told him and gave him another little kiss, as Jack shuffled in behind her and started taking off his winter gear with hardly a second glance at the little boy – like he was used to this show too. "I was just out a few hours with Uncle Jack and I'm back now. I'll never leave you."

"Gone forever!" Benji protested and buried his face against her.

"Shhh, shhh," she said and rubbed at his back. "Never gone forever. I'm not going anywhere – and neither are you."

Alex watched as the little boy kicked at her until his legs found his way around her tightly, his arms clung to her neck and his head buried itself into the crook at her shoulder. He kept trembling against her and whimpering a bit but he calmed – Liv shushing him and bouncing him a bit in a rock, almost like she was trying to sooth an infant back to sleep. She gave Alex a sympathetic look.

Alex knew she must look frazzled and embarrassed – and she just had a headache and was so tired. She was so glad that Olivia was home to deal with this. She was so glad she could leave – because she didn't think she could manage another hour of this.

"You weren't answering your phone," Alex mumbled quietly. She wasn't sure if she was upset or not. She was just … embarrassed.

Liv shook her head. "We were on the subway. By the time I checked – we were only a couple blocks away. Did it go OK?" she asked.

Alex gaped at her for a moment and then gestured at Benji, like that should be indication enough.

But Liv just gave her a small smile and kept bouncing the little boy in the little foyer – apparently taking off her coat and boots wasn't an option at the moment.

"He's fine," Liv told her. "He just gets himself a little wound up sometimes."

Alex sighed. "He wet his pants," she admitted embarrassedly. "While we were out. And he's been crying ever since. I thought I had him down for a nap – but then he was screaming and came flying out the door …"

Olivia looked at her. "You closed the door?"

Alex nodded.

She shook her head. "Benji doesn't do closed doors," she told her quietly and Alex realized it was something her friend had said earlier in the morning – but she clearly hadn't understood what it meant. "But he'll be OK. Won't you Benj?"

He whimpered against her shoulder. "Alex wrong," he told Olivia.

Alex looked down. She definitely felt wrong.


	114. Chapter 114

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia walked into the bedroom – not giving Jack the option to tell her she wasn't allowed to come in. She found that most of the time that was the easiest route. She was pretty attuned to when he was actually sleeping in there or changing. The middle of the day – was not one of those times. So it was easier to apologize, if he decided to have a fit, than it was to let him give her an answer and permission on his own. They needed to get moving.

He barely glanced at her when she came into the room. He was clearly playing a game on his phone – not sleeping, not getting dressed, not packing. He offered no comment to her – so initially she offered to comment to him. Instead, she put the laundry basket carrying the two sets of new sheets she'd bought for him and washed for him at the foot of the bed. Then she went to the closet, opened it and retrieved his gym bag from the floor, adding it to the foot of the bed too.

She wasn't sure how late Jack had stayed up the night before. They'd both easily made it to midnight. But after wishing him a happy New Year and watching until the end of the movie they had going when the clock at struck midnight, she had gone to bed. The teen had stayed out in the living room. Watching television, picking another film off Netflix, playing videogames. She wasn't sure what he'd been up to. But she'd definitely just been ready to get some sleep.

She figured that he'd stayed up late enough, though, because when her and Benji had emerged into the living area in the morning, Jack had made lots of groaning sounds at them. He'd flailed around on the couch for a bit – jamming the pillow over his head and huffing at them. But then he'd finally just got up and disappeared into the bedroom – closing the door.

Initially, she assumed he wanted a couple more hours of sleep. But as the hours of the day ticked on – it became pretty clear that he was practicing avoidance.

She had hoped that the three of them would be up and on the go early enough in the morning that she might be able to take them out for a big breakfast or brunch to get the year started right. She even played with the idea of taking them skating (the ice kind, not the skateboard kind) or to the Central Park Zoo or one of the museums for a couple hours. A small treat and getting to spend some time together before they all had to get back into their more normal routines. But with the morning disappearing and now Jack's alleged nap-time creeping well into the afternoon – those options were out.

She'd told him the day before that she was going to want to help him get back up to and settled into the dorms by the mid-afternoon. That she wanted him to start packing up his things that he still had all over the living space and his clothes that were still hanging in the bedroom closet, spread all over the room's floor and jammed unfolded into the drawers of the dresser. But – as usual – he'd ignored her.

The window of opportunity for him to listen to her was now gone. She wanted to be out of the apartment within an hour. She needed to get him up there, drop off his things, take him out to get a few groceries for the fridge if they could find something that was opened and then get him settled. And, she wanted to be back to her own apartment in time for dinner so she could make sure Benji got his usual evening routine and to bed at a decent hour. She wanted to have a more routine evening too before having to head back in and deal with what was on her plate at work. She needed some downtime and private time. Getting that with Benji around was hard enough. Getting it when she had a teenaged boy there too was near impossible. So she was now taking matters into her own hands.

She grabbed a pair of his pants off a hanger. It was one of the only pairs that looked like it had made it to the hanger and not on the floor, which made her stop and look at them again. She looked at the tag – saw the size, looked at the faded jeans with the fray in the knee and the stepped-on, worn out holes in the cuffs from where he'd walked on the long legs that he'd never bothered to hem or apparently even roll up. So she tossed them into the hamper in the closet instead. She'd depose of them later when he wasn't around to fight with her about it. That done, she instead grabbed one of the couple shirts that were hanging up and started to fold it, walking back over to the bed where she'd left the bag.

Jack gazed at her more at that. "What are you doing?" he asked.

There was an edge of annoyance in his voice. But she was at the point she was used to that. Jack's tones with her were usually angry, annoyed or little boy needing comfort. She didn't get much in-between. She was annoyed with him too anyway. She was getting used to that too, though.

At the very least she was getting a preview of what life would be like in about 10 years when Benji hit his teens. It was clear she was going to spend a lot of time annoyed and wondering what the hell was going through his head. But even with Jack it was worth it – much like Benji.

For all the work, stress and annoyance trying to do some parenting for the teen – trying to offer him some guidance and direct him back onto the transitional road to adulthood – there were little moments with him that made it worth it. As rough and gruff and big-shot, too big for his oversized britches and chip on his shoulder attitude – he said and did little things that made her smile and laugh too. Small showings of affection and appreciation that she had to watch for and pick up on a bit more than when they came from his little nephew. But they were still there. It made it all a worthwhile endeavour in its own way.

"I'm getting you packed," she told him. "It's time to get moving. I want us out of the front door by 3:30."

Jack groaned at that and rolled over onto this side, pulling the blankets up around him. "I'm sleeping," he mumbled.

She pulled the blankets back down and he snatched at them.

"I'm in my underwear!"

"So get up. Get dressed and start helping me get your things organized," she told him. "You've been sleeping all morning – and it doesn't look like you're sleeping now. You're playing on your phone."

"I was just checking my email," he mumbled and tucked the blankets around his waist more.

"Mmm," she said and motioned her hands in a tilting manner she'd seen him doing when she'd come in. "That's how you email?"

It was clear that he was playing one of his racing games on the phone. He'd already excitedly showed it to her on the phone the other day. Apparently the novelty of it was still rather high. Despite the teen's reluctance to accept the phone on Christmas morning, he'd been pretty glued to it since. He'd already blown through the credit that came with the phone – downloading games and apps and themes and ringtones. But she'd expected that to happen. Still, he'd been showing off nearly everything he installed, it seemed – and he had co-operatively let Benji play Angry Birds on the device. So she wasn't bugging him about it too much. Though, she had reminded him about her paying the bills and responsible use. She'd likely be dropping that reminder with him again before she left him alone in the dorms.

He gave her a small glare but then pulled the phone from where he'd hidden it under the covers and handed it out to her. "Here," he said. "I'm going back to sleep."

She took the phone and set it on the bedside table but shook her head at him. "You aren't going back to sleep, Jack. I told you before – I want to get you back into the dorms and established this afternoon. I don't want any of us to have a late night. We all have places we need to be tomorrow."

He rolled more over onto his stomach. "I'll just go to class from here in the morning," he muttered.

She sighed. "What about all your things?"

He shrugged. "I'll get them on the weekend. I can just stay here until the weekend. I'll go back on Monday."

She shook her head. "No, Jack. Why do you want to be commuting across town when you have a room in residence? It may just be a three-day week – but it's going to be a busy one for me at work, and I need to get the packing done in the evenings."

"So? I can help," he told her and rolled back towards her again, as she worked at getting what he had in the dresser out of the drawer and piling it on the bed in preparation for getting it stuffed into the bag.

Between the clothes for his birthday, the few things at Christmas, the clothes she'd bought him on Christmas Eve and the gifts he'd received – he had more things than he'd shown up with. She thought she might have to lend him another bag (which with Jack's record, she'd likely never see again. Though, she was planning on staying in the residence for a few minutes and getting him unpacked and making the bed up for him. She suspected if she didn't – he'd live out of a suitcase and sleep on just the mattress with a blanket pulled up over him at the most).

But she snorted at his assertion that he'd suddenly start helping with the packing. The few things he'd done for her – she'd basically had to order his participation (repeatedly) to get him to complete even the smallest task. Not to mention, he'd just derail her with wanting to chat or taking up space in the living room or going and looking for something in the kitchen and then digging through a box to get it out. It was likely he was purposely deciding he NEEDED RIGHT THAT INSTANT things she'd already packed because they were barely used. Even getting him to realize that he was EXPECTED to help with the move on Saturday had been battle enough. He wasn't going to be an enthusiastic participant. So, she certainly wasn't going to try to continue to cajole his help in the final bits of packing. She'd resigned to the fact that she was doing it herself – as usual.

"Jack – I want you to start getting settled into a routine," she told him, though. "You'll get lots of opportunity to help with the move on Saturday."

He watched her as she worked at piling some of his tshirts into the bag – propping himself up on one elbow. She was dropping them out of the scrunched mess he'd jammed them into the drawer and tossing some of them back towards the closet and the hamper. Some of the shirts she hadn't seen him wear all week. If he only had a few with them with him for the 11 days he'd been bumming around the apartment and he still hadn't worn them – they clearly weren't favourites or wearables. And, they'd missed the imposed purged she'd made him work through while moving into residence. So she was just doing it herself now.

She didn't think he was stupid. He likely knew exactly what she was doing and he was making no comment. So she just continued. Refolding the ones that she'd deemed as salvageable and clear favourites and piling them into the gym bag.

"I thought you said I'm always welcome here," he said drily after watching her work for several seconds.

She looked up from what she was doing and met his eyes. "You are, Jack," she assured him.

"Then why are you making me go live in the stupid dorms for three fucking days. I'll just be back here on Friday night anyways."

She nodded and looked back to the bag. "You will be – and that's fine. But I want you to get used to being in the dorms. I want you close to your class. I listen when you talk, Jack. You said your workshop has a 9 a.m. start time. I've seen how slowly you get moving in the morning. Being closer to class is going to be better."

He hit the mattress with an open hand at that. "If you were really listening, then you heard me say I'm going to pick up extra shifts at Funky's this month in the afternoons and shit. So I'm going to be coming back down here anyway."

She nodded. "I heard you say that too, Jack. But you're still going back to the dorms."

He glared at her. "So what you're really saying is that you want me out of here – so you can have time with 'Jamin? I'm just welcome for holidays and Sunday dinner."

Olivia put down what she was doing and kept up the eye contact. "You know that's not true," she informed him.

"If it's not true – then what difference does three more days make?" he demanded to know.

She sighed and crossed her arms. "Because I don't want you to get into the habit of just always being here, Jack. It's not good for you," she told him.

"Because I interfere with your and 'Jamin's little life, right?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "No," she told him firmly. "Because when you're here you aren't interacting with people your age. You aren't doing much studying. You aren't living your life, Jack. You're hiding."

"I'm not hiding," he spat at her.

She gave him a thin smile. "Then what are you doing, Jack? You like spending all your free-time with a four-year-old boy and a 44-year-old woman?"

"See," he said. "That's exactly it. You just want to spend time with him – and you don't even want me spending time with him. You just want me to disappear – to go to the dorms and be out of the way of the perfect little fucked up family you're trying to create."

"Jack – I have been going out of my way to make sure I'm spending time you," she sighed. "I've been spending time with you in the evenings – every night since you've been here. We had the whole day together the other day. And – you know – that I want you to be a part of Benji's life and to be playing with him and spending time with him. I've told you that repeatedly. I don't want you to disappear from his life. I am not trying to make you disappear."

"You're just saying and doing what you think you need to so you can have 'Jamin," he spat at her. "The rest of it is just secondary bullshit. You don't care."

She sighed and looked at the ceiling. She hated that they always ended up having to have their more serious conversations in the bedroom. But it always seemed to be the only place that they managed to get a few minutes of alone time without Benji at them.

Still, it felt strange to be arguing with a teenaged boy laying in her bed. She found it hard to talk to him when he was near always in a submissive position while he was trying to be so verbally dominating. And, then she never really knew where to sit to get at his level in the situations. She knew that he felt uncomfortable when she sat with him on the bed – and she knew he'd feel even more uncomfortable about it when he was in the bed arguing with her while in his underwear. But he'd made the bed – he was going to have to lay in it.

"Jack, there is no way I'd be doing even half of the things I'm doing for you if this was all about Benji," she told him. "It's not all about Benji – and you know that."

He glared at her for a moment but then looked away – reaching for his phone. "Whatever," he mumbled.

But she moved over to the side of the bed and grabbed the phone before he could – meeting his angry eyes. "Not whatever, Jack," she said. "I'm in this for you too. This is not just about Benji."

"Whatever," he spat harder. "How are you in this for me? You just want a kid. You want 'Jamin. I'm like … collateral."

She shook her head. "How am I in this for you? Jack, really? I just spent half of my next pay cheque on getting you set up for living in the dorms."

"Because you need to keep me around until your paperwork goes through. So you're trying to buy me over. You think you have to."

She laughed at that. "I definitely don't think I have to do it. I wanted to do it …"

"Because you want 'Jamin."

"NOT BECAUSE I WANT BENJI," she told him even more sternly, raising her voice. "Because I want you to be OK."

"Whatever. You'll stop caring about that in what … like a month?" he stated and then looked away.

She reached out and grabbed his chin at that, forcing him to look at her, though he tried to struggle away. She didn't let go. She was aware of the firmness of her grip on him – she was almost surprised to find herself not caring if it left any redness or a bruise.

"I am not going to stop caring about you in a month, Jack," she told him, keeping her eyes on his – even though he was doing his best to divert them since he couldn't manage to jerk his chin away from her hand.

"If you really cared – you would've gotten a three bedroom. You would've let me stay here," he said with some anger.

She sighed at that and dropped her hand and then dropped to sit partway down the bed next to him. She watched him for a few moments. He looked embarrassed now that that had come out of his mouth.

"Jack – you are always welcome here. There's going to be a bed for you. There's going to be space for you in this home. This is always going to be somewhere safe for you to come when you need it. But you're a young man – and you need to be out there establishing your life. Part of that is not living here. Part of you saying you want me to be your guardian for the next few years – means that I have to play that role and I have to keep pushing you towards adulthood. You have a place to stay in the dorms. It's a safe place too – and it's a place for you to be you – to find yourself, to make friends, to have girls over, to do …. Whatever. Without me policing you. That's part of growing up too."

"It's not fair," Jack spat out quietly, sounding even more like a little boy.

She looked at him some more and shrugged. "I'm really sorry that you feel that way, Jack. But it's the way it is."

"You got him a room and bed. And you're always buying him crap. And I bet you're going to send him to private school or some shit – and take him to do all this cool crap in the city. And on vacations and all sorts of bullshit. Spoil him. It's not fucking fair."

She sighed again. "Jack – I bought you a bed too. I've bought you lots of things. I've offered to buy you other things, if you need them. In the future – if something comes up that you need and you can't afford it – talk to me, and we'll work something out. And – I'm not sending Benji to private school. I'm not in the position to consider doing that right now. Maybe at some point in the future. I haven't thought about it much yet. I've got other concerns at the moment. And, yes, I am going to take Benji out and let him do things and give him a childhood. But, you should also know that you're going to be invited to take part in that. If we're going to … the zoo … on a Saturday and you aren't working or studying or partying … you'll always be welcome to come with us."

"I don't want to go to the zoo," he mumbled.

She shrugged. "Then you don't have to come. That's always going to be an option for you too."

"It's still not fair," he said even more quietly.

"What's not fair, Jack?" she asked.

She really felt like she wasn't completely understanding. Sometimes Jack putting together sentences to express his thoughts and any emotions that weren't just pure anger seemed like an impossible task. She was used to that to some extent after dealing with years of Elliot as a partner – and just generally having worked with men for years. But, still, she wanted the boy to be a more functional, expressive humanbeing to an extent. She certainly didn't want to see him turn into a man with anger management or internalized rage like her former partner – or even Nick now … or sometimes Fin … or sad and lonely like Cragen.

Jack was likely at an even greater disadvantage in the expression and acknowledgement of emotions department having grown up without a mother to at least legitimize that he was allowed to feel. Jay was a good guy – but he was still a guy. He clearly had emotions when she knew him and would occasionally express them. But like Jack, it had often been when he was upset with her. She wasn't sure how great of education in emotional health Jay would've given his children. And, even if he'd been aware of that with them – Jack had had most of his teens to regress without some adult guidance there reminding him he was allowed to feel and helping him learn how to properly express and deal with things he was feeling. And, really, that absence of guidance would've been at the point in his life where he likely needed it most as he dealt with so much trauma and loss.

"I don't know," Jack mumbled.

"You must know – since you are expressing it's not fair," she told him. "What's not fair?"

"I already told you," he spat out and glared at her.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "Well – with the exception of you having a bedroom all to yourself in the new apartment, I think I'm covering off the rest of your concerns as equally as I can. Or I'm trying to."

"It's not equal!" Jack spat harder and met her eyes. "You want him. I'm the … whatever. Just here."

She watched him again at that. She'd seen the flash in his eyes. Not just the anger but the embarrassment and then glassiness that came with his statement. She put her hand on his knee as he crossed his arms tightly over his chest and looked away – jerking his leg away from her touch too.

"Look at me, Jack," she told him quietly. He didn't. So she moved herself further up the bed and touched his chin again, more gently this time, until he half-ways met her eyes.

"I want you too," she told him seriously, as she caught them.

"Just because of 'Jamin …" he mumbled.

She shook her head. "Not just because of Benji. I want both of you in my life. You're a packaged deal – and I like it that way. I'm having a lot of fun with you too, Jack. I'm really happy and excited to have added you to my life too."

"Because of 'Jamin," he stated again firmly.

She shook her head. "No, Jack. Because you're a really fun and interesting guy. Because I care about you. Because I really like having you in my life."

Jack gave her no comment and she watched him some more. She struggled so much reading him. Teenaged boys were hard to read. They were stuck somewhere between being a boy and being a man – and how to strip away insecurities and getting them to talk, whether a victim, a perp … or apparently one of her kids … seemed to take a lot of work.

"You know, Jack, I look at you and think about how if I'd taken some different paths – I might've had a boy your age. It's kind of neat and it's a little scary for me," she admitted. "I sort of wish I had the opportunity to know you while you were a little boy. I see some of the things you're struggling with now – and I wish, in a way, I had the opportunity to know you then."

"You had the opportunity, you chose not to," he spat at her and glared at her.

She snorted at that and looked down. His hand was bunching the sheets in a tight fist. She put her hand over his – trying to offer him some small comfort again. But he again jerked it away from her.

"Sweetheart – I don't make a habit of keeping in touch with my former boyfriends. And, your dad didn't keep in touch with me either. It happens in relationships. I think you'll see that after you've had a few longer ones. Soon. I think you'll understand more," she told him. "But even if your dad and I had kept in touch – your mom might not have been very comfortable with that. Women can get pretty insecure about exes hanging around their partner."

"Who cares what she would've thought," Jack actually yelled, and Olivia heard some movement in the living room. She knew the teen's raised voice had now caught Benji's attention and their window of opportunity to talk privately was closing rapidly.

Too rapidly apparently – because the little boy came to the door and looked at them questioningly.

"Why you yelling Peedg? 'Livia says no yelling," he informed his uncle.

Jack just made a sound and looked away. Olivia sighed and looked at the little boy.

"Sweetheart – Mommy Fox is talking to Jack right now. Go back and play with your toys. I'll be out in a few minutes."

But Benji just looked at her again and then came trotting over – pulling himself up onto the bed and then crawling into her lap, reaching up and grabbing at her face to pull it to his mouth for a sloppy kiss.

"Don't yell at 'Livia, Peedg. Yelling mean," Benji said as he finished his little boy offering of comfort to her. It'd been a lesson she'd been trying to teach him at the prompting of his caregivers who were more than slightly unimpressed with half of his behaviour at daycare.

She rubbed his back. "Jack isn't yelling at me, Little Fox. We're OK."

"See," Jack said and gestured at them. "That's not fair."

She looked up from where she was examining the little boy as she wrapped her arms around him. It sunk in more where he was coming from and she allowed him a sad smile.

"Jack – you need to understand that what your mom did to you – it wasn't your fault," she told him. "I don't know what happened between your mom and your dad. But your mother had a responsibility to you and to your sister that she walked away from. So that means she was the one who was wrong. Not you. Mothers don't walk away from their children. It's not a responsibility you can just … decide you don't want anymore. It happens. But it's wrong."

He shrugged. "She didn't care."

She nodded and rubbed at Benji's back a bit more. He was examining and pulling at her necklaces and cuddling into her – apparently completely uninterested in their conversation now that their voices were back to more indoor levels.

"You're right – I don't get the impression she cared. I don't know the whole story of what happened. I know you don't either. But it doesn't seem like she cared. If she did, Jack – you'd know where she was, she'd know where you were, and she'd be so proud of you."

He squinted at her and she reached out again and lightly touched his hand.

"Sweetheart –I've decided I want YOU and Benji. That's not something I'm going to walk away from. Ever. You are wanted and you are cared for. And – I'm ridiculously proud of you already. You know how I introduce you when people ask me about you? Jack – the architecture student at City, on a full scholarship. Do you know how amazing and exciting that is? Do you know that I've already thought about what a big deal it's going to be when you graduate? Or when you get your first internship at a firm? Or your first job interview? Your first job in architecture? It's amazing, Jack. And, I want to be around to help you get there. And, I want to be there to see it. OK?"

He still didn't say anything, so she adjusted his hand so she could actually grip his palm, rather than setting her hand up on top of his clenched fist.

"Jack – I'm here for you and I want you in my life. Badly. What we're trying to do here – isn't going to work without you. You're a big part of it. I know I missed lots. I feel like I missed lots in Benji's life – and he's only four. So you … I know I missed your whole childhood. And, that makes me a little sad, Jack. It really, really does. But I'm here now. I'm not going anywhere. And – if you just want to think of me as Olivia or some adult friend or your safety net … that's fine. But I can be whatever you want me to be. OK? I can be your guardian or your parental figure or your mentor or your mother figure. You're allowed to feel that way. And – you thinking that way isn't going to upset me. I'm not going to think it's weird – and I'm not going to let you start feeling that way and then let you down. And, it's not one-sided, Jack. I look at you and I see one of my boys too.

"And – if it's this …" she added and looked down at where Benji was still playing with her chains as her arms were wrapped around him in a hug, "… that you think is unfair or missing? You're allowed hugs too, Jack. It's not weird either. There's been some times where I've really wanted to give you one. But you're a teenaged boy and I don't know the rules. I don't want to make you uncomfortable. But hugs are allowed. Asking for help is allowed. Calling this home is allowed. You are home and you do have a family, Jack. You aren't alone. I don't want to be alone again, either. OK? So I'm in this for the long haul. I'm here – for as long as you let me and in whatever way you want to let me be."

She felt her voice crack a bit at that and she reached up and swiped at her eyes – before returning her hand back to his lose grip on the bed. He was staring blankly at Benji and offering no comment. So she went back to looking at him too. He had the medallion Elliot had given her in his mouth while he was pawing at the others.

She snorted and pulled it out – it making a small popping sound as she got it through his lips.

"Benj, don't suck on Mommy's necklaces. Gross," she said.

Jack gave a small sound that was almost a low laugh at that and she glanced at him.

"He's probably going to do most of his growing up without a father," she told Jack. "That's not fair either. I know that. You know it even more since you had a great one and lost him too soon. He needs to have strong men in his life, Jack. That's you. I need you here for him – and for me – to get him to adulthood too. We need to be doing this all together."

Jack just met her eyes for a moment and then pulled his hand away looking over at the clock next to the bed. They really weren't going to be getting out of there at a reasonable hour at that point.

"My wisdom teeth hurt," he mumbled at her – still offering no comment on anything she'd said.

She snorted again and looked down. She wasn't sure if his lack of response was a good sign or not.

"Well you've been eating a lot of junk food the last couple days. That likely hasn't helped. But there's not much I can do about that for you until after our court date, Jack. So, I think one of your projects this week should be to check into what your student insurance actually covers – and then we can talk a bit about possible options on the weekend."

He allowed a small nod.

So she nodded back. "OK. You ready to get moving now? Go get showered and dressed – and I'll finish packing up here? You gather your things from the living room?"

"OK," he said quietly and moved to get out of the bed. She stood to get out of his way, keeping Benji perched on her hip.

He seemed to examine the two of them for a moment – and she only let herself think about it for a second. She didn't want to over think it. She'd felt like he needed it on previous occasions and she'd not made a move. There'd been other moments where she felt like she wanted to and still restrained herself because she didn't want to send him running. But this time, she was just going to take the chance and trust that nothing overly adverse was going to happen.

She removed her one arm from where it was holding Benji and wrapped it lightly around Jack instead. He seemed to start for a moment – keeping his back stiffer than a board. She could practically feel the tension radiating off of him, as her fingers made their way up his bare back to rest near his shoulder.

"Peedg!" Benji squealed in excitement of the three-way hug and his arms moved from her neck, over to his uncle's. And, she finally felt the tension give way and Jack's arms came up, with one loosely coming around her and the other offering some more support to Benji.

She held the big boy for several beats and then moved her hand to his hair and ruffled it a bit.

"You're a good boy, Jack," she told him – even though that moment, with him towering a couple inches over her, it felt a little difficult to think of him as a boy. Yet, at the same time, she knew he had so much more growing up to do."Nothing that happened was your fault. Your dad would be so proud of you – and I am really proud of you too."


	115. Chapter 115

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Benji completely startled awake against her. His body shaking and jumping almost involuntarily off her a bit – and him making an inaudible sound.

She glanced at him from where she'd been watching the evening news – catching the media's oh-so up-to-date and oh-so accurate perspective of what was happening on their case. As usual, it seemed to be the NYPD – and SVU - who were the villains because they hadn't made an arrest yet and weren't releasing enough information to the media.

If the case wasn't frustrating enough – listening to the way the vultures were spinning it was pissing her off even more. She wondered if her agitation and rising blood pressure under him had been what Benji had actually sensed and had stirred him from his sleep.

"Shh, shh, Benj," she soothed, rubbing her hands along his back and gripping him more tightly against her. "You're safe. Mommy's right here."

He stirred a bit more. "Mommy?" he mumbled.

She ran her hands through his hair a bit. She'd taken him to get it buzzed and trimmed after work – finally. It looked so much better again – cuter. And, it felt so soft at the moment. But she could feel that his scalp was cool and his little ears seemed chilled too. So she gathered up the afghan over top of them, hiking it up a bit more and draping it over his head.

"Mommy's here," she assured him again.

He cuddled into her some more. His chin and cheek rubbing into her chest – where she'd settled him against her with his one ear near flush against her heart. His little legs kicked and gripped at her a bit as he calmed himself and re-positioned his body to lull back to sleep.

"TV?" he mumbled some more.

She rubbed her hands on his back a little more under the blanket. "Just the news, sweetheart. It's almost over and then Mommy is going to turn it off."

"Thomas?" he muttered. It was almost at the point she couldn't tell if he was just talking in his sleep.

"I think you're too sleepy to watch Thomas tonight," she told him.

"Thomas," he mumbled again.

She just nodded that time and stroked at his head a bit more.

He was draped against her in a near kangaroo hold that she'd expect to hold an infant in. Benji seemed to just seek out and crave that sort of physical contact and affection from her. She understood why. It'd be sorely lacking in his life since Jay had died. And, even with his grandfather cuddling and holding him and giving him that skin-to-skin contact as a newborn – it would've never quite replaced his mother's touch. And, she didn't think Benji had ever quite gotten the touches and care from his mother that he needed and deserved. So Olivia wasn't going to turn him down now.

She knew in a way she was likely going to be screwed in a few days as they got settled into the new apartment. She was going to have to train him to sleep in his own bed. He'd become far to used to getting to sleep in her bed – with or without her. Not to mention, how regularly he passed out on top of her and she just left him there. Breaking him of those habits and getting him to stay in his own room and through the night was likely going to be full of tears, meltdowns and tantrums. But she still couldn't quite bring herself to deny him the opportunity to fall asleep in her arms just yet. Or maybe it was more she couldn't quite bring herself the opportunity to get to hold him like that.

She'd missed him as a baby. She didn't get to do the kangaroo hold and the skin-to-skin touch. To nurse him or rock him or lull him to sleep. She'd missed all of that. And, in a way, that really hurt. But in other ways, when he lay against her like he was in that moment – she could still see the baby in him. She could still feel like she was getting some of those moments. Maybe not quite in the same way she might've imagined them – but she was still getting them. And, she needed them. She didn't think she'd realized how acutely she needed them until she had them.

Work was weighing so heavily on her. The case just seemed to be dragging and as the bits of information trickled in and she had to look over it and work on it – the more it seemed strike at her core. Add in some of the other ridiculousness of people's emotions, family reunions and too much drinking and stupidity over the holidays and it felt like a constant flow of idiocy and immoral thoughtlessness - that too many seemed to think they could justify by just citing a momentary lapse of judgment – was parading past her desk.

But there was something about coming home to the little boy that was almost acting like a sedative. It was something else to focus on. It was so nice – such a change – to have something else to think about and to hold onto amid the darkness and brutality of most workdays. That had been sorely missing since Elliot had left. At least they could laugh sometimes. But this was better than sharing a few jokes at the office. This was a home – and a real life.

She felt like she was finally getting a life. She'd never really admitted to herself how much of a life she was lacking before. It occurred to her on occasion – sometimes more regularly than she wanted to admit. But she always had the excuse that she was married to the job. That helping the victims trumped all. That her sacrifices were for some sort of higher purpose. That high purpose didn't seem quite so high the past few years. It just seemed like a never-ending black hole of human deviance that she'd apparently dedicated her life to. It was depressing if she let herself think about it too much.

But having Benji there to come home to. Having someone to actually look after. Feeling like she was actually truly making a tangible difference in at least his life – and Jack's. To be able to see the changes that she was helping them make. To have hopes about what that could mean for all over them over the long-term. It made it all easier to go back to somehow. As much as she seemed to hate going in anymore – in knowing that it was taking time away from the boys where she'd rather be with them. But it still made it easier. She had something to come home to – and for. She had something to work for now – something tangible.

"Mommy," Benji mumbled some more, stirring a little again.

"Shh," she told him. "I'm right here. Go back to sleep."


	116. Chapter 116

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Benjamin, com'on, get a move on," she called for the third time from the front door.

The little boy was taking slowpoke to a whole new level that morning. She was starting to get mildly annoyed. She purposely got them out of the door earlier than they needed to be most mornings because he would inevitably slow them down. But even with the extra padding that morning he was still dragging his feet.

She was supposed to be meeting Fin up at the hospital to see if they could convince the grandparents of surviving child in their case to let them speak to the child – who'd barely been awake 24 hours at that point. It was unclear what he could even remember after coming out of the medically-induced coma – or if he had even seen or heard anything that would be useful. But the reality was that if the kid didn't have anything to give them, the chances of them being able to move forward much farther in the case was going to be significantly diminished.

They had next to nothing to work with at the moment. The crime scene only told so much of the story – and he certainly didn't tell who the prep was. But it didn't look like it was one of the dead bodies in the morgue who'd committed the crimes. And, with the rate Benji was moving at, there was no way she was going to be up at the hospital at the time she was supposed to be. That meant Fin would start the finagling on his own – and Fin and Upper West Side grandmas didn't jive that well. So her tardiness at the hands of a four-year-old was just going to put Fin in an even fouler mood for the rest of the day.

Benji finally came trotting over from the living room. It looked like he'd dug nearly every one of his toys out of the box she'd dumped them into for the following morning's move. She didn't want to go and see what mess there was on the floor from his efforts to overload his arms with even more than he could carry.

She sighed. "I told you one toy, Benji," she said to him sternly.

"They all want to come to ner-suri school, Mommy," he said.

She shook her head. "One," she said sternly again and held up one finger. "You can pick one."

His caregivers had had yet another talk to her in the days since Christmas about the amount of toys Benji was bringing in to daycare. Apparently they weren't really supposed to be bringing toys anyways and the ones that did come were supposed to stay in backpacks and cubbyholes. Benji wasn't really honouring that.

Really, before Christmas, he had so few toys she hadn't really thought much of him wanting to stuff what he did have in his backpack to carry around with him. She knew it was a bit of a comfort thing for him. He didn't want to get left somewhere and not have them. He wanted to have something familiar with him. He wanted to make sure he got to keep something that was 'his.' But she could see the daycare's point too.

The nursery school didn't want to be responsible for children's belongings getting lost or stolen or broken. She doubted they much wanted to be dealing with any germs that were coming in on disinfected toys or any fights that toys cooler than what was available at the daycare might produce either. Not to mention, every parent there would have a different definition of what was acceptable and appropriate toys for their child to be exposed to and to have the opportunity to play with. Much like she didn't think Benji should be playing with guns – she was sure there'd be another parent there who would think that him playing with police cruisers or dragons was just as much of a blasphemy.

Still, she kind of felt like she was dealing with a constant bombardment from the nursery school about things Benji (or her) were doing wrong. She knew that the little boy was somewhat behind in his development and social skills. She was doing her best to play catch-up. But it was a slow process too – and it wasn't like she had all day, every day to dedicate to it.

She did what she could in the evenings and on weekends. She had kind of hoped that the since she was paying a ridiculous amount of money to have him not just in a daycare but in an actual nursery school – so he could be getting his pre-k programming in the morning to get him ready for starting school in the fall – would've meant they'd be a bit more involved in helping her in some of those areas.

Olivia knew that it wasn't just their job. She was an active participant in her boy's education and development – physically, mentally, emotionally and socially. She just found it frustrating some days when the workers would give her a rundown of all the things her little boy had done wrong in a given day. She'd really prefer to hear what he did right. It was just that much harder because a lot of the things they listed off as concerns weren't behaviours she was observing in their home life. So she could talk to him about it – tell him it was inappropriate behaviour. But she wasn't getting a lot of opportunity to see it and take corrective action herself.

Benji not sharing and pushing didn't happen too much at home – there just weren't little people around for him to have to share with or to have the opportunity to push. They'd pointed to his tantrums and meltdowns and she did deal with those but they seemed to all require a different approach depending on the situation. She could tell him until she was blue-in-the-face that stomping his foot and yelling didn't solve anything. But if she wasn't there to see what he was yelling about – there wasn't really much more she could do.

They'd complained that he put things in his mouth a lot – that he shouldn't. But it wasn't like the kid was eating glue or crayons. Sure it was a little gross that he sucked on his Duplo or lately her necklaces. But she could think of a lot more concerning behaviour. Though, she did suppose that God knew what other children's mouths – or just unwashed hands – had been all over the toys in the playroom at the daycare.

Still, she really felt that talking to a four-year-old about behaviour he wasn't actually committing at the time was a bit of a round-about conversation. He needed to actually be doing it for her to have any sort of resonance with him, she thought.

The whole thing, though, had her somewhat concerned about when he did start kindergarten in the fall. Part of her didn't really feel like he was anywhere near ready for that. She'd tried telling herself that there'd be kids who hadn't been in the pre-k program at all. Or ones that hadn't even been in any sort of daycare. That Benji would be ahead of those kids. Only, in her neighbourhood, she didn't really think that was true. All the kids would've been in some sort of fancy nursery school or daycare – likely since a few months after they were born. And, the ones that weren't would've grown up in a home where the family was well-off enough that one parent wasn't working and was at home tending to the child's every need in their formative years. Or they would've had a nanny paid to do the same.

That was never going to be Benji. And, if she already thought he was behind compared to what she was used to seeing in city kids his age – she knew that when he started interacting with them in a school environment that she was going to feel it that much more acutely.

She blamed part of that insecurity she was feeling about it on his daycare workers – who had basically outright asked if she was trying to get him into a private school for kindergarten. They'd warned her that he wouldn't be ready nor would he likely pass the interviews or tests. In fact, she'd been told that his 'report card' FOR PRE-K!? wasn't going to be that spectacular and that they'd have a lot to talk about at the parent-teacher conference the following week.

At least she could hope that being in public school, he wouldn't be as much disadvantage as if she'd be sending him into the shark tank of parents' battling for the best out of their kids before they were barely even out of diapers. They were still working on Benji wiping his own ass and remembering to go take a pee before his bladder exploded. On him doing up zippers and buttons on his own. On him putting on his socks so the heel wasn't sticking out the top of his foot and getting his shoes on his right feet. He still needed his meat cut for him at the dinner table. His Transformers transformed for him.

She couldn't imagine what they'd possibly be grading him on. It had sent her scrambling to review the curriculum of his class. It looked simplistic enough – but she wasn't four. Still, she hoped with some of the things that Benji had coming out of his mouth and regurgitating at her, he must be absorbing some of it. His marks couldn't be that bad? Could they? Did she really need to start worrying about things like a tutor or taking up her at-home education double-time already?

She already read to him. She took him to circle-time. She knew he knew his colours and could manipulate things like scissors (poorly) and glue and Play-Doh. He could do some counting and knew parts of the alphabet. He could recite some words and pretend like he was reading them. With prompting he could list off the days of the week and seemed to have some idea of what day came before the other. He could even list off some of the months – at least in a particular month, he knew what month it was. He could identify some animals. He knew about things he wanted to know about … construction equipment, patrol cars, fire trucks, robots, Transformers, skateboarding. She wasn't rotting his brain with too much TV or videogames – and she was being super selective about what she did let him watch and play.

It wasn't like with Calvin where she just let him self-direct. She'd really let Calvin walk all over her a bit. That had been different. He was grown to the point he had ingrained habits and interests – and she was trying to navigate his trauma while also acknowledging it was likely a temporary situation. She didn't want to be an uber-bitch with him and lay down the law with too strong of hand. She was just trying to give him some sense of stability to get him through a rough patch. Though, he likely needed a more firm hand than she'd applied, in retrospect.

It was different with Benji, though. He was a little boy. He needed her guidance and she had the chance to really help mould him. And, she had to do that for herself too – because she was going to be dealing with whatever behaviours she helped develop or let slide for the next 14 years at least.

She knew Benji was behind but he certainly didn't seem stupid. She was trying to tell herself that whatever the report card said it wouldn't be an accurate reflection of where her little boy was at. It would just be a two-month snapshot of what they'd observed. He hadn't even been there for a full-term. They shouldn't even be issuing him a report card. She didn't need one. She wasn't one of the crazy parents willing to spend a small fortune while their child learned their ABCs and 1-2-3s in kindergarten. So, whatever marks he had in it – she was sure it would be a different story by the time the report card went out at the end of the academic year?

"Mommmmmmmiiiiie," he whined at her and gave her big eyes.

She shook her head. "One, Benji," she said again.

He huffed loudly and looked at the pile of toys he had in his arms.

"But Mommy Flame want to play in the castle," he told her.

She shook her head. "Flame can be your ONE toy to go to school. But he is not playing in the castle. Flame will stay in your cubby until it is home time."

"Moooommmmmmiiiiie!" he whined louder and stamped his foot.

She shook her head again. "Those are the rules. You stamping your foot and whining isn't going to change that."

"Mooooommmmmmiiiiiiiiiiiieeee ee!" Benji tried again with a stronger and longer wail.

She looked at him hard. "Do you need to go sit at the table and think about this?"

He'd been such a handful the night before that she'd had to implement some form of time-out. If she thought Jack had been doing his best to derail her packing efforts – Benji had upped the ante the night previous. She knew it was his way of making clear that he was unhappy about the move. But it had still been grossly inconvenient and just unacceptable behaviour.

Everything she was putting in a box – Benji was pulling out. Not to mention there was shrieking and foot stomping and yelling about not wanting to move accompanying it. And he hadn't been listening to her repeated instructions for him to stop. So she'd reached the point where she really had to do something. She was still too far behind on the packing. Leaving it to do after Benji was in bed was just going to mean she'd be up later and in even less of a state of mind to handle him and work and the move.

She hadn't put a huge amount of thought into how she was going to handle disciplining him yet. Partially because she hadn't had to do a tonne yet. Behaviour correction and modification - but not actual all-out discipline. Part of her wanted to be heard and didn't want him to think he could walk all over her and get what he wanted. But another part of her just didn't want to be a complete bitch to him – or even too much of a tight ass. He was just a little boy and he'd been through a lot. Still, she knew part of being a mother was going to be meaning a little mean in his eyes at times. She wasn't sure she really liked that – not with her little boy. But she recognized that it was necessary.

She just felt like she might be a stricter parent than most – likely because of all the crap at work over the years. She didn't want that to overflow into how she raised her child. Still – she needed to live with him. Letting things slide all the time wasn't going to be good for either of them. She had to be mean Mommy Fox sometimes, she'd accepted, as much as she didn't like it. She really wished a stern voice and dagger stare could win all her battles for her. But that just wasn't how being a parent seemed to work.

It ended up being a spur of the moment decision of how to set him up for a time-out. She knew she couldn't very well send him to the bedroom. Benji – alone and with doors and with the perception he was being sent away? That would've just resulted in a bigger meltdown.

She'd ended up picking him up by the armpits while he wailed at her – taken him over to the dining table, pulled out a chair and sat him down while he flailed around.

"You are going to sit there until you've calmed down and are done yelling and crying," she'd told him sternly. "And you're going to think about how you've been acting – because it's not acceptable behaviour, Benjamin."

He'd glared at her wailed and got out of the chair – only for her to grab him and plop him back into it before he got more than two steps away.

"Now you're going to sit there for two more minutes extra after you're done crying," she informed him.

He wailed more at that and then started beating at the table with his fists.

"Hey, hey," she told him and grabbed at his hands and arms to stop his actions. Then she pulled them down onto his lap and off the table. "You are going to keep your hands in your lap. You start hitting things again – and two more minutes, Benji."

He sputtered at her and wailed a bit more. But she moved away and went back working on what she was doing while he sputtered.

"Mommmmmmmy!" he eventually cried out and she looked over at him.

"You don't sound like you've calmed down yet, Benji," she told him.

"'Liiiiiiiiiiiiivvvvvvvvvia!" he whined with more tears coming down his face. She wondered if he was trying to punish or get back at her by switching from Mommy to 'Livia. But she commited to it didn't matter. Mommy, Mommy Fox, 'Livia. The name all meant the same out of her little boy's mouth.

She shook her head. "I'm right here. You can tell me when you're done crying – and then we'll start your two minutes."

"Moooooooooommmmmmy!" he wailed again.

She shook her head. "No more talking, Benji. Sit there. Calm yourself down. Think about how you've been acting and then you can tell Mommy when you're ready to start the timer."

"NOWWW!" he cried.

She shook her head. "No, Benji. You aren't calmed down yet. Calm down. I'm right here. But I'm not talking to you again until your time out is over."

He cried and sputtered and whined at her a bit more. But she hadn't given him a reaction and eventually he just sat there and cried and sniffled to himself. She was starting to think he might just cry himself to sleep at the table. When she looked over a few minutes later, though, he was sitting quietly with his cheek laying against the table. She walked over to the microwave and set the timer for two minutes.

"Your two minutes is starting now, Benji," she said to him and then went back to what she'd been doing.

He gazed at her and sat up a bit when it dinged off – and she'd wordless come back and pulled him up on to her hip, taken him over to the microwave and pointed at the button to silence it. Benji reached out and pushed it with his little index finger.

"Good boy," she told him quietly and then slid him down her side to the ground, before squatting to his height and looking at him, holding his hands still and tightly in hers. "Benjamin – do you know what you were doing that was wrong?"

He shook his head hard.

She nodded. "OK. Do you need more time to think about it?"

He shook his head even harder at that.

"Then can you please tell me what you were doing that wasn't acceptable behaviour tonight?"

"Mommmmmmmmmiiiieee," he whined and tried to yank his hands away but she held them tight.

"No, Benji. We're going to talk about this – or you're going back to time-out. What were you doing tonight that was unacceptable behaviour?"

Tears started to come down his face again. "'Livia!"

She shook her head. "No more crying, Benji. You're nice and calm and we're going to talk about it calmly. Why did Mommy put you in time-out?"

"Becuz I not helping!" he said.

She nodded. "You weren't helping. What were you doing?"

He struggled against her a bit more and she adjusted her grip on him slightly. She didn't want him to hurt himself – or for her to inadvertently hurt him either.

"What were you doing, Benji?" she asked again.

"Mommmmmmiiiie!" he cried again.

"I think maybe you need a few more minutes in time-out to think about it a bit more," she said.

"NO!" he protested.

"OK. Then you tell me now – or else you're going to sit at the table some more."

"I taking tings outta the box," he said.

She nodded. "You were doing that too. Why was that unacceptable behaviour, Benji?"

"Becuz we movin'," he cried.

She nodded. "We are moving. Into a nice new apartment – with your own room and your own bed. And we need to be packed to be able to do that."

He whimpered. She really wanted to hug him and comfort him. She was trying so hard to just get through the rest of this as quickly as possible so she could do that without him thinking some tears got him his way.

"I think you did some things to me that weren't very nice either, Benji. Things we've talked about as unacceptable behaviour before. Can you tell me what they were?"

"Yell and hit," he said quietly avoiding her eyes. She adjusted her eyes to catch his.

"You were yelling at me and you were hitting me. Why was that wrong?"

"You don't yell or hit no one becuz it mean," Benji said. "It hurt-fil."

She nodded. "And my Little Fox isn't a mean boy, is he?"

Benji shook his head.

"No, he's not. And you don't want to hurt me, do you?"

"NO MOMMY!" he cried.

She nodded again. "I didn't think so. So do you think maybe you should apologize to me?"

"I sowory, Mommy!" he sputtered again.

She nodded. "Apology accepted. Now give me a hug," she told him and dropped his hands, opening her arms to him.

He crushed against her in an instant and she'd rubbed up at his back and put a kiss on his temple. She had to force herself to keep it brief. But she knew that an extended hug after trying to discipline him was likely ill-advised.

"OK. So now you are going to watch TV or go and play quietly with your toys while Mommy works on packing."

He nodded and he'd managed to stay out from under-foot for the most part until his bedtime.

She knew that the time-out was still vivid enough in his memory that he wouldn't want to be repeating it anytime soon. So she hoped it would end the argument now and hurry him up to get him going so she could get out the door to where she was supposed to be.

"NO!" he protested with a foot stomp.

"OK. So which toy are you taking then?"

"Mommy but Flame need to play in the cass-el!"

"OK, Benj. You are supposed to be taking a break from the castle anyways. So Flame doesn't need to go. Pick a different toy."

"WHY A BREAK FROM CASS-EL?!" he protested.

She looked at him sternly. "Do I need to tell you why you don't get to play with the castle today?"

He squinted at her in his little boy defiance.

"Because you pushed Tyler, Benji. Because you aren't being very good at sharing."

"I GET TO CASS-EL FIRST!" he told her very loudly. "IT MINE!"

She shook her head and dropped down to a squat at his height again. God – having a pre-schooler was definitely giving her quads a workout. Hopefully all the squats and carrying Benji and extra weight in her purse and his backpack and the never-ending chasing after him and moving was making up for all the missed time in the gym and jogs. She wasn't sure it was going to make up for it the next time she actually had to pursue a suspect or take a company physical or fitness exam, though.

"Benji – that's not how it works. The castle is there for everyone to play with. You have to share. If Tyler wants to play with it too – then you let him play. If any of the other boys or girls want to play with it – then you let them play. You don't grab and you don't shove. It's a big castle. There's lots of room and lots of pieces so everyone can play with something."

He squinted at her more. "I ASK SANTA FOR CASS-EL THEN I NOT HAVE TO SHARE WITH NO ONE!"

She snorted and rubbed at her eyebrow. "OK, sweetheart. If you want, you can ask Santa for a castle. But it's still a pretty long time between now and next Christmas. So you might think of something else between now and then that you might like a bit more. And, in the meantime, you can show Santa what a good boy you are – so you're still on the nice list next Christmas – by sharing the castle at nursery school."

He squinted and huffed at that. She was starting to think they were never going to get out the front door.

"When Christmas?" he demanded to know.

"You know when Christmas is, Little Fox. When's Christmas?"

"De-sim-bur twenty-five."

She nodded. "And now it is January 4th. So that means there's still almost a whole year until Christmas. Twelve months. Almost 365 days."

He huffed again and crossed his arms. "I ask Eater Bunny for cass-el."

She smiled at that and looked at the ceiling and then took his hands and shook them a bit. "Little Fox – you don't ask the Easter Bunny for toys. He'll just fill a basket you put out – like Santa filled your stocking when you left it out."

"Santa put toys in stocking," he corrected her.

She nodded. "He did. A few little ones. So maybe the Easter Bunny will do that. But what the Easter Bunny usually brings is chocolate. He'll bring you a chocolate egg and a few little treats."

"I write him and ask for cass-el," Benji tried again.

She shook her head. "No, Benji. The Easter Bunny doesn't have a mailbox. There's no where to send a letter – and I'm pretty sure he hibernates until Easter."

"Hi-bur-nate?"

"He's taking his winter sleep. Then he wakes up in the spring and brings around chocolate for the children."

Benji squinted at her. "He a bunny?"

She nodded. "He's a bunny."

"He not real."

She shrugged. "You told me that about Santa and we found out Santa was real, didn't we?"

He puckered in thought at that. "We go visit Easter Bunny?"

She snorted again and shook her head. "No, Little Fox. For Easter …. We go to church again likely and maybe go on an egg hunt. Decorate some eggs. Put it all in our baskets."

She really needed to talk to Jack about what role religion and his faith played in his life. So she could get a better understanding of how much she should be trying to incorporate that into Benji's life. She wasn't religious – and really, if Benji was going to be her child, she wasn't that interested in raising him in any faith. But she also didn't think having a little faith would hurt him. She'd make sure he was exposed to other faiths and ideas and spirituality too.

Still, she wanted to respect Jack to an extent. She didn't get the impression that the teen was overly religious either and that it was more him honouring what he was raised with and memories of his father and his Nan from the bits and pieces she had managed to get out of him on the topic.

Part of her thought it was a little hypocritical of them to just parade into church at Christmas and Easter. But she knew that was the habit of a lot of so-called Christians. So she wasn't about to rag on Jack about it. It would just create an argument. One where she was sure he'd point out that it was a little hypocritical that she'd gone to a Catholic college when she wasn't practicing and that not only that – but she'd been living in sin while attending the school. So it was pretty much and argument and a discussion she could do without having.

"Egg hunt?" Benji asked

She nodded. "We'll go on an Easter egg hunt."

"Wazzit?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "Mmm. We'll go somewhere and there will be eggs and treats hidden and we'll go around with our basket and find them and put them in the basket."

Benji hit up at that. "Like pie-rat trez-sure hunt?"

She nodded. "Sort of like that."

"Dragons guard trez-sure. Like Flame," he informed her.

She smiled. It was so neat and so absurd to see the parallels and relations his little mind drew. Her little boy wasn't stupid. No matter what the nursery school might think. He just wasn't as socially developed as some of the kids. He didn't sit still as well. He didn't share as well. He didn't socialize as well. But Benji heard things when they were said and he remembered them and he could apply them.

They'd been reading lots of children's books about pirates and dragons and knights. And dogs. That seemed to be a favourite too. Really limiting Benji to just seven books in a week on their library trip was a challenge. He'd prefer if she let him check out the entire children's section. She would start working on his word reconigition – moving him slowly towards reading. If suddenly he was an early reader, she was pretty sure he'd go from being the stupid, unsociable to being gifted in how the education system seemed to work.

"Dragons do guard treasure," she agreed. "But Flame still should likely stay home today – because you are taking a break from the nursery school castle. So pick another toy, Little Fox. Com'on. Hurry, sweetheart. Mommy is going to be really late for work already."

Benji dropped his armload on the floor at that – and she again breathed a small sigh of relief that she'd upgraded (or rather downgraded) several of his toys at Christmas to be more age appropriate and more durable to pre-schooler and little boy recklessness.

He shuffled the mess that was now all over the tiny space that she tried to call a foyer and then he held up Heatwave. She snorted at that again. She knew that would be the toy that would inevitably end up coming. It was the favourite of the week and had been being dragged just about everywhere since Christmas morning. Still, she'd forced herself to let him demonstrate his independence, judgment and decision-making skills rather than grabbing the thing and jamming it into the bag in the first-place.

"OK," she said and took the toy from him. "Please pick up the rest of your toys and take them back to the box."

He didn't argue and gathered them back up into his arms and again galloped into the other room as she worked at getting the toy into the sling-pack. She again reminded herself that she really needed to get him a real backpack and likely a lunch kit. Everything just ended up a squished mess in the sling-pack. She needed something with pockets and zippers to stuff things in – and hard sides to survive Benji when it came to packing his lunch.

But she knew that even the smallest changes incited all-out panic in Benji. So she needed to make the transition from his treasured sling-pack to a bit more practical backpack his idea. That meant finding the time to take him out with her to pick it on his own – with her guidance.

She'd actually already found what she wanted online. She had briefly considered if she had it delivered in the mail addressed to him, if the thrill of having something coming for him in the mail would supersede the displeasure about giving up the sling-pack. Some of the things that having a child in her life made her think about now was truly ridiculous. Though, interrogation skills and mental manipulation seemed to be somewhat useful – with both of the boys.

Benji did his skipping gallop back to the front of the apartment and she was ready – holding out his jacket for him, slipping it onto each of his arms and then reaching and guiding his brace through the one sleeve. She was going to be so glad when that thing was hopefully gone the coming week.

"Do it, Mommy!" Benji pleaded at her as she got the jacket on him.

"Do it?" she teased him as she finally did up her own too. She knew exactly what he was asking for. But she played dumb for a moment.

"Please, Mommy! Please do hick-erie, dick-erie. Please," he pleaded again.

"Hmm," she said like she had to think about it but then dropped back into her crouch again and smiled at him.

Forget about ridiculous things she thought about with a child anymore. She was doing ridiculous things too – and she really didn't care.

She stuck up her two index fingers in front of him and waited as he did the same.

"Tick, tock, tick, tock," she said to him and started to move her fingers back and forth to the beat as he followed the rhythm with her.

"Hickory, dickory, dock. The mouse ran up the clock," she said and then scurried her fingers up his chest and tickled him under the chin, which he squealed in delight to while jamming his chin against her hand and shrugging away.

"The clock struck one," she said and showed him the one finger and then tapped it against his nose.

"The mouse ran down," she added and scurried her hand back down his torso to where the zipper was on his coat.

"Hickory, dickory, dock," she said pulling the zipper up to his chin with the beat of her words.

Then she stuck up her index fingers with his again, waving them back and forth to the beat. "Tick, tock, tick, tock."

Benji bounced on the balls of his feet. "AGAIN MOMMY FOX!"

She shook her head and grabbed for his boots, picking up his one foot and pulling the footwear up and over it.

"Next time we put on your jacket, Benj. Stomp on that boot and give me your other foot," she told him.

He complied and she got him into the other boot as well. Then she pulled the little fox hat onto his head and struggled to get his hands into his mittens.

Then FINALLY, he was ready to get out the door. She let out a small sigh of relief as she raised back to full height, grabbing her purse and her own hat and gloves.

"OK, sweetie. Let's get you to nursery school," she said and opened the door. He was apparently onward to other things and bolted down the hall.

"I push the button, Mommy," he informed her at full-out gallop.

She kept her eyes on him as she got the door locked. He was gazing at the lit up button and bouncing with anticipation for the doors to open for them. She wished she could still get that excited about things. Especially things like getting to push a button and see it light up and to wait for doors to ding and magically open. AND THEN THERE WAS ANOTHER BUTTON TO PUSH! At some point in 44 years that had become rather mundanely routine that she didn't even notice it happening anymore. But at least it was kind of fun to watch Benji's excitement. That's what her life had become – all too quickly. Trying to see things through a four-year-old's eyes. She kind of liked it.


	117. Chapter 117

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia looked up from what she was doing in the kitchen as Jack came banging in the door of the apartment.

"Hi Jack," she greeted.

But she barely got a grunt in return. Instead his backpack cluttered to the floor – his skateboard strapped to the back of it. She really didn't understand why he was carrying the thing around in the middle of winter – especially when they still had enough snow and slush on the ground that it looked like they really were going to have a winter that year. There was no way he could actually be skating on the street with the thing. She really doubted any of the parks cleared their ramps for the boarders in the winter. They were more likely to lock the gates to keep the crazies out and from cracking their skulls or breaking their extremities on the wet, icy pavement. And, any indoor parks were off in other boroughs that she really couldn't see Jack trekking out to randomly in the middle of the day. Still, he dragged the deck around with him the same way Benji did his toys. She wasn't sure if it was for similar reasons as the little boy – a belonging he didn't want to be left without and a comforting touchstone. Or if it was more that it was an accessory and that his backpack was the teenaged male equivalent of a purse. With the amount of crap he managed to stuff into the thing – she thought her purse theory may hold some real weight.

He was already rummaging around in the thing – and it had barely touched the floor and he'd barely taken off his coat and boots. But just like he was always dragging the skateboard around – he was always digging something out of the bag. Sometimes she found herself a little surprised by what he pulled out of it – and what he managed to fit inside it. He was likely going to throw out his back one day – or at least forever jar his posture.

He wandered into the kitchen toting what looked to be a textbook and examined her – or rather the pan of food she had pulled out of the oven at the moment.

"It smells good," he commented. "What is it?"

She glanced at him and weighed how to answer that. Jack could be so finicky about his food. She labeled it the wrong thing and he'd be moaning and groaning and making himself toast rather than eating dinner with them.

"Mexican chicken," she said flatly as he examined the pan more while she dumped some shredded cheese over the two breasts for the boys.

Jack didn't need to know that it was just chicken breasts that she'd dumped a jar of salsa over and added a can of black bean and corn later. He'd likely turn up his nose at that. But labeling it as something that almost sounded like it could be a taco or burrito would likely prompt him to eat it.

He examined it more as she shoved it back into the oven to let the cheese melt over it.

"We having anything with it?" he asked.

She gestured at the burner that she ignited under a pot. "Green beans," she said.

He did the same thoughtful pucker as Benji at that. Jack and vegetables didn't usually go together unless they were well disguised – like in salsa and beans and corn added to the salsa.

"Nachos?" he asked.

She snorted and shook her head. "Did you leave any from the last bag?" she asked and gestured at the cupboard.

She knew he had left a few handfuls at the bottom of the bag that she'd put up out of the way. Not that she really thought he needed them. There were enough carbs in the meal – but she wasn't up for arguing with him. She was tired – and she'd be arguing with him enough the following day on the move.

He rummaged through the cupboard and brought down the bag, immediately opening it and shoving a chip into his mouth.

"Did you not eat today?" she asked. She wouldn't be surprised if that was an affirmative.

But he shrugged. "Not since around lunch. It's like seven thirty. Why haven't you eaten dinner yet?"

She snorted at him and shook her head. "I should be asking why you haven't eaten dinner?"

He shrugged again. "Busy. Work."

"Ah," she rolled her eyes. "Funny. Me too."

He just eyed her and went to the fridge pulling it open and looking around. "Salsa?" he asked, sticking his head back around at her.

"You can use the sauce on the chicken as salsa. It's going to be ready in just a few minutes, Jack. Stop acting starving."

"I am starving," he mumbled at her and plopped his textbook along with the open bag of chips on the island.

She hoped that Benji didn't notice the chips were out or else he'd be over and wanting to ruin his dinner too. But for the moment he seemed pretty absorbed in the episode of Thomas the Tank Engine she had on for him on the television. She took some heed in the fact that Jack hadn't bothered to say hello to his nephew yet either. Dealing with his growling stomach apparently took priority over greeting his family – or something like it.

"You shouldn't be," she told him. "Are you using the Dining Dollars I put on your City Card for you?"

He nodded and shoved another chip into his mouth, now flipping through the textbook like he was looking for something.

She rubbed at her eyebrow and eyed him. "So, if I put that much on each week for you – how many meals is it going to cover?"

He glanced at her and she could see his gears shifting in deciding if he was going to argue with her about that some more – like her making sure he got some proper meals into him in a given week was some sort of crime. Though, clearly it hadn't been enough of a crime that he'd resisted using the money she'd put there – and that had only been in a three-day week.

Jack shrugged. "I guess like dinner in the dining hall on week days and like some change. Coffee, muffin, some snacks."

She nodded. "That's good. So you can have a real dinner each night? And then you're responsible for getting breakfast and lunch into you? Get some cereal and toast. Jam. Peanut butter. Some lunch meats. Fruit."

"Pizza pockets," he added.

She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow again but shrugged. "You know my thoughts on you eating that junk – especially when you can afford food that's a bit better for you now."

He returned her shrug.

"You'll be able to manage covering off breakfast food and lunch items with your part-time job," she said. She knew he might interpret as a question but it really was a statement of fact.

He shrugged again. "Yeah. I guess."

"If you were paying rent and sort of feeding you and Benji in the fall – it shouldn't be a problem now, Jack," she clarified for him.

"You ended up paying my rent," he mumbled.

"And you'll be paying me back for that," she told him sternly.

She ended up having to absorb the months he was behind just to get him out of there before he got evicted. But just add it to the start-up costs of suddenly being a parent to a teenager and a pre-schooler.

He gave no response to the comment. But she knew it was partially because he was embarrassed about it. She'd had to sit him down one night the previous week after Benji was in bed and have a battle with him about his debt and his credit cards. She ended up convincing him to let her pay off his credit cards. He hadn't initially wanted to let her help. But she did some math for him – showing him what just the current amounts were going to look like by the time he was done school and had a job to really start paying them off. And, she knew that was likely being optimistic. The world, country, economy is going to have to do quite the turn-around in the next few years if Jack was going to be lucky enough to graduate and walk into a meaningful, well-paying job related to his field. The chances of him having the income to manage the growing debt immediately after finishing school were slim. But even in the hypothetical best-case scenario she'd presented him – which included him paying his minimum each month and not using his credit cards anymore over the coming years – he'd gaped at what he'd be owing and trying to pay off before he even really started out. Apparently it had been enough of an an eye-opener to get him to shut-up and listen and reluctantly agree to just let her help.

She'd sat there and forced him to call and cancel his card and then cut them all up but one. The one she let him keep, though, she'd had him call and set the limit to a much lower – and more reasonable – limit for someone his age. She'd stressed to him that it was now just an emergency card. And, really unless it was a true emergency – any money problems, he should be talking to her first to see if they could work something out before he sent himself into financial chaos before he even had any real finances.

They'd also gone over how much he actually made in a month and worked out a bit of a budget for him and a schedule for him to pay her back. She didn't really like having a teenager owing her a bunch of money. And, realistically, she knew some of it she'd likely just end up absorbing as part of the deal of her inheriting Jack and Benji. She knew that some of the debt wasn't exactly Jack's fault. He'd been put into situations he wasn't in a financial position to be able to manage and he'd tried to manage the best way he knew how. Still, she had ended up transferring enough of a chunk of money out of savings to deal with his problems and situation she wasn't just going to let it all slide.

Some of the debt might have been the fault of a situation his uncle had left him flailing in all alone. But other parts of it were school supplies and books, skateboarding things, some clothes, junk food, coffee, entertainment. He needed to be accountable for those kinds of purchases – and he just needed to have a better understanding of managing his finances, in general. She knew he'd gotten a bit of a lesson in that in trying to manage a household with Benji. But turning to credit card debt had masked some of the realism of dealing with it. So – now they were going to work at getting him re-educated and more responsible. She'd be at him at every one of his pay cheques, making sure that she got at least a percentage of the pay until she decided he'd reasonably paid his dues.

She hadn't decided an exact dollar amount yet. She had a general idea of what she thought would be a reasonable expectation of what he could pay back to her over the next year. But she thought a lot of it would depend on his attitude towards the process, her, how he was spending his money now that he had a bit more padding and a safety net, if he listened and didn't go out and get more credit cards and running up more debt, and how he was keeping up with his schooling and if he made the grades to keep his scholarship. They'd just have to see how it all went.

So she ignored his mumbled comment and changed the topic back to what she was actually trying to gauge from him.

"How's the food in the dining hall?" she asked.

He nodded. "Yeah. Pretty good. I can have pasta every day if I want."

She snorted and shook her head again. "That's likely not a good idea."

"Why not?"

She looked at him. "Do I really need to explain that to you?"

He shrugged. "Relax. I haven't even had pasta yet. I had ribs on Tuesday when you abandoned me. And then I had roast beef on Wednesday. And guess what I had last night?"

She shrugged. "I have no idea, Jack."

"Couscous," he informed her.

She snorted at that and raised her eyebrow at him. "And?"

"Yeah. It was OK. It had vegetables and shi … stuff … in it."

She ignored his swearing slip and appreciated the fact he'd self-corrected. "So the main dining hall is a cafeteria-style buffet line?"

"Yeah. Pretty much. They got like a soup of the day and then have like three hot entrees and then a bunch of different side dishes and a salad bar. Drinks. Dessert. Fruit."

She nodded. "And you're making sure you get some of all the food groups? Not just meat and potatoes?"

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"So you're taking some vegetables – and eating them?"

"Potatoes are vegetables," he informed her.

"Jack …" she sighed.

"Why are you always riding me like I'm a pre-schooler or something?" he spat and gestured over to Benji, acknowledging the little boy was even in the apartment for the first time since he'd walked in the door.

"Because your diet has been miserable the last several months, Jack. And, you haven't convinced me yet that you know how to make healthy options when it comes to your food choices."

He huffed. "I've been eating the salad bar stuff. The side veg looks soggy and nasty."

She nodded. "OK," she said a bit more quietly – trying to let it drop.

There did reach a point where she just had to trust that he could take care of himself. He had been doing it for years to a point to some extent. She just wasn't sure he'd been doing a very good job at it – and that that laxness was now leaving him with instilled poor habits as he entered adulthood. He could do better.

But she'd observed anyways even with what she put in front of him when he was there he was more likely to eat through half the bowl of any salad she put on the table than he was to take a helping of a steamed or roasted vegetables. Considering he'd clearly told her that he didn't eat salad in his first days with her – she thought it was a lot of progress. Though, with the amount of dressing he put on the salad – she figured the nutritional value of what he was putting into his system was likely diminished. He was probably just using the vegetables as a vehicle to ingest the dressing.

"Anyways …" Jack huffed and jabbed a finger onto a page in the textbook. "That's what I was going to show you before you had get all up my ass."

"Jack, watch your language," she sighed and looked towards where Benji still seemed glued to the television.

"I wouldn't have to watch my language if you weren't always at me," Jack told her.

"I wouldn't always have to be at you if you'd take a bit better care of yourself," she told him.

They held their eyes in a deadlocked stare for several beats but she decided to be the one to break it first. She was picking her battles that night. She'd lock horns with him tomorrow if she had to. Tonight – she just wanted to get through.

She glanced down at the page and looked at it trying to see what it was he wanted her to be looking at. She was scanning the words but his hand came back down and landed on the picture.

"That's your office," he informed her in almost a self-satisfied way.

"Precinct," she mumbled and read the caption, trying to determine why it was in there and then flipped to the font of the book and examined its cover for a moment.

"Why's it in here?" she asked, having still not determined why he cared that she see it.

But Jack just shrugged. "I don't know."

She snorted. "Ah. Fascinating," she told him and pushed the book back towards him.

She really didn't feel like reading a textbook about urban public policy to determine why they may have chosen to picture her precinct building in a small photo in it. She figured it was likely just filler.

But Jack grabbed a packet of stapled sheets from the front of the book and slapped it in front of her. She glanced at it and picked it up – because that's clearly what was expected of her – and looked it over. It was the syllabus for his workshop.

"So the workshop is going to be all like role playing to examine public policy crap …"

"Jack …" she sighed again.

"Stuff …" he said instead a little more apologetically. "And we're supposed to pick our top three choices of a character to play for the discussions and hand in a write up about why we're picking them and what we'd bring to the table and stuff. Why it's important their voice be represented in the policy discussion. So they have to be from one of these categories," he added and grabbed the packet from her and flipped to the third page before shoving it back into her hands and jamming another finger into the centre of the page. "So I was thinking that I should put like a crime and justice role as like a cop or a detective or something as my first choice. Then you can tell me stuff."

She snorted and looked at him and then looked back at the sheets outlining the expectations of the workshop. From what she was getting to read, it sounded kind of interesting. Not a bad way to spend the month picking up a few credits to bring up his average after a crappy term. Assuming he worked to make sure this course did actually bring up his marks. He couldn't treat it like a walk-in-the-park. But the fact that he was dragging the syllabus out and actually showing it to her gave her some hope that he clearly understood the situation he was in – and his advisor's recommendation that he use the winter break to take a course, not screw around, for the sake of his scholarship the following academic year.

Jack wasn't stupid and he was a hard worker when it came to his academics. She got the impression he was a hard worker when it came to his work too. And he skateboarding. He applied himself a lot when he wanted to. So this was doable – if he kept his head down that month.

The syllabus said the workshop's goal was to examine public policy processes and outcomes in an urban context. That the instructor would be utilizing games, role playing and simulation to have the class examine the policy process from formulation to implementation to evaluation. The students were to pick an interest to represent during the duration from the course – that had to be selected from areas of crime and justice, welfare and equality, housing, education, transportation or the federal government.

She almost wanted to be flattered that he thought he might want to play the role of a cop or detective - or probably more accurately, someone from the brass and One Police Plaza – for the course. But she didn't think that was the brightest idea in the long-term.

"Don't you think it would make more sense for you to pick something to do with skateboarding or the transformation of urban spaces or park development or community development … or something along those lines, Jack?" she put back to him. "Something so you get some experience with what's involved in policy discussions from those perspectives – since that's what you want to do as a career?"

He shrugged. "None of that really fits in the categories we have to pick from," he said.

She looked back at the sheet and thought about it. "I don't think that's true, Jack. What about that mentorship program? That could fall under crime and justice likely and education. Welfare and equality? I'm sure even just a community skateboarding organization could be manipulated to fit into this. Really any group could fall under these categories if you stopped and thought about it a bit. That's likely what your professor wants you thinking about in picking – outside the box. How different groups and organizations all fit into public policy and have different concerns and want to voice different priorities?"

He huffed at her. "But I want to get a good mark in this course – and you'd know stuff."

She snorted and flipped back to the front of the packet to look at the course breakdown a bit more closely.

"I'm not going to do your homework for you, Jack," she told him. "And, I deal with the actual crimes – not the public policy around them."

"So then you know how the policies are failing," he protested. "And you wouldn't be doing my homework. I could like interview you or something about the different stuff."

She sighed again and looked at him. She really didn't think she had the time or patience for that. And, she didn't really want to deal with Jack's wrath, insecurities or frustrations if she didn't give him the kind of information he thought he wanted or needed. Looking at the list of some of the case studies the class would be using for their discussions and role-play – it wasn't even all being drawn from New York, let alone a lot of it didn't even really fall into an area she'd have too much of an opinion on. She might have more ready access to certain facts and figures – or contacts of other people he could go talk to. But she thought that was getting into doing his homework for him again.

She looked back to the syllabus again and flipped through it some more. This course definitely didn't look like a cakewalk the more she was reading through the outline. Beyond having to do enough research to be able to accurately represent their role's position in the policy simulations and discussions every day in the quick turn-around course – the kids were also going to be reading a lot of case studies, text book chapters, writing up an essay and there was going to be a final exam on the theory and applying it all to another case study.

"Sweetheart – why don't you write up your proposal for your character with something skateboarding related or urban space utilization related and then let your professor decide if it's applicable?" she told him without looking up, still set on getting a grip on what Jack had to get done that month. She didn't think they'd be seeing a lot of him based on the workload being laid out on the sheets of paper. "I assume since you're having to pick three – he's going to decide which players make sense and make sure there aren't duplicates?"

He didn't give her any sort of answer and she glanced up and at him to see if he was starting to fume about her not buying into his request to use her as a source and homework buddy. But what she found was him staring at her with an odd look on his face that she couldn't quite place. It wasn't one of his usual looks.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He examined her a bit more and then said a little quietly, "You've got a big bruise."

"Oh, yeah," she said and reached up to the one side of her chin – just at the jaw line and spreading down a little onto her neck. She'd thought it had faded a lot already during the day – and with her skin tone, she didn't even think it was that noticeable. Though it still felt a little tender as her fingers traced over the area.

"It looks like someone hit you," Jack said and she clicked there was an edge of concern to his voice.

Olivia looked back at him – and it struck her that the strange look he was giving her was of awkward concern too. A look that said he'd seen the mark, he didn't know what it was, but it made him uncomfortable and he didn't like it. It was a look she really hadn't seen since Elliot had been her partner – and even then it seemed different.

She shook her head. "No one hit me, Jack. I'm fine," she assured him.

"Then why do you have a big bruise on your face?" he demanded a little more harshly, the concern seeming to crackle a bit into a fear.

She shrugged and looked back to the syllabus. "I was making an arrest today. I wasn't being careful enough and lost hold of a guy who was struggling a bit. His shoulder hit me in the chin. It wasn't a big deal, sweetheart."

"So someone did hit you?!" Jack corrected with the edge growing to his voice.

She put down the papers and turned back to him at that. He looked agitated about it. There was a fear and a real concern in him that she hadn't really seen before. But something about it seemed familiar too.

"It was an accident. These things happen sometimes. I'm fine, Jack," she assured him again.

"An accident?" he spat. "You can't like … hit a police officer. Or … a woman!"

"OK, Jack," she said and put a hand on his shoulder, trying to calm him. "At work – I'm a police officer first, a detective. Not a woman. I do work out in the field like everyone else on the job – and sometimes things get physical and things happen. But you're right – you can't hit a police officer."

"So did you do something to him? Arrest him?" he stirred again - the agitation in his voice still present.

But it was the look in his eyes and the small tremble she could feel in his tense shoulders that made her realize where she'd seen the mannerisms that were radiating off of him at the moment. The look, the questions, the wide glassy and angry but fearful eyes, the tense body, the agitation, the tremble in the voice. It was something she'd seen in the sons of victims – especially the teenaged ones and young men. It was how they stood guard over their mothers – trying to protect her but so scared too. Concern and apprehension and anger all mixing in them as they demanded answers – as they tried to be the man of the family while a woman they'd always had been (and likely always would be) a little boy to, needed the protecting. They were on attack mode. And in that moment, Olivia suddenly realized some sort of primal protection mode in Jack had been engaged – and it was directed at her.

She'd never had that before. She'd seen parts of it in Elliot – and even occasionally from Fin or the Captain, sometimes Munch and lately sporadically from Nick. But what was radiating off of Jack felt so different. He wasn't a partner. He was a boy she was taking care of. Now she was in his sights as the one who needed to be taken care of. She could just feel the concern radiating off him and the rage that someone would touch her.

It was a strange realization. She had a young man who suddenly cared about her in that way – a way she'd never really had anyone care about her before. It felt baffling. She wasn't sure how to react or deal with it. But there was something about it that felt oddly comforting too.

Before she even realized she was doing it – she'd stepped into him for a hug and wrapped her arms around him. He seemed startled by it for a moment but then his arms came around her. She held him for a minute – and he did too. It felt like a much more real hug than earlier in the week. He didn't seem as tense or as awkward about it. It felt less imposed – and it felt more like it was just … what a mother and son would do in that moment.

She enjoyed it for a moment. It felt different than the hugs she got from Benji. Different than the embraces she'd gotten from Calvin. There was a protective undertone to it from Jack that she was usually the one radiating – not the one receiving. But then she ruffled her hand through his hair and put a small peck against his temple as she pulled away.

She cupped his check and looked at him. He looked a little embarrassed but there was still a concern coming off of him.

"I was arresting him, sweetheart," she told him. "But now he's charged with resisting arrest and assaulting a law enforcement officer too. And – I'm fine."

"Why didn't your partner … Nick? … stop him?" he asked quietly. "Isn't he supposed to protect you?"

She gave a small nod. "We protect each other. We watch each other's back. But sometimes things just happen really quickly. The guy just got away from me. Nick didn't have any reason to think I was going to have a problem with him. The guy was co-operating but then he just … freaked out. It happens. The important thing is everyone is OK."

"But what if you hadn't been OK?" Jack said.

She gave him a small smile and patted his cheek. "Then Nick was right there – and he wouldn't made sure I was."

Jack looked down at that and let out a slow breath. "Well you should put ice on it or something," he said and went to the freezer and yanked it open, looking inside.

She sighed. "Jack – I'm fine. I had ice on it for a while at …"

But before she could finish her sentence one of the freezer packs and a dish towel slapped against her chin – in a way that she wouldn't exactly have called gentle. She put her hand up to hold it in place.

"OK. Thank you," she mumbled.

Benji's show either had ended or he'd finally caught wind of what was going on in the kitchen and he trotted over and pulled himself in a slow climb-crawl onto one of the island stools.

"Why you have boo-boo pack on your face, Mommy?" he asked of the soft-gel pack that had become a bit of a constant companion of his in the various bumps he gave his wrist and arm and head.

"A bad guy hit her," Jack informed him before she had a chance to get anything out of her mouth.

She gaped at him a moment and shook her head. That wasn't exactly how she would've explained it to him. Then again – Benji hadn't noticed the bruise at all and she hadn't planned on doing anything to draw his attention to it either.

"A bad guy hurt you, Mommy?" Benji said, his eyes getting the wide and glassy look that had echoes of Jack's in it. She could see what Benji's eyes would likely look like in the future if anything happened to her when he was a teen. Even at four she could see the stirrings of concern, fear and protection in the little boy.

"I just got a boo-boo at work today, Benj. I'm OK," she assured him, trying to dissipate the situation.

It really wasn't as big of deal as the boys were making it out to be. She wasn't used to having all this fuss made over her – especially something as simple as a little bruise. She was a grown woman – a big girl. She was more than used to taking care of herself. She was a fucking NYPD detective in SVU. She'd seen and dealt with more than the boys could even begin to imagine – more than she even wanted them to ever try imagining.

"You need a guard dragon," Benji informed her. "Because dragons eat bad guys and they guard treasure. So Flame guard you."

She snorted and shook her head at him. Even though she'd spent long hours thinking about what it would be like to have a child – she'd never really thought of it in terms of a situation like this. She'd thought about how to support a child and what would happen if she got injured at work or died in the line of duty. As slim of possibility as it was, it was still a real possibility. But she wasn't sure she'd really thought about how children would react to a minor injury – a bruise. What fears or concerns it would raise in them? What sorts of things they might have going through their heads about her being a police officer now? If now a bruise was making them think about a worse-case scenario?

She also didn't know if she'd ever really appreciated how different boys were. Having sons was different than having daughters. She knew that. It was different concerns – different interests, different ways of dealing with things. But it was really setting in in that moment that with boys it wasn't just about being the caretaker now. She was cared for too – and suddenly she had these two little (and not so little people in Jack's case) people taking care of her in the best haphazard way they knew how. As strange as it felt to have the attention on her – she liked it too.

"I'm OK, guys," she assured again and gave Benji a smile before meeting Jack's eyes. "It's just a little bruise."


	118. Chapter 118

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"This would be going a lot faster if the boys were helping," Elliot informed her for the second time.

She glanced at him from where she was moving the coffee table out of the way for them to navigate the couch out of the apartment and into the new space.

"I'm perfectly capable of carrying one end of the couch," she said with a touch of insult in her voice.

She didn't even like the suggestion that she might not be strong enough to manage moving around some furniture. She was middle aged – not deprecated.

She'd been working a job for her entire adult life that demanded a certain level of physical fitness. Sure, she'd become a little more lax about some of the exercise routines over the past several years (only for it to become all but non-existent since Benji had arrived on the scene – beyond the few days where she managed to actually get a lunch and not feel guilty about taking it and she hit the pavement for a run or just went up to the cribs and locker room to see if the weights were available. They usually weren't. Even grown man liked to puff their chests and lift the things endlessly and weren't likely to give up the space to let her get in some reps.).

The changes in physical activity had meant significant changes in her diet to try to balance it off. It had worked to an extent. Though, Benji and Jack being in her life had definitely changed her diet again. She was undecided if it was for better or worse. It definitely meant that she was eating more regularly and getting more of the food groups more regularly. It also meant, though, that at least the whining for temptation was near consistently there. And, she did accommodate the boys on their little indulgences on occasion. They were kids – they deserved the occasional taste of junk food. She just didn't want it to be a key food group in their diets anymore.

But whatever changes had gone on in her body, her physical activity or her diet – she still was more than capable of doing some minor heavy-lifting to get her furniture up a few floors.

"I just meant four pairs of hands would be better than two," Elliot said and raised his eyebrow at her – having clearly picked up on her displeasure at his comment.

She sighed and just stood at her end of the couch, waiting for him to make the move to lift it, so she could too.

She hadn't even known that El planned on bringing Dickie until he showed up there with the teen. Dickie had seemed almost as grouchy about spending his Saturday helping them move as Jack was – possibly more so. She actually wouldn't entirely blame him. If she was that age and she was being forced to help someone move – on a Saturday morning – she likely wouldn't have been impressed either. It wasn't like Jack, who was pretty much being forced to be there. She didn't even want to think about what El had bribed his son with or said to get him to participate. But based on the glares that she'd gotten from Dickie – almost as toxic as Jack's – she suspected the teen felt he was getting the raw end of the deal.

She'd never really planned on making Jack help with the moving of the furniture anyway. She'd had him move some of the boxes over the past couple weeks when he'd been around. She made him take up the last of them the night before.

Olivia knew him and Elliot would go together like oil and vinegar. She wasn't going to leave him alone taking instructions from El about how to lift and turn furniture. World War Three might literally break out. Or in the very least, she thought her couch would go tumbling down the steps and possibly through a wall. She didn't really feel like paying to fix or replace either. She'd always planned to put Jack to work assembling some of the bedroom furniture while her and El moved up the few bits of furniture she did actually own.

She didn't own much in terms of furniture anyway. It shouldn't take long to just get the job done between the two of them. All her apartments had been small enough there was never reason to get much. But she already knew that in the two-bedroom – with a significantly larger living room and an actual dining nook, not to mention the second bedroom and bathroom and a foyer that she could likely actually get away with calling a foyer for the first-time ever – her furniture was going to look a little sparse.

She wasn't too worried about it at the moment, though. She'd been bleeding enough money over the past several months. She wasn't going to get too worked up about space that was near empty or going unused. She was sure that Benji would fill up any area that was left vacant with toys spread across creation. The little boy made her life cluttered enough. She wasn't going to clutter it up more with extra furniture she wasn't even sure she needed yet. She'd wait and see and then decide. But she kind of thought it might be smart to get a second couch or loveseat – or update her couch sooner than expected, and get a sectional. When Jack was over, the complete lack of seating space she had in the apartment was more than apparent.

The teen wasn't much for sharing the couch – and even when he could be cajoled into moving his legs, his feet nearly always ended up on her coffee table, which she found a little gross. Both of the boys were constantly eating their snacks at the table and Benji was nearly always at it like it was a play table. When the teen did make space – with two adult-sized bodies and Benji bouncing around, it wasn't exactly the most comfortable seating arrangement.

She wasn't an interior decorator by any means. But she thought beyond giving extra space – the extra seating could be used to break up the long room. That might give Benji a distinct play space in the room, which she thought MIGHT help confine the toys to one area of the living space a bit more readily. She knew she was likely dreaming on that one. Stepping on things and picking up a trail of toys after he was in bed was just becoming routine anymore, and that likely wasn't going to change anytime soon. Even when she made him clean up his toys as part of the bedtime routine – he inevitably missed something, leaving it in the perfect place for her to step on and then hop around trying not to swear loud enough that he was out of bed and checking out was wrong.

Still, given everything, she'd thought it made most sense to leave Jack in the apartment watching Benji (and Eli, since Elliot had ended up dragging him along too. If he'd told her that he had his son that weekend, she likely would've just asked Alex to help instead. She just thought El's brute force would speed things along a bit.). And, really with the attitude that both Jack and Dickie were exhibiting that morning and the concept of having two little boys underfoot if Jack and Dickie weren't upstairs playing babysitter – Olivia didn't think they'd be getting things done faster like Elliot was suggesting.

She shook her head at Elliot. "Jack's in a foul mood. He wouldn't be much help."

Elliot bent and picked up his end of the couch, so she got a grip on hers and they began their shuffle towards the door.

"I don't think Dickie realized he'd be playing babysitter and carpenter when he agreed to come," Elliot said flatly.

She shrugged as much as she could under the weight of the couch. "I didn't realize you were bringing Dickie and Eli," she retorted.

"Besides, I know my kid," she mumbled, watching more at how they started twisting the couch to tilt it through the door and into the hall. "Right now Jack's in his element. He likes building things. It's best to just let him do his thing."

She saw Elliot eyeing her as they lowered the couch back down and got it through the door.

"What?" she asked.

"He's not your kid, Liv," he said with a quiet sternness – both of them just standing there with the weight of the couch in the hallway.

It took her a moment to even realize she'd referred to Jack as her 'kid'. But the more time she spent with him – the more she felt that way. She felt just as responsible for him as she did for Benji. Maybe she cared about him – loved him – a little differently. But the care – even the love – was still there. He was a part of her life now and with the amount he was around, she really did feel like one of her boys. However, she hadn't exactly meant to verbalize that to Elliot. She didn't really want to get into that conversation with him.

She nudged the couch forward, against her former partner slightly, to get him moving.

"So … I know Jack," she corrected and hoped he'd just leave it at that.

She knew that was likely hoping for too much. As much as Elliot put up barricades around what she was allowed to ask about his life, what they were allowed to discuss, what he would even respond to – he didn't seem to want to respect her boundaries quite as much. He never really had. He seemed to think anything was fair game. She never really liked that – and she really didn't feel like they'd moved far enough in re-establishing a relationship that it should be permissible at all. But again – Elliot wouldn't see it quite the same way as her.

"How well do you even know him?" he mumbled as he backed down the hall, working his way towards the door to take the thing up the couple flights of stairs to the seventh floor. "You've known these kids – what? All of three months?"

"Four," she told him a little harshly. "And, I know Jack. My job is to try to get people, El. I think I can handle getting into the mind of a 19-year-old. And, even if I've only known Jack a few months – I knew his father. Jack is definitely his father's son."

"You knew his dad more than 20 years ago, Liv," El told her sternly and pushed the door open with his ass and they again worked at tilting and twisting the piece of furniture through the space.

"El, I don't want to talk about this," she said back to him just as sternly. "My relationship with those two boys is my business."

"He isn't a boy. He's legally an adult," Elliot told her as they started up the stairs.

She snorted at that and glanced at him. But he wasn't looking at her at that point. He was watching behind him as he took each step, trying not to trip over his feet, drop the couch, or stumble on the unfamiliar staircase. She actually thought she should've opted to go backwards rather than take the bulk of the weight in the lower position. She'd remember that for when they came back down to maneuver the mattress.

"Would you call Dickie an adult?" she asked.

El met her eyes briefly at that. "Legally, yes," he mumbled and went back to watching the steps behind him.

She shook her head. "That's bullshit. I've heard you refer to more than one victim – even a few perps - over the years who were under 21 as a child."

He glanced at her again at that but made no comment. She always took that as an acknowledgement that he knew she was right. But he just wasn't going to admit it. Few and far between were the moments where she actually got to be right with him.

"Think of it this way," she said, as they got to the first landing and again twisted and shuffled to get the couch around the metal railing and up the next flight. "If something were to happen to you and Kathy – and Dickie somehow got left with the responsibility of raising Eli – do you think he'd be able to handle it?"

Elliot glanced at her again and she saw a flash of recognition in his eyes that that would be a bad situation. Dickie wasn't ready for that responsibility in any way. It would be bad for both him and Eli. Disastrous really.

"That would never happen," he said flatly as he started up the steps again. "There's the girls - Maureen. Kathy's sister. Kathy's mother."

She snorted. "And if there wasn't? Wouldn't you want him to get help? Wouldn't you hope that someone would be helping them? Jack didn't have anyone to fall back onto. He did the best he could. The best he knew how – and it wasn't really working for either of them."

There still wasn't a comment from El.

"I'm glad Jack came and found me," she said, balancing the couch in her hands. This whole conversation felt like a bit of a balancing act. She wanted to set Elliot straight. To get him to drop it. To get him to finally really understand and respect her decisions on it. But to do all of that without divulging too many details about her life – her family's life now – and what she was up to. She hadn't told Elliot yet that she had signed the paperwork to take on the extended guardianship of Jack. If he still wasn't sure about her and Benji – she knew there was definitely some disapproval about her pursuing a relationship with Jack. But they were a packaged deal. She couldn't have one boy without the other – and at this point, she wouldn't even consider doing it that way anyways. And – she definitely didn't need his approval on any of it. His approval – or lack thereof – had never done her much good over all the years previous. She certainly didn't need it now. She'd just take what she could take. He was trying so she was trying and hopefully eventually he'd see what she had now and be able to be happy for her – rather than that small glean of disapproval and skepticism continuing to sit there in his eyes.

"I know you're still skeptical about what I'm doing here," she said. "I know you're suspicious of Jack. But he is a good kid. And, you can say what you want – but I think him finding someone to help would've been what his dad wanted. Jay wouldn't want Jack to be trying to do this all on his own. No parent would. I wouldn't want him trying to raise Benji on his own. I don't even want to think about all the bad endings Jack and Benji could've had, El. I've seen too many bad endings. But – right now – we have the potential for all three of us to have something that resembles a happy ending. So – I'm glad he came and found me. That's not going to change."


	119. Chapter 119

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She glanced down at Benji and gave him a smile. He was nearly skipping down the street and swinging their hands.

"One banana, two banana, three banana, four. Five banana, six banana, seven banana, MORE. Put them on the table – all in line and then count from ONE TO SEVEN and start this song 'GIN," he kept singing over and over.

She could tell Benji thought he was genius and hilarious all at the same time. He was nearly in hysterics at the thought of all those bananas. Bananas was about right.

The little boy was off the walls – and she wasn't sure she could take listening to the song too many more times. She was hoping he lost interest in it very soon. Or that they taught him a new song at nursery school on Monday that he deemed much better than the banana song – because he was driving her bananas.

She was glad she'd decided to just go ahead with their usual Sunday routine. Originally she'd just thought that keeping the Sunday routine would be good after he'd had such a disruptive Saturday. But now she'd decided getting out of the apartment was just as much for her own sanity. If they were home that morning – with how he was acting at the moment – she wouldn't have been getting any packing done anyways. She'd be kid wrangling and he'd likely be driving her a little more crazy than he was already managing with just his singing.

She'd initially thought after the boys had gotten on the go in the morning that it was going to be Jack that was going to drive her crazy that day. But Benji was definitely in contention for that honour now.

Benji hadn't slept in his bedroom the night before – no matter the effort she put into getting him down in his new bed in his new room. It was clear that wasn't going to happen that night and she'd been exhausted enough from the move that she wasn't going to do battle that night. So she just left it – letting him sleep in her bed again and as usual. She knew it was going to be a process to get him settled into his bedroom. She'd start that night – when she didn't have Jack there to provide a running commentary on her parenting abilities, because it was really like he could do any better.

So really with the little boy not present in the bedroom and a room to himself, she'd thought that Jack should've had a reasonable night's sleep. But based on the awful mood he was in that morning that didn't appear to be the case at all. She'd thought that maybe he didn't like the futon – that it was uncomfortable. Apparently that wasn't the problem. He'd actually said it was comfortable – without prompting.

For a futon that was actually impressive. Though, since she had figured he'd be sleeping on it semi-regularly she'd splurged to get a mattress that would survive regular use and not just the occasional overnight guest. It also needed to survive a little boy since she knew that with it being in Benji's room, it wasn't just going to be ignored. It'd be jumped on and used as a fort and a castle and a dungeon and a race track and a mountain and a den and a dragon's lair. And, maybe they'd even be using it as a bedtime story spot when it could be excused from imaginary play. So the softness or firmness of the mattress apparently wasn't the source of the teen's grumps.

Olivia had started to accept that Jack was just a little grumpy about 80 per cent of the time. Though, she got the impression that he was slightly more grouchy that morning than just his usual grumps. The best she'd managed to get out of him was that he still had his shorts in a knot about some sort of tiff he and Dickie had had the day before. She wasn't sure what the exact nature of it was but Jack had declared to her the day before that 'the guy has an attitude problem'. Coming from Jack that likely said a lot.

Apparently their sense of humour hadn't meshed quite as well on Saturday. Though, Dickie hadn't seemed overly impressed about being there – and from what Elliot said he would've been even less impressed about playing assemblyman with the bedroom furniture. She supposed she wouldn't be surprised if they'd had a little disagreement.

Most furniture that required some assembly was designed to create enough frustration that lead to a verbal sparring match. Beyond that Olivia wasn't sure Jack would be the easiest person to work with in on that kind of project. She was pretty sure he would've taken over and would be directing – if not bossing – Dickie around. That likely wouldn't have gone over well. So either way, she thought for the moment her hopes that Jack might be able to find a friend in Dickie were somewhat on hold.

She would've hoped that Jack would've been over whatever the argument was about by morning. But apparently teenaged boys could hold grudges almost as badly as teenaged girls – though in a slightly different manner. He'd definitely still seemed out of sorts.

He'd barked at her that he needed to work on his role-playing proposal for his workshop because she'd 'wasted' his 'whole Saturday making' him help with 'HER stupid move'. She'd taken that as her cue to get the hell out of there with Benji and for them all to take a break from one another. She could only hope that by the time her and the little boy got back – her big, grouchy boy would've calmed down. Or he'd be deciding he'd had enough of them and be packing to head back up to rez and taking his negative energy elsewhere for the afternoon.

They'd actually left the apartment early enough – or rather in enough of a hurry – that she'd ended up taking Benji out for breakfast. There was something she really loved about taking Benji out for breakfast even in just the few times she'd been able to do it so far. She couldn't pinpoint exactly what it was about it that she enjoyed. She thought it was likely just the one-on-one time. But it might've been more that having the one-on-one time with him in a restaurant. Doing something so normal, but so publicly together, seemed to make her feel even more like his mom than other moments. Listening to his chatter and giving him a couple options to mull over off the menu. Having the waitress ask what her son wanted and placing an order for him. Watching him explore and work on his food. Watching his interest in everything else going on around him: other families in the diner, other kids, other food going by. The sounds and smells. His constant 'wazzits' and speculation on things he was seeing, hearing and smelling. The way he'd page through the newspaper if she let him and how he'd scribble away on the placemat with the couple provided crayons. He was content and it made her content. She really liked it.

She'd managed to divert him away from his usual weekend demand for "PANCAKES MOMMY!" She thought in the past few months she'd eaten more pancakes than she likely had in her entire adult life. She wasn't even sure she'd attempted making pancakes since maybe college. Now they inevitably had them either Saturday or Sunday on the weekend. Benji would likely be happy to have them every meal of every day of the week if she let him have his way. But like peanut butter toast. She thought maybe it was a banana thing – much like his song. Banana pancakes were apparently almost as amazing as a peanut butter and banana sandwich. It almost made her miss being four when things so simple could be so fulfillingly good.

But that day she hadn't put forward pancakes as an option at the diner. She almost pretended that the kitchen there didn't put them out – sort of hoping he wouldn't see any go by. Instead she'd presented the children's version of the cheapy special – and ordered him an over-easy dippy egg, some toast and a couple pieces of bacon. He'd scrunched his face up at it and looked likely unimpressed when it appeared at the table and she had to instruct him how to eat it – reaching across to his place and splitting the yoke for him to spill the yellow contents all over the egg whites.

"There, Benj. Dip your toast in that. It's yummy," she informed him.

He squinted at her and then the plate some more with a bit of skepticism that something biohazard-yellow could be yummy. But then he did pick up a piece of his toast and followed her instructions. He almost looked surprised at how good it was and had fallen about the quietest he'd been all day as he chewed away on his breakfast and glanced around the diner more.

He kept sitting there with the piece of toast held up in the air in his hand as he worked on chewing and swallowing each bite. He looked so little and the toast looked so big in his small hand. It made her smile – especially with how thoughtful he looked in his efforts to eat his breakfast but how unsophisticated he was with his dangling toast. When he got to his two pieces of bacon, he held them in his hands almost like a wand while he gnawed off bites from the top. He looked ridiculous and it was all she could do to keep from laughing at him.

Benji was so weirdly funny to watch. She spent a ridiculous amount of time when she was with him just observing his observations of the world around him. Everything just seemed so new and interesting to Benji. Even the things he cowered from, he would peak at and try to assess. It amazed her in so many subtle little ways.

She really loved having a child in her life for even the most mundane daily things. She felt like it was giving her fresh eyes and a fresh take on life. She was feeling more human: more of a person and of a woman – of someone more than just a quickly drying up, burned out and jaded cop – than she had in a long time. She wouldn't trade it and she didn't want to let go of it. As each day with the little boy passed she became that much more aware of just how hard she was going to fight for this. If this didn't go the way she wanted at the end of the month – she was going to be a bulldog about it. She had no intention of letting go. This wasn't going to be another Calvin. This little boy didn't get to leave.

They'd gone to circle-time at the library from their breakfast. It had been one of the lesser ones out of the events her and Benji had made it over to so far. But it also wasn't the usual woman that was acting as the group leader.

Olivia really hoped that staff member was just trying to get in some days off at the tail end of the holiday season – and not that this was the new leader for the New Year. Or if the younger woman running it that day was the new leader – hopefully it was just first session nerves. Because the story choice had been miserable – and there'd only been one story, not the usual two. She hadn't read with any sort of enthusiasm or voices. And, the craft was boring – even for her four-year-old.

The story had been something about a squirrel making a New Year's resolution. It had been a little convoluted and complex, as the squirrel went and talked to her friends in the woods to decide what her resolution would be. If Olivia had trouble following what the hell was going on – she was pretty sure Benji hadn't taken much of anything from it, beyond it was about a squirrel, or as Benji called them – 'curls.'

The craft had been to make an acorn out of a cup from an egg carton. It involved cutting the carton – something that Benji's little hands weren't quite capable of yet. Olivia had actually had to take over doing that for him and she'd observed several of the parents with younger kids having to do the same. They then had to paint it, which was also a bad idea with little kids because Benji had his acorn basically swimming in paint. The little cup might as well have been a paint cup by the end of it. Olivia had ended up dumping it and blotting out some of paint in an effort to salvage the now soggy craft.

Beyond that they'd cut out a little circle of construction paper as a top lid and stuck a little piece of pipe-cleaner through it. All the kids were supposed to write down a resolution to put on a slip of paper to put inside the acorn. That was when it became clear that Benji hadn't understood the story at all.

There hadn't been the usual little chat after the story. So the leader hadn't gauged at all if the children had understood the moral of the story. Olivia was pretty sure that Benji wasn't the only one who'd missed what a resolution actually was because she'd again heard other parents around them giving their kids a lot of prompting too to come up with something to put on their slip of paper.

Olivia eventually got Benji to commit to picking up his toys. She didn't think he'd do a very good job at keeping up with that resolution. But it was worth a shot.

Their completed craft even looked tiny in Benji's hand – not to mention it was still so sopping wet with all the paint – Olivia wasn't even sure how it would survive the trip home. She'd ended up having to go and ask if they had any baggies in the circle-time room that she could have to put it in – because she couldn't really let the little boy carry it when it was still a mess and she couldn't put it in her purse as it was either.

Other parents had again flocked over after she'd claimed the box of plastic bags out of the storage cupboard to put Benji's acorn in. She clearly wasn't the only one who thought the craft was a minor disaster.

She was pretty sure the thing was going to be squished mess by the time they got back to the apartment and she pulled it form her purse. Not to mention it wasn't something to put on the fridge or some sort of hat or headband or noisemaker for Benji to wear or use for his dress-up and imaginary play. It was some little knick-knack. She supposed he was supposed to sit on a shelf somewhere to remind him of his resolution and to help him keep it for the year of the year. The whole concept was a little beyond a preschooler – and considering they attended the preschooler time-slot of circle-time, it was kind of disappointing. She'd just have to hope their usual lady was back the next weekend and that the lesson plan would be a little more efficient and interesting than what they'd just endured.

Benji didn't seem too put off by it, though. He'd still been happy to get his library time – and to get to pick out his books for the week and his Sunday afternoon movie.

They'd actually picked some books she was looking forward to this week. She'd implemented a rule recently that she got to pick two of the seven books. She needed an occasional break from little boy tastes and thought Benji needed to expand his horizons a bit beyond dragons, robots, dinosaurs and dogs – and his predictable preference to judge a book by its cover. So she was adding some classic children's stories to their repertoire while also doing some judging a book by its cover of her own.

One of her choices that week had been The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. She really had nothing to judge it on but the cover and the first couple pages and pictures she got to read and look at before Benji was pulling her off to look at something else. But she'd decided it looked fantastic – or at least good for a change of pace and maybe a laugh.

She still let him pick his Sunday movie on his own, though. It looked like they'd be watching the Disney animated version of Robin Hood when they good home. As far as she could gauge it had been picked almost exclusively because it had foxes in it. She vaguely remembered seeing it as a child, which said something about how old it was. She'd be interested to see how it stood the test of time, how Benji liked it and how she felt about it as an adult.

In their walk home, they were coming up on the fire station and she could see that the bay doors were open again that day – so she knew they'd likely be stopping for Benji to gaze again. The movie would have to wait a bit longer at least.

And, she was right as soon as they got to the open door, Benji tugged at her hand and guided them in front of it and pointed at the truck.

"It's the real Heatwave, 'Livia!" he declared.

She smiled and gave him a nod. At least he'd stopped singing about counting bananas. "It is."

"He have to put up his ladder to transform," Benji informed her. "There no room for him to put his ladder in the station. So he can't transform. But if he come out he can transform."

"Hmm," she said. "Is that how it works?"

Benji nodded hard and looked at the truck more. "Mommy the doors open so we can go in, right? And we see the hel-mitts and boots and hoses."

"Hmm," she shook her head. "We were invited in last time, Benj. We can't just walk right in. We don't want to be in the way if the alarm goes off."

"Then the station turn into Optimus Prime and he say, 'Let's roll! Go save the day!'"

She snorted and looked at him with a smile tugging at her cheeks yet again. He had that affect on her. Not many people did and at four, he'd already seemed to have master it.

Almost two weeks after Christmas and so far the play set was still a hit. She'd take it. Though, she wasn't sure it was helping Benji with his grasp on reality in terms of if Transformers really existed. But she'd kind of given up on convincing him of the fallacy of that theory for the moment.

He was four. He was allowed to believe in that kind of fantasy for now. It was kind of a nice perspective of the world, actually. That friendly, protective robots were in waiting to rescue you from all things bad. It was likely a comforting concept to Benji after everything he'd been through – even if he had yet to see a real Transformer. Maybe if he kept looking hard enough, though, he'd spot one eventually.

The young probie they'd met previously appeared at the bay doors with a broom in his hand. He gave them a small smile and she allowed him a little nod. They'd encountered him a couple other times since their tour of the bay. But usually he just smiled or waved. It was the first time he'd come over to chat with them again.

"Our usual Sunday guests," he said with a small tease in his voice and looking more at Benji than her.

But Benji – even though the young man wasn't a complete stranger and hadn't ever raised his voice or said or done anything other than be kind – was still huddling at her leg. He tried to reach and find her belt loop. But with his mittened hands and her wearing her long winter jacket, he wasn't successful. The little boy made a small noise and hid behind her a bit more. So she reached around herself to him and gave his head a light caress – trying to calm him and trying to get him to take the opportunity to visit and maybe get a peak at the truck again.

"They like making you work on Sundays," she commented at the young man.

He just shrugged and bounced his broom. "It's not so bad. You guys have some nice holidays?"

She nodded. "We did. They give you any time off?"

He nodded. "Yeah. I somehow wasn't on the roster on Christmas so that was nice. Spent some time with my family. Busy anymore. Don't see them as much as I'd like."

She gave him a small smile and another little nod. She looked at Benji and caressed his head a bit more. "You want to tell Fireman Jordan what you got for Christmas, Benj?" she asked.

Benji huddled behind her a bit more rather than answer but peaked around her at the young man. He just smiled at the kid again.

"Let me guess," he said and glanced at her and she gave him another small nod as they met eyes, confirming the glimmer there of his suspicions. "Santa brought you a fire truck?"

Benji squinted at him but gave the tiniest nod. "And Heatwave and a fire station," he said really quietly. "But it a toy Heatwave. Can real Heatwave come out and put up his ladder so he transform?"

The young probationary firefighter smiled again and looked at her and then glanced at the truck over his shoulder. "Well, Heatwave had a busy night last night. So he's resting. I don't think he can come out right now. Our boss might not like it."

Benji gripped at her coat some more and shuffled a bit. She could feel him deciding if he wanted to say more and if it was safe and if he was comfortable. She kept stroking at his head and reaching down and griping at his shoulder. She'd learned that the little touches and reassurances that she was right there were usually enough to calm him to the point that he'd timidly participate in a conversation with an adult male – at least if he'd met them a couple times and she'd indicated they were safe or a friend.

"When Heatwave come out and play?" Benji asked.

Jordan shrugged. "I don't know, bud. Sometimes he's a little picky. He likes to sleep a lot."

"He just need to put up his ladder. Then I talk to him," Benji said a bit more loudly and a bit more impatiently.

The firefighter smiled. "Well, if you want you can tell me what you want to say to him and I can make sure he gets the message when he wakes up."

Benji made a thoughtful pucker at that and Olivia smiled. She wondered what message the little boy would leave for the fire truck – what he'd been imaging in his mind that he wanted to say to the robot.

"Tell Heatwave I know his secret and I will not tell. So he can transform for me. Or he can tell Bear-cade to transform for me. Becuz I see Bear-cade all time too and he not transform too. I see all the Transformers. But they not transform for me. But I know der secret and I do not tell. So it OK if they want to transform becuz then we can play."

The firefighter nodded. "OK, kiddo. I'll pass that along. But you know – Transformers are robots in disguise. You might know their secret but what about everyone else? People might get scared if they were just transforming all the time."

"BUT YOU KNOW!" Benji protested.

He nodded again. "Yeah, but I work here and take care of Heatwave, right? So it's a big privilege to get to be here with Heatwave and to go out and help people."

"Becuz he a Wes-Cue Bot!" Benji added.

Jordan nodded again with some force. "Exactly. It's pretty great to work in fire and rescue. Maybe some day you will too, right? And then you can help take care of Heatwave and go on rescues too."

Benji squinted and considered that. "When I go to wes-cue too? I can go now if Heatwave want."

The firefighter bounced his broom again. "Well – you've got to be at least 17 to apply for the job. So you've got a while to wait, I think. Unless you're way older than you look."

"I four," Benji informed him.

"Mmm," the firefighter said. "Yeah. I guess you've got to wait a while. But I bet if you keep learning about firefighter things and fire safety and fire trucks between now and then – you'll pass the test with flying colours and be here taking care of Heatwave in no time."

Benji just squinted at him more. Olivia couldn't tell if he was processing this new tidbit of information – or if he was really unimpressed. She thought it might be a bit of both. But she also imagined that this new idea in his head was eventually going to spawn into more questions and demands and books out of the library after he'd thought about it a bit more.

"I've got a nephew about his age," Jordan said, now meeting her eyes. "I think he's about as obsessed with being a police officer as your guy is with being a firefighter. Guess the grass is always greener in families, right?"

She snorted at that. It was a little funny since he'd previously teased her that she was losing Benji to the FDNY. It sounded like he was losing his little buddy to the NYPD – as much as you could with a preschoolers fleeting interest in anything. Though, Benji seemed fairly committed to his general interests. But it'd still be interesting to watch how long any of his interests really did last. If in a year or so, he'd still be all about fire truck and dragons and Transformers - or if he would have moved on to some other collection of obsessions of the moment.

"Mommy a police officer," Benji informed the firefighter.

He made a sort of surprised face for the little boy. Olivia was fairly impressed with the young man. He seemed pretty good with kids and he obviously had himself pulled together enough that he was able to pass the exams, physical testing and hiring process to earn one of the few probationary positions that NYFD offered up. His attitude, head and heart seemed to be in the right place. She got a good sense from him.

It gave her some hope about what a few more years of growing up and what a little bit of guidance could do for Jack too. The teen had the smarts, and when he wanted to, the attitude and the abilities. He just needed a bit more time to get to the maturity level. At least that's what she hoped.

"Is she?" Jordan asked.

Benji nodded. "But she not wear a uni-for-him and her car not a police car like Bear-cade and Copper. It just a car but it have police stuff. But it just look like a car."

"Mmm," Jordan offered like that was a lot to think about. "But it's still pretty cool she's a police officer, right?"

Benji nodded more vehemently at that. "Becuz some time she has hand-ciffs – here," he said and very nearly grabbed her ass to show off the spot she had them hanging.

The young probie noticed Benji's ass-slapping, ass-grabbing movement too and shot her a smile.

"But they real hand-ciffs so you can't play with dem like toy hand-ciffs," Benji clarified.

Jordan nodded. "Good advice," he said and smiled a bit more.

"You can not play with her gun too," Benji added, becoming a bit more chatty now that she'd instilled a sense of safety in him, and with him having realized that he had a pretty much captive audience. "But she put it here," he said and reached to touch at her hip. "But you don't touch. Even playing with toy guns bad. You have to be careful. You do not point dem at people becuz people can get very hurt with guns."

Jordan nodded again. "That's really true."

"She have two badge tho," Benji said with some enthusiasm. "One go here," he provided and grabbed at her front. "But on work days and it not work day. It Mommy Fox and Little Fox day."

Jordan's smile grew more at that. "It is Sunday," he agreed.

"Mommy's other badge go in dat pocket," he said and pointed. "But she have it all da time. 'Livia police badge!" he demanded.

She snorted at him but listened, unzipping her coat a bit and reaching into the inside pocket to pull out her ID. She handed it to Benji's grabby hands and he examined it for a few moments before holding it up at the firefighter.

"POLICE!" he near yelled but then pulled it back to examine again.

Previously, Olivia hadn't realized a little leather wallet with an ID card and a piece of tin could be so interesting. But with Benji it was. Handing it to him to examine if he was fussing on transit or in the doctor's waiting room was almost as effective at calming him down and shutting him up as if she gave him her phone with an app running.

"Does your nephew live in the city?" Olivia asked after thinking about it for a couple beats of watching the little boy's interest in her credentials.

She thought that trying to keep up some sort of relationship with this young firefighter or this station house – might prove to her benefit, if Benji did continue to be interested in these kind of things. Continued peaks in the bay and at the truck – a friendly male face other than Jack's. It might be good for the little boy and his development. This might be good too – if the firefighter answered affirmative – maybe their could be a play-date in the future.

She needed to start working on getting Benji some friends and them out and interacting with children in a setting other than just nursery school. It was one of her New Year's resolutions.

Olivia had hoped Benji would be making some friends and getting some play-date invites from day care. But so far that hadn't seemed to happen.

She wasn't sure if parents taking kids to nursery school in that area of the city were just too busy to want to organize those sorts of things. Or it was possible that they didn't even live in the neighbourhood and just had their little ones in a nursery school and daycare closer to their work. But she also feared that the real reason for the lack of invitations - and the lack of her little boy's caregivers pointing out some of his little playmates - was because Benji hadn't made any friends yet.

She wasn't sure if that would be because of Benji's energy and bossiness scaring kids away? Or if would be the mistrust and volatility in him from his trauma that made him shyer with the other children?

On the playground Benji would generally talk to other kids – or at least boss them around a bit if they were getting in his way or not playing in his imaginary game in the manner he wanted. But at circle-time she'd observed he mostly kept to himself. He'd always sit at the back of the group and nearly cower from the other kids as they took their places around him. And, though he always raced to claim the spot he wanted at the craft tables – he'd glance around like the other children were going to steal all the supplies from him as everyone else got in their places. He rarely said anything to any of the other kids working on their projects around them. Even if Olivia chatted with one of the other parents – which she often tried to do if the child looked to be around Benji's age – he'd still play mute. If she tried to prompt him to participate in the conversation, he'd squint at the other child and then look up at her with his big, expressive eyes before casting his attention back to the project at hand.

The probie nodded. "Yeah. Fam's in the Bronx."

She gave another little nod and reached down to her badge in Benji's hands. She let him keep a hold of it, but slipped her index finger behind her ID to see if she had any of her cards sitting back there at the moment. She did – and she pulled one out and handed it across to the firefighter. He took it and looked at it with a question on his face.

"I can likely return the tour guide favour. If you ever get a weekend off and have him – you should give me a call. I don't think our squad room is quite as exciting as this – but we could still take him up and maybe show him the some of the cars. It's usually pretty quiet around there on a Sunday."

He smiled at that. "Oh, you'd make me a real hero, if you could set that up …" he looked at the card again "… Detective Benson."

She shook her head. "Olivia's still fine," she told him.

He allowed a small nod at that but looked a little embarrassed. She suspected with where he was on the FDNY food chain he might actually be more comfortable catering to her title and seniority, even if it wasn't on the same ladder as his.

But she just tapped at Benji's shoulder and held out her hand for her ID.

"Com'on, Benj," she said. "Let's get going. We have that movie to watch and we need to let Jordan get back to his chores."

The firefighter nodded. "Yeah. Heatwave will be grouchy if I haven't finished sweeping out the bay by the time he wakes up," he allowed.

Benji looked at him and puckered at that again but let Olivia take back her badge and return it to her pocket.

"Be polite, Little Fox," she encouraged him. "Say 'good-bye'."

Benji squinted at the firefighter and returned to his huddle against her again – apparently having spooled down from his previous bout of courage and talkatively.

"Bye," he said quietly, though.

The probie gave him a small smile. "Bye Benji. I'll tell Heatwave you stopped by to visit. Maybe we'll see you next Sunday?"

Olivia gave him a nod. "Oh, we walk by every Sunday, don't we, Benj?"

The little boy nodded. "But some time the doors closed," he said quietly.

"Mmm," Jordan said. "I may have to talk to my supervisor about that and see if we can make sure Heatwave gets his fresh air on Sunday mornings then. Throw open the hatches."

Olivia gave a small snort and then gave Benji's hand a little tug and started to slowly move away.

"See you later," she said to the young man. "Have fun."

He bounced his broom again. "Sure," he agreed. "I'm told I have the second best job in the whole, wide world."

She allowed a small laugh at that. "First in our house," she returned over her shoulder to him, moving Benji along a bit, as the little boy continued to try to eyeball the firefighter and the really real Heatwave.


	120. Chapter 120

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Nick glanced at her as she got into the squad room. She was actually a little ahead of schedule and that didn't seem to happen too often anymore. Somehow Nick managed to pull it off fairly regularly. She wondered if that was because Zara was in kindergarten or because he had his mom around to help out with getting his daughter into school in the morning.

He shot her a small smile. "Hey," he greeted. "How was the move?"

She allowed him a little nod. "Pretty uneventful. Got everything upstairs. Slowly starting to work on unpacking. We'll likely be living out of boxes for a bit."

He snorted at that and looked back down to a file he had opened on his desk.

"Rollins' back today?" she asked, as she got over to her own desk and worked at getting off her coat and settling in.

Nick shrugged. "Last I heard. Haven't seen her yet this morning."

Liv gave another small nod to that. Sounded like the detective was dealing with some family drama of her own back home and had taken a fair chunk of her annual leave to go and deal with it over the two weeks around the holidays.

It didn't sound like the most relaxing way to spend Christmas to Liv. But she was used to dealing with family bullshit. Though, with her mother it had more meant picking her up from the bar and making sure she got home OK or half-ways carrying her from the living room to the bedroom and getting her set up in a position where she hopefully wouldn't end up choking on her vomit in her sleep. Then there was checking all the usual spots for the hidden bottles and dumping them down the drain – only be verbally berated about it in the morning, even if she'd attempted to make breakfast or to have the Aspirin ready.

Olivia wasn't entirely clear with what exactly the drama was that was in Rollins life. There'd been enough little comments from the detective, though, and enough of the chatter on the NYPD gossip mill that she got the general gist of it. Her sister, drugs, bad boyfriends, gambling, strained family relationships. So she knew at least that Amanda wasn't likely going to be walking back into the squad relaxed or in a good mood.

Liv was more interested in worrying about her own life and sorting out her own drama in it at the moment, though. She didn't plan to go nosing into Rollins' business – nor did she think the younger detective would much appreciate if she did. Though, Amanda had continued to make little comments about missing getting to have a drink and play a game or two of pool at the bar. Liv thought maybe she should put some effort into making herself available for that at least occasionally. But, at the same time she, didn't really care, which she felt a little bad admitting to herself even, so she wasn't able to verbalize it to anyone. Still, going out for a drink with any of the squad after work would mean time away from her Little Fox – and that's where she'd much rather be spending her time anymore.

She dug the craft Benji had given her out of her purse and looked at it for a moment before moving to set it on her desk. But she felt Nick watching her and glanced his way again.

"What you got there?" he asked with a smirk on his face.

She allowed a small smile and showed it to him. "Apparently I need a guard dragon," she told him. "Benji made it for me."

Nick gave a snort at that and looked at the makeshift dragon for a moment before shaking his head.

It didn't much look like a dragon. But Olivia didn't much care. Her Little Fox had made it especially for her and he'd been so proud of himself. He'd insisted that she needed to take it to work to protect her. So she couldn't deny him that.

The craft at the library had been so bad on Sunday that she'd ended up setting him up at the dining table with his craft and art bin in the afternoon. She'd rather quickly realized that as long as there were toilet paper rolls available, some construction paper, glue, tape and markers – the craft possibilities were really endless. At least in the imagination of a four-year-old. If you added in some paper plates or did some Googling all of a sudden the creations and creativity became finite. And, really, watching Benji interact with it all and how his mind worked was fun.

She hadn't even suggested that he make a dragon. He'd decided that all on his own. He'd sat there scribbling green marker all over the toilet paper roll and had taped a strip of paper across the back that almost resembled wings and another that almost resembled a tail. There were some more scribbles on the thing that almost looked like a face and teeth – and allegedly fire. When you knew what it was you could almost make out it was supposed to be a dragon. Sort of.

"You're getting quite the collection there," Nick commented, as she set the craft on her desk.

She just shrugged at that and glanced towards Cragen's office door gauging if he'd arrived for the day yet. It definitely looked like he had.

"You should try it," she said off-handedly.

For years she really hadn't had much of anything on her desk. A picture of her and her mother. That was about the most that she'd ever had there. Meanwhile, she'd spent 13 years sitting across from Elliot with his multiple picture frames of his growing kids and his wife. Then there was John with his endless knick-knacks and books on Kennedy and conspiracy and paranoia – and little toys for their young victims to feel some comfort while dealing with Munch, who could be a little intimidating at first glance to a child. Fin had his own collection of family photos and meaningful mementos too.

Olivia had told herself that she didn't want too much of her life on display in the squad room. But the truth was that she didn't really have much of a life to put on display. She did now, though.

She'd hesitated about it at first but after she'd gotten over that mental hump and took the photo of Benji out of her purse and placed the frame on her desk – she'd quickly become more comfortable with it, even just in the past two weeks. Especially with that one case she was having to work on at the moment. She liked being able to take a few minutes away from it and to look at the little boy's smiling face. He was something to live for, to fight for, to work for. A small reminder about what she was doing there and why she was doing it – and what she had to go home to at the end of it.

After the first week of looking at the picture of her Little Fox, she'd switched it out to one she'd taken of Jack and the little boy. She wanted the teen to be there too – to have that reminder that she was in this for both of them – and that he was something to work for too. And, she liked the picture of the two of them. Jack smiling and happy really was a Kodak moment. She had almost had to strategically capture it. But there her boys were – smiling and relaxed and looking at her on her desk. It helped. It kept things in perspective. She'd never had that before.

Nick shook his head. "I don't need my daughter on display for the perv parade," he said a little too curtly.

She just shrugged again. "In almost 15 years here, I can count the number of perps I've actually had at my desk on one hand. It's the vics that we have at our desk – and vics want us to be human," she said flatly.

_I kind of want to be – and like being – human too_, she thought but bit her tongue from adding. That might be letting it all hang out there a little too much. Having the photo of the boys and Benji's guard dragon on her desk was letting it hang out there enough for the moment.

Though, she was about to go and shift that reality slightly – at least in Cragen's eyes. She grabbed the sheet from the file folder she'd had in her purse and walked to his door. She tapped on the frame and when he looked up from what he was doing, she stepped inside without waiting for an invitation.

"Can I close the door?" she asked.

He gave a silent nod but gave her a questioning look. She pulled the door shut and then proceeded to his desk and dropped the sheet in front of him. He picked it up and looked at it.

She nodded at it. "You said you'd spot me the $90 registration fee – so I'm holding you to that," she said.

She didn't actually care about the money. She was more just letting him know – since he'd made clear that they were going to be discussing her role in the unit and what the future organization of SVU was going to look like in the New Year. She'd decided it was better to be the one who initialized the conversation again rather than him having to hound her. Though, she wasn't ready to broach the Cassidy topic yet. She wasn't even sure what to say about that to the Captain yet. She almost hoped he just left her out of the decision process and he decided on his own.

Cragen gave a small snort and looked up at her, letting the sheet drop back to the flat surface and gesturing at one of the chairs across from his desk.

"Are you actually going to go in and write the exam?" he asked.

She took a seat and rubbed at her eyebrow but gave a small nod. "I think so. Right now – I'm registering for it. At least."

The truth was, though, that she knew she'd go and sit in on the exam in the couple months. She'd been thinking about it a lot. Too much. It was almost keeping her awake at night. And, on those nights when Benji fell asleep on top of her it became that much more real. She needed to be with him. She didn't just need it – it was what she wanted.

And with the case lately and how heavily it was weighing on her – and with Jack's reaction about just her bruise on Friday night …

She needed to get off the front-line. She needed a more predictable schedule. She needed to be as safe as possible. She needed to be available to her boys. She needed the time and the stability. She needed to be a mom. She didn't think she was going to be able to do that to the best of her ability if she was a single mother and an SVU detective. It would chip away at her psyche a little too much – and that would make her less available to the boys in its own way too.

She still didn't know if she could realistically stay with the NYPD and raise Benji as a single parent. She wasn't even sure if that's how she wanted to raise him yet. But she did know that she needed to start making some changes. Registering for the exam was a step in that direction. Getting the promotion and working towards a rank that would give her more flexibility and eventually a supervisory role or a desk job – it made sense. It was a start – at least until she decided what to do about the rest of it.

As a mother – it made sense. She had to think about more than herself not. It wasn't just about her or her career anymore. It was about things far more important and people that she couldn't let down – in a much different way than she didn't like letting down her vics. She had a little person now who needed her in a very real way and she couldn't fail him. It just wasn't an option.

"Well, it's actually going to be $110, I'm spotting you," Cragen said and riffled through his desk, before pushing a piece of paper across to her and dropping a pen on top of it.

She leaned forward and looked at it. It was the same exam registration and promotion paperwork as she'd handed him – but this time for the lieutenant's exam rather than the sergeant's. He had it all filled out already for her – clearly expecting them to be having this conversation at some point in the next couple weeks as the registration period at open. The form was just waiting for her signature. She looked up at him questioningly.

"I got you on the preferred candidate list for L-T," he told her flatly. "Almost 18 years with the NYPD – 15 years here, decorated officer, detective first grade. You've earned it, Olivia."

She rubbed at her eyebrow again and sat back in her chair and looked at him for several beats. "What does this mean? If I pass the exam?"

"You'll pass the exam," he said almost sternly.

She just shrugged, though. She'd heard lots of things about the lieutenant's exam – mainly that it was set up for people to fail. That they didn't like giving out that promotion easily – the bigger pay cheque. That much closer to captain and an even bigger pay cheque. More people wanting supervisory roles that there were only so many of. It wasn't a cake walk. Though, she knew none of the promotional exams were designed to be overly easy. That's why there were courses you could take and textbooks to study and practice tests to try your hand at. But all those things cost money and took time. She wasn't sure how much she really had of either at the moment. Even studying the patrol guide and various NYPD regulations and laws was going to take time in her preparation for the test.

She thought she had a better chance of passing the sergeant's exam – of taking that incremental increase in pay and progression of responsibility and benefit of some starts of flexibility. Though, jumping to lieutenant without the two year waiting period to even try – if the NYPD even conducted that exam in two years, it wasn't like they did them all annually – for the promotion, could be nice. It'd be that much more pay and that much more flexibility. That much closer to getting on a desk.

"What does it mean?" she asked again.

Cragen gave a small shrug. "You want time with that little boy?"

She nodded. Right now – that was nearly all she could think about. She wanted to be there for Benji – and for Jack. She wanted to spend time with them. She wanted to be available to them. She wanted to take care of them. She wanted to be safe for them.

She wanted the hugs and tears and giggles and smiles. The tantrums and the guard dragons. The stubbed toes and the Transformer talks. The teenaged grouchies and the little boy dribbles all over her toilet seat. The breakfasts out and the demands for pasta and garlic bread, pancakes and bananas, nachos and salsa. She wanted to learn more about Halo and Xbox and skateboarding. She wanted to finish reading all Robert Munsch's stories and to start reading the Narnia collection. She wanted to go to kids' movies and to the zoo. She wanted to have another Christmas with the boys and birthdays and Easter and all the silly Hallmark holidays in between. She wanted the time.

"It means we're skipping you over lieutenant. It means you'll have more time with that little boy," Cragen said. "Sign the form."


	121. Chapter 121

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"OK, children," Ms. Barbarosa said. "I'm going to hand out your report cards now. I'm calling the names of our daycare students first. After you get yours – you are to go and stand quietly in line. Ms. LaPorte will take you back to the daycare room and when you get there you are going to put it right into your cubby to take home tonight."

Benji got up on his knees and bounced in anticipation of his name being called – ready to bound up and get the piece of paper and then bound over to the door and claim his place in line. But then Ms. Barbarosa spotted his restless movement.

"Benjamin – bum on the floor," she said to him sternly. It was a mantra that he got near daily – usually multiple times daily.

Benji much preferred to be up on his knees. The better for seeing and bouncing and calling out his answers. The better for quickly getting up and running to his seat at his group's table or to his favourite play station or to get the best place in line. But his teachers were always telling him to sit back down.

Knees weren't allowed at school. You had to sit on your butt. He did not like it. He squinted at the teacher but slowly lowered himself back to his butt and re-crossing his legs – realizing that no one's name was going to get called if he didn't. Ms. Barbarosa was always stopping the class until he sat. He did not like it and other kids got mad at him too and told him to sit. He did not like that either.

So even in his sitting, Benji restlessly wringed at his hands, waiting for his name so he could snatch that piece of paper and make his bolt for the door. He liked to lead the line but Ms. Barbarosa liked telling them one-by-one when they could stand in line. He liked better when he could race and get the first spot. Then he could lead the whole class down the hall. Some times the leader got to stop at the water fountain too and then he could be the first to get to take a drink. But you were only allowed to take a drink for one, two, three. Benji wanted to take a drink for one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten slurps.

"Isaiah," the teacher called out after he'd settled again. He huffed as the little boy trotted up got his piece of paper first and then got to go and get the first place in line. It was not fair – Isaiah always to go to go first when Ms. Barbarosa made the line.

"Hanna," the teacher held out the report card for next – and again the little girl got to go and take the second-best place in line.

Benji bounced a bit more restlessly on his butt he wanted third place. He never got to be third place. He wanted third place! He squinted and willed it and hoped.

"Raj," the teacher called.

Benji huffed louder and crossed his armed tightly. He never got to be third place either.

Then it was Keiko and Natalia and Yannick and Vanessa before finally the teacher called out, "Benjamin."

He near rocketed off his butt and bolted towards her, snagging at the sheet of paper in her hands.

"Benjamin," she said at him sternly, keeping a hold on the sheet that quickly becoming crumbled in his grip. "We don't grab."

"I take to my cubby," he very nearly growled at her.

"We do not grab in this classroom," she said again. "Go sit back down and I'll call you to try this again."

He squinted at her and really did let out his Little Fox grrrr but then went back to his spot and fell to his knees.

"We sit on our bums in this classroom," the teacher reminded him, still waiting.

Benji huffed some more but again shifted to his butt and re-crossed his legs. He squinted at the teacher defiantly from the spot and she let him sit there for several beats – his arms crossed and his lower lip sticking out in a pout - before again calling out, "Benjamin."

He got back up and trotted back up to her but this time just stuck out his hand and puckered at her in disgust.

"Here's your report card, Benjamin," she said. "Please go stand quietly in line."

He took it and then went flying over to the door, the teacher sighing behind him.

"We don't run in this classroom either Benjamin," she said. But he was already in the line and stood examining the sheet.

The words on the page meant nothing to Benji but he only had to scan it briefly to realize there were lots of numbers and there were lots of No. 1 on it.

"One, two, three, four …" Benji whispered to himself counting down his sheet with a jabbing finger. He turned around excitedly to Gavin as he arrived in line. "I de best. I get lots of ones becuz I number one."

Gavin looked at him. "No you aren't!" the other boy declared. "One is bad. It mean you are DUMB. Four the best because you are four. One mean you stupid like a baby."

Benji glared at him. "I NOT A BABY!" he yelled.

"Hey!" the teacher called from back at the group. "We stand in line quietly. Benjamin – eyes front."

Benji squinted over at her and then glared more at Gavin. "I not a baby," he said forcibly but more quietly before turning back around. He looked at his paper again.

"You are stupid," Gavin added to the back of his head. "You don't even know how to sit right. You a one. Not a four. Everyone else a four."

"Nessa – you one or four?" Benji asked quietly examining his paper some more and a pout starting to hang on his face.

"Be quiet Ben-jim-in," she glanced over her shoulder and mumbled at him. "You always getting evey-one in tub-bull."

"But I number one," Benji tried in a peace offering.

"Number one dumb-dumb," Gavin said again.

Benji's lip quivered and he scrunched up the piece of paper. "I NOT DUMB!" he yelled and then the tears started to trail down his face.

"What is going on over there?" the teacher said and came over with the last two of her morning-session pre-kindergarteners. She looked at Benji and sighed, taking his report card out of his hand and starting to smooth it back out. "Scrunching up your report card before your mommy can see it is very rude. And why are we crying? Do we need a tissue?"

"I NOT DUMB! AND I NOT A BABY!" he wailed and dropped to his knees in the line to cry. "I want Mommy Fox!"


	122. Chapter 122

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"MOOOOOOOOOOMMMMIIIEEE FOX!" Benji hollered and came charging at her, as soon as she got into the daycare after-hours care room.

Benji didn't usually come at her with such ferocity when she picked him up at daycare. Not anymore. Usually he was pretty wrapped up in whatever activity he was working on – and it took a bit of coaxing to get him to stop what he was doing and to come over and get his gear on to head home.

"Hey, Benj," she greeted as he whacked against her and wrapped his arms around her.

"Mommy you take so long," he whined.

She gave him a bit of a funny look as she gazed down at him and stroked his hair. It was just after 5:30. She'd actually left the squad room just after the end of the business day. That really was unheard of for her most days. Most days Benji was about the last kid in the daycare centre as she squeaked in just before the 7 p.m. pick-up cut-off.

"It's not that late, sweetheart," she said and glanced around a bit.

He was pretty latched to her and she was gauging how close they were to his hook and cubby to actually start getting him dressed. Since she was there for what she considered early – she'd like to get out of there as quickly as possible. It'd be nice to have a dinner that wasn't rushed and some real time to actually work on getting Benji down and into his new bed and bedroom that night. And, if she could actually accomplish that – she might even have a few hours where she wasn't completely exhausted to work on getting some of the boxes unpacked so they weren't living in complete chaos for weeks on end.

"Forever," he mumbled against her.

"Mmm," was all she said to that and started to nudge him in the direction of his hook. But he was gripped to her leg so tightly, it was almost like she was shuffling with him – or maybe more with a giant growth attached to her.

"Mooommmmmmmiiieee," he whined again.

She just looked down at him. "Com'on Benj," she said. "I'm here. Let's get your coat and boots on and go home."

"Teacher need to talk to you," he said and gripped at her more.

She glanced up at that and looked around the room. She'd signed in when she'd entered and come upstairs. But it was a busy time with the end of the workday. There were several other parents in the room and the couple caretakers were busy chatting with them. She wasn't even sure if they'd noticed her come in – likely. Or at least she hoped so. She was paying them the big bucks to ensure they noticed things like who was coming and going around her child.

"What's the teacher need to talk to me about?" she sighed.

She really didn't feel like waiting around for the usual rundown of Benji put a block in his mouth or tried to eat the Play-Doh. Or he prefers to sit on his knees rather than his butt. Or that he didn't eat his lunch fast enough. Or that he didn't lay down for nap long enough. Or that he needed help with his zipper if they took them outside to playground that day. Or … who knows what else. The usual.

Though, she supposed it might be something more serious if Benji was clinging to her like this. Did he get in another tiff with a kid? More pushing and shoving? Yelling or hitting?

She needed to nip that in the butt quick. She thought she felt almost as embarrassed and as chastised as Benji when she had to stay after class to listen to his teachers tell her any of that about her little boy.

She was going to be a little upset if Benji had already pushed another kid when she just had a long talk about it with him last week. Sure, he was a little boy and had a short memory and needed some repeated lessons before behaviour modification really sunk in. But she thought she'd kind of got to him – at least for a few days. She didn't think the problem could be all Benji if he'd pushed another little boy – or the same little boy – again.

"Teacher say I 'tupid," Benji informed her.

"You are not stupid," she said immediately and forcibly. She dropped into a crouch and turned him to her, tipping his chin up so his downcast eyes would meet hers. "Listen to me, Little Fox," she stressed again. "You are not stupid. You're very smart and very creative and very imaginative – and you're my loving, beautiful, amazing little boy."

"'Dey all say I dumb," he told her and collapsed against her in a clinging hug. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight – her hand cupping the back of his head and stroking at his hair. She put her cheek against his head and rubbed it there. She could feel the hurt feelings, the embarrassment, the anxiety radiating off him as he pressed his little boy against hers. Even through her layers of winter clothes, she could feel it. The sadness in him. The fear that it was really true.

"Who are they?" she asked and started glancing around the room more. Now she was angry. No one should be calling anyone names in the classroom or in the daycare rooms. No one should be allowed to hurt her little boy like that. He'd already experienced too much hurt in his young life. Four was too little for bullying to start – and her child wasn't going to be bullied. She just wouldn't allow it.

"Teacher and evey-one," Benji said. "Gav-vin and Nessa and Miss Baba-roo-za."

One of the caretakers walked over at that point and gave her a thin smile. She rubbed Benji on the back and rose – giving the daycare supervisor a firm look.

"Benjamin's had a bit of a rough day," the woman informed Olivia.

She looked down at her little boy. She thought that was likely an understatement. She quickly saw her hopes of having a nice, quiet dinner with the little boy, working to settle him into his new bedtime routine and doing her own unwinding and unpacking fading. He was too worked up. She was going to be lucky if she got through the evening without him having a meltdown. And, at the moment, that seemed to be the fault of the daycare.

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow and shook her head. "He says some of the other children have been calling him names today," she replied. "That the teacher told him he's stupid?"

The daycare provider shook her head. "You know that none of our staff would say that to any of our students," she provided.

Olivia just gave her a small glare at that. She just wanted someone to tell her what was going on from a grown-up perspective – not a four-year-old's. She spent enough time at work having to sort out various people's version of events. She really didn't want to have to play that game every night when she picked up Benji. But that seemed to be what daycare was. The staff gave her their version of the day. Benji gave her his. And, then she had to try to sort out the best way to deal with that at home – when most of the factors were no longer in her control. It aggravated her. It made her feel helpless and like a bad parent – or at least like she didn't know what she was doing. Fixing things for Benji – or for the daycare to just keep the peace – was harder than she would've imagined. And it was frustrating. She wanted it to be easier for Little Fox.

"Well, he's pretty upset about something," she spat back.

The woman nodded and handed out a crumbled out sheet of paper to her.

"Our nursery school students received their report cards today," she said. "We had to take Benjamin's away from him. He didn't want you to see it."

Olivia glanced back down at the little boy.

"You don't want me to see your report card, sweetheart?" she asked, as she worked to smooth out the paper a bit more and take a look at it.

"It say I 'tupid," he told her quietly. "I a one. Number one dumb-dumb."

She dropped back into her crouch at that. "Benji, don't say things like that about yourself. You are not a dumb-dumb."

She cast a dirty look at the early childhood educator standing there in front of her now. If she didn't think it was ridiculous enough that children this little were being graded on anything – this only proved her point exactly. A four-year-old should not be made to feel stupid. They're little. They're learning. Benji hadn't even been there very long. And, a situation like this, just meant she was going to lose some of the progress she'd made with him and that they were both likely going to have a long and weepy night.

"Some of the other children pointed out to Benjamin that level one is the lowest mark they can achieve," the woman told her quietly.

She gaped at her for a moment. "You let the children look at their report cards and each other's report cards?" she spat out a little angrily.

"They are their grades," the woman said flatly. "He has a right to see them."

"HE'S FOUR," Olivia said angrily. "And, his marks are his own business – my business - not anyone else's."

"Benjamin was bragging about his grades. It apparently attracted the attention of some of the other children," the daycare worker added.

Olivia shook her head at her and rose, scanning down the page quickly. She wasn't really reading it yet – just looking at the numbers, much like Benji had – since she'd now been told one was the worst possible grade. Benji had a string of ones but his marks were predominantly a level two. She needed to take the time to look at it more – but her initial reaction was that she was just unimpressed with the entire situation.

"I want to talk to his teacher," Olivia said and looked at the woman hard.

She nodded. "Ms. Babarosa and Ms. LaPorte have left for the day. But you'll see on the last page, that there's a slip to return to schedule your parent-teacher conference. I'm sure his teacher will be happy to speak to you about his progress then."

Olivia stood and glared at her more. "His progress? He's four. He's been here all of … three months. Not even. This is just … ridiculous," she spat out and shook the report card a bit. "I'm paying you people what? $12,000 a year to grade a four-year-old on how he colours?"

"Ms. Benson, I can understand you're upset …"

"I am upset," Olivia cut her off. "Do you people even understand our situation? What this child has been through? What trauma I'm trying to get him through? Do you have any idea what something like this – does to any of the PROGRESS we're making at home? You letting him think he's stupid? To let other kids tell him he's dumb?

"Twelve-thousand dollars. I might as well be sending him to college. Maybe they'd be more understanding to his situation and accommodating to his needs. My other son's university is – and they have to deal a lot more garbage from their kids than wiping their noses and doing up zippers – and teaching them their ABCs."

"Our intention certainly isn't to make Benjamin …"

Olivia cut her off again. "Benji! His name is Benji! I don't know how many times I have to tell you people that either. Maybe you calling him Benjamin all the time is part of the problem. We only use Benjamin in discipline situations at home."

She turned away and bent down and scooped up her little boy, who was cowering against her. She rubbed his back. "Com'on my fantastic Little Fox," she said softly and much more calmly. "Let's go home."

She stepped over to his hook – grabbing his coat and sling-pack, pulling his boots and a couple things from his cubby. She'd dress him in the hallway or the staircase. She couldn't stand to be that room anymore for the moment – and if she hadn't already paid tuition for the semester, she wasn't sure she could stand bringing him back to that daycare and nursery school centre either.


	123. Chapter 123

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She wasn't entirely sure how long she'd been sitting on the couch – just staring off into space.

She originally had meant to go and lay down and to try to sleep, since she knew she wouldn't likely get a full night's sleep that night. But instead she'd sat down on the couch and had started thinking and had become lost in it.

If anything her anger about the nursery school's report card and the grading system for the universal pre-kindergarten program had only increased. She'd only become more agitated by it as she had to try to calm her little boy who'd been a mess of tears and snot for the majority of the night.

A four-year-old shouldn't have to get that upset – be that worried – about marks. He was a little boy. He was barely potty-trained. He was still needing help getting dressed in the morning. He still needed help even dealing with his snacks and meals. He wasn't much more than a baby – and now he thought he was stupid and the door had been opened for all the kids to tell him as much too. She wasn't entirely sure how to close that door – or if she even could. It scared her and it hurt her. It made her so sad for Benji and so angry at the day care centre. The whole situation could've been handled better.

She'd spent so long just looking at the report card. Some of the comments just hung with her.

"Benjamin seems uncomfortable in unfamiliar situations and has struggled to make friends in the classroom. Your son often chooses to spend his free-time alone and is still developing the capacity to handle conflicts with his peers in an appropriate manner," one comment had read.

"Benjamin is an enthusiastic learner who arrives at school well-rested and ready for each day's activities. He transitions well between classroom activities and demonstrates good focus on the tasks at hand. But your son often struggles to accept and follow classroom rules despite reminders and isn't always courteous to his teachers or peers," added another – one of the more positive of the bunch.

"Benjamin does not consistently treat school property and the belongings of others with care and respect and is often very possessive of the activities and toys he is interacting with. Your son prefers to work independently and does not co-operatively participate in community projects in the classroom," was in another commentary block.

"Benjamin is very expressive with his ideas while interacting with his teachers one-on-one but is generally inactive in group discussions. He has a vibrant imagination and a developing vocabulary. He uses those skills to make persuasive arguments, though they are not always logical. He has difficult listening to others comments and ideas without interrupting and is often not accepting of positions that differ from his own," said another.

"Benjamin has an impressive understanding and depth of knowledge about topics that are of interest to him. He often wants to share that knowledge with others – but not always in a productive or constructive manner. He demonstrates a keen interest in books and reading and shows a concrete comprehension of stories that are read to him. He has also proven to be a budding and enthusiastic artist in the class. He is developing his abilities in music and dance," his teacher had also written in a comment box.

"Benjamin has difficulty memorizing letter combinations and needs to gain confidence in his ability to recognize his upper- and lower-case alphabet and simple three-letter words. Your son's handwriting is very sloppy and he would benefit from slowing down and pressing more gently with his pencil and crayons while holding his writing tools properly. Benjamin appears to have some struggles with his fine motor skills though he is slowly showing improvement in those areas," said another.

"Benjamin does not have a solid understanding of the math concepts taught so far this year. Effort needs to be put into ensuring he is able to identify his numbers, write out numerals, make groupings, count to 30 and recognize his shapes and colours. To improve, he must spend time practicing these concepts at home. Working on his memorization of basic concepts should lead to an improved understanding and accuracy in his math assignments," it was added in another section.

"Benjamin is an independent and self-motivated child who consistently completes tasks in the time allotted. However, his assignments could benefit from more careful work – which would involve him slowing down and making full use of the time provided for each lesson. Though your son seems to readily grasp new concepts he rarely participates in classroom discussions. Benjamin needs to work on sitting still during class lessons and would benefit from learning to ask for clarification and support when needed – especially in relation to assignment directions. Taking a more active role in classroom discussions and more readily volunteering to participate in classroom activities will increase his position as a valued member of the class. Currently, he needs to learn to treat others with more respect - and to keep his hands to himself. He would benefit from socializing more with students throughout the day," the final box had read.

The comments weren't overtly bad. Some of them actually sounded like Benji was doing OK. But you didn't have to read between the lines very much to know that they were really saying that Benji was struggling and not meeting expectations. That he was behind and that he needed improvement in a lot of areas. It also seemed to make it that much clearer to her just how few friends – the zero friends – that he'd managed to make so far. That she clearly wasn't doing enough to help him in that area. That she little boy apparently didn't have the social skills or the coping mechanisms to know how to relate or interact with other children his age. It made her so sad.

She really only had to look at his marks beside the comments divided into social and emotional skills, self-help skills, fine-motor skills, gross-motor skills, listening skills, mathematics skills and literacy skills. It was clear what areas his teachers thought he was struggling in. He'd near flunked out of math and despite them acknowledging his enjoyment of books, his marks weren't stellar in literacy either. Listening skills and social and emotional skills were a mess of ones and twos as well. The only area that Benji had seemed to excel in was gross-motor skills – and that was grading him on his ability to gallop, hop and skip. Not exactly rocket science for a four-year-old.

Still, she didn't think some of things they were grading him on were fair. His control of scissors and pencils while he had a cast on for his entire time there. She didn't know that he should be counting to 30 yet. If she had, she would've worked on that with him more. And, some of the things they were asking of him and grading him on just didn't even make sense to her. The babble about the grouping and identification through attributes and positional words might as well have been written in another language and some of the shapes they thought he should be able to identify at four, she wasn't sure she'd be able to identify without some thought at 44.

There were areas that she didn't agree with the marks. She knew Benji knew his colours – but the record indicated he had difficult identifying them. She hadn't seen that at home. It suggested that he didn't know his full alphabet – but she found that hard to believe too. And, he'd only gotten ones in his ability to identify himself, write out his name and recite back his address and phone number. She thought he should know at least some of that – she knew he did. At least he knew more than at a one level, she thought. It just didn't make sense to her.

Then there was the whole aspect of Benji having not even been there for the whole term – so how could the grade him within reason at all? He hadn't had the same chance and amount of time to develop as the rest of the kids. And then there was his whole situation. Of course he was behind. He was an emotionally scarred and stunted little boy. He'd had very little support in his development since Jay had died – that was clear. Not to mention if his family life hadn't left him traumatized – the death of his mother and the turmoil that ensued definitely had. He was a scared and insecure little boy who was still settling into his new reality and still learning to trust and relate to the people around him. It was a slow process – but Olivia had thought they were making progress. The report made her question that.

It really had her going between two extremes. From being so upset at the nursery school and the teachers and the administrators to wondering how worried she should be. Was Benji further behind than she'd even thought? Were these things that he needed to know to be able to function at an appropriate level in kindergarten next fall? How much more time and effort should she really be putting in at home? She thought she was putting in a reasonable amount to ensure he was well-rounded while focusing on his emotional well-being and just trying to let him be a little boy. But maybe she really wasn't doing enough. Was she even capable of doing more? Their days seemed so full as it was.

"Mommy Fox," she heard and it snapped her out of her circular pattern of thought that just seemed to keep going and spinning.

She looked over to the opposite end of the couch to find Benji standing there. She'd been so wrapped up in her reflection that she hadn't even heard him get out of his bed or creep into the living room. His face still looked so red and puffy from hours of crying earlier in the evening.

When he'd finally cried himself to sleep – she'd held him for a while before carrying him into his room. She hadn't bothered to undress him and change him into his pjs for fear that it would wake him and it would be another fit of emotion before she was able to calm him again. So she'd just tucked him into his bed in his clothes.

Now he looked so tussled and had his stuffed Mommy Fox held under his arm – looking about half the size of him at the moment. Mommy Fox became the favoured stuffie when he was looking for comfort and she'd replace Flame as his constant companion. He clearly still needed comfort that night. She wasn't surprised to see the fox clung against him.

"Are you mad at me?" Benji asked her at such a quiet whisper that it took a few beats for it to sink in what he'd asked.

She shook her head hard and held out her arms, inviting him back to her embrace. "Com'er, Little Fox," she encouraged him.

He considered her a moment – like she really might be mad and it might be a trick – but then he cautiously made his way to her and she pulled him up into her lap and wrapped her arms tight around him, placing a kiss against his temple and nuzzling his soft hair for a moment.

"I am definitely not made at you," she assured him. "Why would I be mad at you?"

Benji buried his face nearly between her breasts and sat still and quiet. She could feel his hot breath against her chest and it growing hotter with each little pant. She could feel the change in his breathing too. The tears were coming again.

"'Cuz I 'tupid," he said.

She shook her head again and rubbed at his back. "Sweetheart, you are not stupid."

"I a one," he said.

She rubbed at his back more and put a kiss on the top of his head. "Nope. You aren't a one. You had a few ones on your report card – but you had lots of twos and threes and you even had some fours, Benj. You did pretty amazing. I'm so proud of you."

"They say I a dum-dum," he told her.

She pulled him away from her a bit and looked at his splotchy face and watery eyes, thumbing away some of the tears. "Sometimes kids say dumb-dumb things," she said. "But you, Little Fox, are not a dumb-dumb. Your teacher says you're so creative and imaginative and such a good worker. That you like stories and you're one of the best artists in the whole class. She didn't say anything about you being stupid or dumb. Those kids were just being mean. They don't know what they're talking about."

Benji sniffed at that and gazed at her with those big blue eyes of his but without comment.

She tousled at his messy hair a bit more. "You're my Fantastic Little Fox. I love you so much."

Some more tears trickled out of his eyes at that and caused her to sigh a bit more. She wished fixing his problems was a little easier – not for her sake but for his. She hated seeing him hurting. But she didn't think this was something that was going to have an easy solution It was going to require work on both their parts – to improve his grades, to ready him for kindergarten, to socialize him more, to get him some friends.

Her parent-teacher conference wasn't going to present all the solutions – no matter how much she went in there with guns blazing – and that's what she wanted to do at the moment. She wanted to tear his teacher and the staff a new one. Part of her wanted to jump on the internet and start researching other options for nursery school and pre-kindergarten and daycare – to pull him out of there and get him into a school that was more understanding of his issues and his needs.

Right now it was taking all she could muster to not write out a giant flaming essay in the parent comments section to send back with her requested meeting time. She knew if she didn't choose her words carefully, she would regret it later. But she had so much she wanted to say to them and so many answers she wanted for what some of these marks even meant and how they came to them. How there was such a discrepancy between what she was seeing at home and what they were apparently seeing in the classroom? How a four-year-old could really be graded on any of this stuff? It didn't seem entirely fair or accurate.

She sighed and looked at Benji. She could tell he was trying to muster all his strength to keep from tumbling into another sobbing fit. He was a strong little boy. He had his moments of fear but he tried so hard to be brave. He was likely braver than a lot of adults. He'd been through a lot already in his short life.

"You know, Benj," she said, trying to sooth him more. "We didn't get to do bathtime or storytime or bedtime – because you fell asleep in Mommy's lap."

He sniffed at her again, as she swiped at more of his trickling tears and felt his little tremble in his shaky lungs.

"Story?" he asked softly.

She nodded. "I think we should do story. But I think first – we're going to go to Mommy Fox's bathroom and I'm going to run you a special bath that I think is going to help make you feel a bit better. Would you like that?" she asked, her mind already weighing if the calming lavender body wash she had in there would be too strong for his sensitive fair skin. She hoped not. She hoped that it would calm her little boy and help him settle into a real sleep rather than the tear-induced restless coma.

Benji nodded and sniffled at her some more. She gave him a small smile and then drew him against her, supporting his weight, as she pushed herself up and off the couch.

"OK," she said and bounced him a bit on her hip, giving him another little smile. But he just cuddled against her more. She sighed at that – the more he pressed his body against hers, the more she could feel his sadness. She rubbed his back and started to walk over to the en suite in her bedroom. She'd already accepted her hopes of her bedroom and bathroom being her own private space weren't realistic. At least not right now. Maybe after Benji settled into their new home more – or maybe in a few years when he was a little more grown-up. But right now – he needed his mommy and she reminded herself again how happy she was that that was her and that soon it would hopefully officially be her.

She kept him on her hip, as she started to draw the bath – testing the water with her hand and making sure the temperature was just right for her little boy. She cluttered around the mess of toiletries that she was still working at getting unpacked – some of which she was now throwing away. She might as well have an entire pharmacy and cosmetic department in her bathroom and she rarely used any of it. Still, at the moment, she was glad she had noticed the lavender wash and bath oil.

She bounced Benji a bit as she read the back – deciding whether they were appropriate for him and whether she should use one of both. After a short consideration – she decided to try a double-whammy and squirted a bit of the oil into the filling tub and set the body wash on the side ready to wipe him down.

Then she flipped down the toilet lid and lowered herself onto it, adjusting Benji's feet to the floor and gave him another little smile – putting a kiss on his forehead and smoothing his hair away from his face. She rubbed up and down both of his little arms.

"We just have to wait for the tub to fill. You want to get in now and play?" None of his bath toys had migrated to her bathroom yet – but she could revise that quickly. He shook his head, though.

She allowed a small nod and rubbed at his little arms again. She could feel the tension there and see in his face that he was nearing another meltdown.

"It's nice and warm," she encouraged. "And, I just put in a magic potion that's going to help you feel better."

"Mag-ick poo-shin?" he asked with a bit more interest.

She nodded.

"Like dragons and wiz-herds and witches?"

She nodded again. "Mixed up special for nights like this when you feel a little sad."

"Does it have newt toes and purple tomatoes in it?" he asked, reciting back a part of a story they had read not long ago.

She smiled at him and shook her head at that. "No, sweetheart. No newt toes or purple tomatoes. Just magic flowers. You want to smell it?"

She reached over to where she'd left the wash sitting on the edge of the tub and popped the lid for him. Benji took it and shoved it at his nose – his ritual with any and all bottles of shampoos. He seemed to consider the smell.

"It smell good, Mommy," he said and held it out to her. She leaned forward and took her own sniff.

"It does, doesn't it?" she agreed and he nodded again and pulled it back to smell some more. "So what do you say, Benj? We going to get you undressed and in the tub to see if the potion works?"

He looked at her and considered it for a moment. His eyes were still glassy but the endless trickle of tears had slowed for the moment – just seeping out rather than the steady river. He gave her a quiet nod.

She smiled and reached out to help get his shirt over his head. "Good boy," she said. "My Fantastic Little Fox."

**Check out Right There for an AU one-shot take on the hand in Episode 10.**


	124. Chapter 124

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia worked at threading her fingers through Benji's hair while waving the hair dryer across it.

She normally just towel-dried his hair in the evenings. But he'd been acting so cold and tense – even in the warm water of his bath and with the supposedly calming body wash that she'd bathed him in. So she wasn't taking any chances that damp hair could lead to a chill and a cold.

They had enough on their plate at the moment. She'd already be missing work with taking him in for his final xrays and consult to have his brace come off and for some meetings with Mark ahead of their court date. She didn't need him sick on top of it. Him being so down and sad was enough. Though, she thought she'd have better luck dealing with a runny nose and cough than she was going to in righting his situation at school.

She was almost done with his hair. He didn't have too much on his head at the moment – just the long strands down the middle of his head, sided by the shorter buzz on either side. It hadn't taken too long to get it dry. She'd barely needed a brush. Though she'd initially tried with it, Benji had jerked away so she'd settled on just using her free hand instead to get the job done.

He'd been sitting so quietly on the toilet while she worked at his hair. The big bath towel wrapped around him and his face still creased in a quiet sadness that was really pulling at her heartstrings. It was so unlike her Little Fox not to be chatty. He was always chatty at her. If he wasn't chatting at her he was chatting at his toys or chattering to Jack on their nightly phone call. Really the only peace she got was when he went to bed.

She waved the warm drier air over his hair one more time and gave him a small smile and a little poke before waving the warm air in his face. He scrunched up his little nose and shut his eyes at the movement but let out the tiniest giggle. That made her smile a bit more at him – it was the first laugh she'd managed to get out of him that night.

She waited for him to reopen his eyes and then she waved it across his face again giving him a wider smile. Benji again giggled and scrunched up his nose, bringing his shoulders up this time as the warm, ticklish air hit his little cheeks.

She smiled some more – even the small moment of levity counted for something at that point. She was used to clinging to those at work. But maybe she'd need to do that more at home on nights like this.

She reached and pulled open his towel a bit and waved the hot air against his little arms and bare belly before pointing it back at his face again. He giggled some more and pulled his towel tighter around him – blocking her access.

"MOM-EEE FOX!" he protested but there was the tiniest amount of joy at the bit of attention and sillies he was getting.

She gave him another smile and swiped her free hand through his soft hair again.

"Lit-tle Fox!" she intoned back at him and then held out the hair dryer to him. "You want to try?"

He looked at her and then at the dryer like he had to consider it. But then he brought his arms out from under the towel – causing the bulk of it to bunch around his waist – and took the dryer. It looked so big in his little hands and he initially just examined it before turning it and pointing it at his own face.

He giggled again as it tousled his hair and scrunched up his nose and eyes. But then he turned it away and examined it – and the buttons on the side.

"It like a gun?" he asked. "Air gun."

She allowed a small smile at that – and felt some relief that her little boy was actually talking. His silence in the tub – and how he'd just sat there not playing or splashing or babbling and let her bathe him and wash his hair (two things he often tried to help with, if not outright did on his own with some supervision) - had been a little more depressing for her. Her chatty little boy wasn't there. She wanted him back.

"Hmm, it's more like a hand dryer – like when we're in bathrooms," she offered.

"It shaped like a gun," Benji told her and looked at her. "And you do not play with guns and you do not point guns at people – 'specially cops and 'specially the head."

She smiled at the repeated lesson she'd be drilling into him and reached to rub at his shoulder before running her index finger down his one cheek.

"That's right Little Fox," she encouraged. "You're so smart. But it's OK – because this is just a hair dryer – not a gun or even a toy gun."

Benji did his pucker as he considered that and examined the buttons on the handle a bit more.

"What they do?" he asked after several beats.

"Hmm," she said and looked at the dryer and pointed. "That one makes the air come out faster or slower and that one makes the air hotter or colder."

Benji looked at it again and then moved his one hand to push the button to set the dryer to high. He sat up straighter as the air roared out a bit louder and the handle vibrated a little more in his hand. But then he looked at Olivia and she could see some glee in his minor discovery about how the dryer worked.

He examined it for a moment more but then turned it and pointed it in her face where she was crouched in front of him. She squinted up her eyes a bit as the air hit her initially. She wasn't entirely expecting him to do that. But he seemed to think the prank and her reaction were priceless and he let out another giggle. She opened her eyes and smiled at him.

"Are you being silly?" she asked.

He just giggled some more and actually had a smile on his face – a real one – as he waved it around in front of her forehead and hair.

"Your hair blowing up, Mommy!" he declared between his little guffaws.

"Hmm," she nodded as he continued to work at tousling her hair. "It is a blow dryer."

She let him continue for several more second before reaching out and switching it off.

"You want to go do story?" she asked, knowing that that would likely sound more exciting than the blow dryer and he nodded at her. "OK," she agreed and put the dryer back on the counter and then reached to get his little butt rest in the crook of her arm as he stood from the toilet. "Mommy will carry you, so your feet don't get cold," she told him.

She knew the trip across the hallway and through the living room to his bedroom wasn't likely to freeze his feet. But she could tell he still needed comforting and still needed babying. And, really, she could do with the extra cuddles too – as his body rested against hers and his head found her shoulder.

Even in the challenging moments she was having with the little boy and in figuring out how to be the best parent she could be for him – the physical connection helped. When she was frustrated with him, or herself, or the situations around them – a little cuddle or one of his sloppy kisses and all elbows and pointy chin hugs – could do a lot to calm her and refocus her and just get her back onto the next step. It was like some sort of biological imperative likely designed to keep most women – most mothers – catering to and caring for their child. Though, she certainly knew not all. She'd seen it in her own life and at work and now with Benji's and Jack's experiences. But the more she got to touch and hold and laugh with and smile at and care for Benji – and even Jack – the more trouble she had understanding how that switch didn't just seem to click in all women. How they could leave or hurt their child – or let them go through their early existence feeling unloved and alone.

She set him down on edge of his bed and moved to pull open the drawer containing his pajamas.

"Mommy? Can I sleep in your room tonight?" Benji asked quietly as she rooted through the drawer. He still felt chilled to her and she wanted to forego the light-weight cotton pjs for flannel or maybe his fleeces (but she thought that pair was in the laundry hamper).

She glanced at him, though, and gave him a little nod. She knew if he wasn't starting out the night in her bed – he'd likely be crawling into her bed at some point in the night anyways.

"Yes, Benj. You're going to sleep in my bed tonight. But first we're going to get on jammies and do story," she told him.

She knew enough about parenting – and about Benji – to know that bedtime was all about routines. Their routine had been broken that night. But the least she could do was get part of the bedtime routine done in its usual manner and its usual place. So they'd put his pajamas on in his room and then do story over on the futon before she took him to tuck into her bed.

She didn't think it would be too long before she joined him. She was feeling the weight of the day too. And, really, even though she didn't want to set the precedent of him sleeping in her bed with her – that night, with how upset he was and how much comforting he was needing, she preferred to have him closer to her. She didn't think him waking up alone in his new room in the dark and still unfamiliar apartment and having to find his way to her would do much for his state of mind.

She pulled out a pair of Benj's pajamas and held them up at him.

"Robots?" she asked.

Benji looked at them a little blankly but then said, "No, Mommy. Police."

She snorted and gave him a small smile and pushed the items around in the drawer a bit more until she found the first pair of pjs she'd bought him at the Police Museum. The waffle knit material wasn't likely his warmest pair of pjs – but it was still better than just the cotton – and if him picking it and whatever it represented to him gave him some sort of comfort, maybe that would help.

She bunched up the material and held out the neck opening to him, and he leaned his head forward to let her put it over his head. Then the little boy let his towel fall away again and she helped pull his arms through the sleeves before he hopped off the edge of the bed, letting the towel fall to the ground. She handed him the bottoms and leaned over to pick up the soiled and damp towel.

"Finish putting on your jammies and then go sit on the futon," she told him gently, before moving over to the door, draping the towel over the knob so she wouldn't forget to take it with her to hang up when she was done getting Benji through bedtime.

By the time she'd turned back into the room – Benji had found his way to the futon, set up as a couch for the moment and pushed against the one wall. He had his feet pulled up to him and was pulling at his bare little toes.

She allowed him another small smile and wandered over to the canvas bag of books from the library that had only made it as far as the corner and sitting on top of one of the boxes still waiting to be unpacked in the disaster they were living in at the moment. She rummaged through it and looked at each of the covers.

She'd decided Benji wasn't really in a state to be picking. She wasn't really sure he'd even be listening to story. She could see that he was starting to look a little more dazed and dopey and she was hoping that the lavender wash and bath oil was kicking in and he was starting to calm and would soon be asleep.

She pulled out How Do Dinosaurs Say Goodnight and went and sat next to him. She'd barely sat down before he flopped against her and rested his head in her lap. She watched him for a moment and rubbed at his back. His body didn't feel quite as tense and he was starting to act very tired.

"Do you want to do story, Little Fox?" she asked. "Or should we just go and tuck you in?"

"Story," he mumbled.

She gave his back another little rub. "Do you think maybe you should sit up so you can see the pictures better?"

He didn't move for several seconds and instead rubbed his tired, red little cheek against her leg more. She just kept rubbing at his back. She was starting to think he might drift off again just like that but then he sat up and leaned against her, his arms wrapping around her as far as their short length would allow and looking towards where she was holding the book.

She rubbed his back one more time and then moved to open the story.

"How do dinosaurs say good night?" she read to him, as he rubbed his cheek against her more, cuddling into her. "Does a dinosaur slam his tail and pout? Does he throw his teddy bear all about?"

"Mommy Fox?" Benji interrupted as she moved to turn the page.

"Mmm?" she allowed and slowed her movements.

She thought she was probably turning the pages too fast for his liking and not giving him enough time to look at each picture. Or that he was about to ask her what kind of dinosaur it was that was in the picture. He liked to ask that about dinosaurs and fantasy characters and animals. She could usually give him an answer about what was a wizard or troll or an otter or leopard. She didn't think she'd be able to pull an answer out of her ass about what kind of dinosaur it was on the page. It was an area she clearly needed to brush up on. More books from the library for their 'research' or a trip to the Museum of Natural History might be in order. The train of thought again made her wonder if she was that bad of parent or failing Benji that badly in giving him a rounded education and exposure to things to expand his horizons. She was trying her best.

Benji squeezed her a bit tighter but she was focused on the page – considering what dinosaur it might be if that's what he asked and trying to pick out other things on the page to distract him from the fact she didn't have a real answer for him.

"I love you," the little boy told her quietly.

It almost felt like a whoosh as the words sunk in with her. She felt like she had a pause – like she had to think about if she'd actually heard him say it or if that's just what she had wanted to hear. But it was something she wanted to hear. It was something she'd been waiting to hear.

She'd almost reached the point that she was starting to consider that he was too emotionally damaged to experience that emotion or to know the words to verbalize it. That maybe he was too emotionally damaged to ever be able to feel that way about her. She knew it happened with children from broken homes – who had been through trauma or through abuse. Who'd been abandoned or neglected. How hadn't had proper care as an infant to be able to create those human bonds. Part of her didn't want to believe that her little boy was that damaged. Scarred and hurt – but still a little boy with real emotions and the capacity to feel things and verbalize them and express them.

She just hadn't heard the magic words from him yet. Three tiny simple words. But words that she'd heard from so few people in her life – and even that hadn't had much sincerity behind them based on the current state of her life. They were words, though, that she'd to longed to be able to exchange with a child of her own. Ones that she'd be waiting and wondering if her and Benji would be able to share.

She felt her eyes flush with watery tears that she had to gulp a little to hold back. She had to compose herself. But she hadn't expected to hear it from him yet. There'd been other occasions where he'd been upset and it hadn't come out. There'd been other moments where she had felt her overwhelming love for him and expressed it verbally – but he hadn't returned the sentiment. There'd been other occasions where she thought they were having a bonding moment and acting as mother and son and he hadn't let it slip. She didn't think he was ready. She wasn't sure he was capable. She thought maybe she was expecting too much from too little of boy too soon. But now they were out there and hanging in the air while he cuddled his little body and arms against her – his cheek pressed to her side and his eyes heavy and drowsy.

The power of the words. The realness of them. The sincerity behind his voice and his presence against her. It hit her harder than she would've anticipated. In a way she wouldn't have imagined. It was real. He was hers and she was his – and she'd managed to build a bond with him. The biology of it didn't matter. There was an emotion there and a connection that was just as strong – if not stronger than she would've expected. She thought she loved him just as much as she would've if he'd grown inside her. She loved him like he'd been there with her since the day he was born. She couldn't even imagine having to go back to life without him now – having to give him up. He was her son.

She rubbed his back yet again and let her hand trail up to his hair, tousling it, before cupping the back of his head in her hand and stroking his little fatigued red, hot cheek with her thumb.

"I love you too, Benji," she told him, feeling her voice crack. "Very much."


	125. Chapter 125

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Look, I've seen him … " she gestured with her hand trying to come up with the terminology "… do a kickflip, I'm pretty sure he can handle kicking a ball and skipping."

Benji's teacher just looked at her with the same blank face as she had for much of the interview so far.

"Well, he hasn't demonstrated those abilities at school," Barbarosa said flatly.

Olivia sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow. It was taking a lot to keep her temper in check and she felt like she was being nudged closer and closer to it flaring up with the near non-reaction she was getting from Benji's preschool teacher.

She didn't feel like she was getting any sort of concrete answers about Benji's marks – or how they were reached other than 'he hasn't demonstrated those abilities at school'. There was no explanation about what he had demonstrated or ways to improve on areas he hadn't. She felt like the so-called educator was being overly dismissive of her and not hearing her concerns or demands for explanation.

And, Olivia was demanding explanation. She'd gone into the parent-teacher conference set on wanting some of the specific comments explained and a justification behind every mark that was a two – indicating that her little boy was just beginning to show development in that area – or a one, suggesting that Benji wasn't even showing development in a given area yet. It meant there was a lot of ground to cover in the 15-minute slot she'd been allotted to talk to the teacher.

She didn't have to be sitting in the room to know that timeframe wasn't likely going to be enough. And, as she loitered in the hallway awaiting her turn – the couple ahead of her had eaten into 10 minutes of her time. So she didn't have any qualms about getting not just her full 15 minutes, even though the meeting was starting late, but to take as much time as she felt she needed.

"How can you even assign a mark to these things?" Liv asked, trying to calm herself. "Galloping? Hopping? Skipping? Throwing a ball? He's not a baseball player. He's a four-year-old."

"Those motor skills are considered developmental milestones for a child your son's age," Barbarosa responded back a little too curtly for Olivia's liking. "We are trying to give parents an idea of how their child is developing certain behaviours – if they are or aren't exhibiting them. If they aren't yet exhibiting these motor skills – some parents may decide to take it up with their pediatrician."

Olivia glared at her at that. "My child is not developmentally delayed," she said sternly.

"I didn't say he was," Benji's teacher responded. "The report card just indicates that he is just starting to learn how to kick a ball and that he doesn't yet skip."

"Ah," Liv said with some sarcasm and irritation and looked back to the report card again. "And, apparently, he also doesn't … " she glanced at the report card again. "… Know how to use scissors to cut on a line, hold a crayon properly or sew and lace? You have noticed that until Wednesday – he's had a cast and brace on for the entire duration he's been here? That that might affect his ability to handle objects."

The teacher nodded. "Of course, we noticed, and we fully expect his grades in those areas to improve this term now that his arm is healed."

Olivia just rolled her eyes at that. She thought the vast majority of the areas they graded preschoolers on amounted to complete and utter crap. They just wanted something to mark and in the process they made children, and their parents, feel like the child was somehow defective because they lacked eye-hand coordination and balance. Hell – if they graded some of the bullshit on Benji's report card in the police academy entrance exams – she probably wouldn't have been accepted. She wasn't sure her scissor handling would be up to this woman's par. And walking a balance beam? She'd probably fall on her ass – sober or not. It was ridiculous.

"He also doesn't know how to fasten zippers or do up buttons? He dresses himself every morning – and he seems to do just fine with that at home."

"He's …" Barbarosa started but Liv interrupted.

"… Not exhibiting those abilities at school," she finished for her and looked at her hard. Her annoyance at that catch-all phrase was reaching its maximum. "H-O-W is he not exhibiting it at school? Do you have some sort of button and zipper test?"

"We do provide the children with busy books that have various kinds of fasteners in them and we also observe them while readying to go outside – and who requires extra help," the teacher responded.

Olivia snorted and rolled her eyes at that. "I've seen a lot of parents here doing up their kids coats for them at the end of the day when I pick him up. I take him to circle time at the public library – the session for preschoolers, three to five year olds – I see a lot of kids older than him getting help too."

Barbarosa just looked at her blankly. "When Benjamin reaches kindergarten – it will be expected that he is able to get dressed by himself coming in-and-out from the playground and to-and-from the restroom."

"OK – first off," Olivia said, holding up a hand to stop the other woman. "He knows how to dress himself. And, secondly, I don't want you calling him Benjamin at school. Benji. His name is Benji."

The teacher looked back at her harshly with her tone and flipped the back page of the report card that had been returned to the school – where there had been space for Olivia's parent comments and her signature, as well as the signature of the student.

"Maybe we should just all be calling him Little Fox," Barbarosa said with a clear edge of disgust to her voice.

With great enthusiasm and precision – his tongue hanging out of his mouth in fixed concentration as he worked to mirror the block letters she had written for him on a separate scrap of paper, Benji had inscribed 'Little Fox' on the student signature line.

It had been a partial reaction to Olivia's frustration with the whole report card but more-so to the ridiculousness she felt in seeing her little boy had received ones on his ability to recite his first and last name and to write out his name. When she'd asked him about it – trying to gauge if he was confused about who he was and what his last name was, if he'd picked up on her last name being Benson and his and Jack's being Lewis. But instead, he'd told her that the teacher chastised him when he referred to himself as Little Fox in the classroom and some of the other children had also ridiculed him. It only enraged her more. After filling in her sternly worded – but carefully chosen – comments and ranking her three preferred times and dates for the conference, Olivia had been sure to go back to her signature and add an 'AKA Mommy Fox' – just to drive her point (and her disgust) home.

"I'm not asking you to call him Little Fox," Olivia put back to her with a bit more force. "I'm asking that you call him Benji – and that your staff ensures other kids aren't teasing him about a nickname."

"Perhaps you might want to encourage him not to share his nickname with his classmates or implement something a little less confusing for him," the teacher said and met her eyes.

Olivia snorted at that. "Confusing for him? Is there a child in here whose parents' don't have a pet-name for them? My son will be a grown man – and he is ALWAYS going to be my Little Fox – and he can call himself that as long as he wants, for all I care."

"Fine, but he doesn't seem to know where he lives," Barbarosa said pointedly.

Olivia shook her head and looked at the ones next to his ability to recite his address and phone number.

"Oh, he knows his name and he knows where he lives and he knows my phone number. He also knows that he only tells those things to other people in an emergency and to people we trust," she said and looked directly at the young woman – too young for Olivia's liking.

She didn't think Barbarosa had enough experience and she didn't like being talked down to by some early-30-something. She could see how Benji hadn't yet connected with this woman to trust her or have meaningful interactions with her. If this was the vibe she gave off to the little children, Olivia didn't know how any of the kids wanted to be around her. She seemed frigid and jaded. She was clearly geared towards by-the-book curriculum with little patience or interest in dealing with situations that fell outside her comment boxes.

"He says he lives in a den," the teacher said a little harshly.

Olivia looked at her and laughed – out loud - and shook her head harder before looking and rubbing at her eyebrow. She saw humour in it that the younger woman obviously didn't and it took her a few seconds to compose herself. When she looked back up, Olivia could see that Benji's teacher looked unimpressed.

"Foxes live in dens," Olivia informed her. "How many other four-year-olds in his class know that?"

A silence hung between them for several seconds. At that point Olivia wouldn't be surprised if Babarosa hadn't realized that foxes lived in dens and was now a little offended. But Olivia didn't really care. She was fairly offended by the entire report card.

"OK," Olivia finally interjected, knowing that she was going to need to be the one to break the silence. "I really need an explanation of his marks in math and early literacy. Some of the rubric in math – I don't even understand what you're asking of him. And other things … at home … he knows his numbers, he knows his alphabet, he knows his colours and shapes. He knows comparisons and rhyming and opposites. His days of the week. These are all things I go over with him constantly – things he babbles at me on his own. He's always making observations and chattering and repeating things he sees and hears."

"Well, surely, Ms. Benson, you can understand that we can't grade him on his behaviour and achievements at home. We can only grade him on what we see at school."

Olivia leans forward and chopped her hands on the teacher's desk. "I do understand that. So what I am asking you is WHY my bright, talkative, imaginative little boy's skill sets and personality are not appearing in this classroom and HOW we can make these abilities, that I KNOW he has, come out here?" she demanded a little strongly moving her hands from one end to the desk other, almost like the woman needed a visual aid to understand where she was coming from.

"Most children start at our nursery school by the time they are two years old – at the latest. When a child comes to us partway through their pre-kindergarten year – you really can only expect so much from us," the woman said.

Olivia made a sound at that – a combination of disbelief and outright disgust. She glared down the woman.

"No – you see – I am paying this school $12,000 for my son to be here," she near growled out. "For that kind of money – I don't 'only expect so much from you'. I expect that by September, my child is ready for kindergarten – and I expect that in the areas where he is struggling or that he has deficiencies – you are working CONSTRUCTIVELY to correct them and to ensure he is on the right track."

"I'm sure his daycare providers give you a weekly rundown of his overall nursery school experience and highlighting some areas he needs to work on," Barbarosa said.

"Yes," Olivia spat back. "Near daily I get to chat with his care providers. But this is the first time I'm speaking to you – and this report card is the first time you have given me any indication that my son is behind academically. He's been here since early November."

"You have to understand that this is a partnership and Benjamin …"

"Benji," Olivia interrupted sternly.

The teacher looked at her a little intimidated for a moment. "As Benji's parent – you have to be working with your son on some of these areas at home to ensure he is prepared to start school in the fall."

Olivia held up her hand to stop her in utter frustration. "OK. That is not a problem. We are not a TV family. Benji is not coming home and being set in front of the television or videogames. He is talked to, read to, he is played with. We do activities together. We are constantly going for walks and out to the library and to craft classes and to parks and playgrounds on the weekend. I am doing my best to ensure he is well-rounded and he is meeting his development markers. And, after seeing this report card, I can guarantee you –Benji and I are going to be spending more time reviewing some of these areas. But this is not just a home thing – because at home, my son would be getting marks of three and fours in most of these areas, as far as I am concerned. So there is some sort of disconnect. There is some reason why my son is not thriving here."

"We do our best to ensure all our students thrive in this classroom," Barbarosa added without a whole lot of conviction at that point.

Olivia sat back in her chair and examined the woman for a few beats. She knew at her face and brow were creased with her frustration and agitation with the whole situation – and Benji's teacher. She was trying not to let her body language betray her. She was trying was at the point she was almost having to treat it like she was in an interrogation room with a perp – and she just had to hid her disgust as best she could or at least thinly veil it and try to relate and negotiate to the outcome she wanted and needed. So she was doing the best to calm herself and not to really snap at this woman. But it was becoming increasingly harder.

Olivia clutched her hands together and wringed them for a moment – her mind working to try to phrase this next step of the parent-teacher interrogation in the hopes she may still be able to direct it to some of the explanation and results she wanted out of it.

"Do you understand my family's situation?" Olivia asked but didn't give the woman a chance to respond. Even if she had received a mild briefing from the administrative offices – she couldn't have been told much. Olivia had trouble believing that a teacher would be this unaccommodating if they understood the gravity of the uphill battle she was fighting at the moment.

"I am Benji's guardian right now," she said slowly and purposely. "His biological mother had him when she was still a teenager. She was a drug addict and an alcoholic. She overdosed in May. She is dead. His father? I don't know. You tell me. He spent his life housed with his verbally abusive great-uncle and his senile grandmother while his mother did what she wanted. Since May, he's been cared for by his 18-year-old uncle, who did the best he could and had the good sense to come and get some help. So since October – I've been doing the best I can.

"Benji is not your average Midtown preschooler, OK? Yes - he has baggage. Yes – in some areas –he is behind. I completely accept that he is likely behind a lot of children in terms of social and emotional development. But that is because he is a traumatized little boy. Any behaviour you see from him – his trouble sitting still, his shyness in groups, his difficulty interacting with other children, his possessiveness of objects, his difficulty adjusting to new situations, his tentativeness with new adults who are introduced to him – it's related to that. To what he's been through.

"I am working on all those things with him – but when things like this happen … when my little boy brings home a report card and has been allowed to look at the marks and been told they are bad, when other children in the class have told him he's stupid and a dumb-dumb, when I spend an entire evening having to calm down my child and have him in hysterics every time I drop him off here for the rest of the week … you are taking me leaps and bounds backwards from where I am trying to get him.

"I don't understand how those things are being allowed to happen in this classroom? And I don't understand how when we get beyond the grades in social and emotional skills and listening skills … when we look at self-help and motor skill and math and literacy … his marks are NOT reflecting what I am seeing at home and what we are achieving at home. And, I am working with him REALLY hard to ensure he is achieving. My mother was a university professor. I understand the value of an education. I work with children regularly. I know how to talk to them and to direct their energies. I see value in that. It is something I am very conscious of with that little boy.

"So unless you can provide me with a greater explanation of how you graded him. Unless you can provide justification for these grades or examples of exactly how he is not meeting these expectations – the conclusion that I am drawing is that what is really happening is that this classroom – you, as his teacher – are not providing him with a supportive environment that addresses his needs as a little boy and as a student."

The woman looked at her with such offense that Olivia knew that she hadn't heard all of what had been said – if she'd even heard any of it.

"I provide a very supportive environment for my students. More than 95 per cent of my students over the past five years have gone on to the private school of their parents' choice," Barbarosa contended.

Olivia snorted again and leaned back in her chair again. "Is that what this is about?" she asked, now letting her angering seep more openly into her tone. "Benji's not going to private school next year – so he's not worth investing the time and energy into? One – I was told that he wasn't ready for private school. And that's fine – because I certainly I wasn't ready to put him through all that needless testing to get him into one. He has enough to cope with right now. Two – if this nursery school is any indication of value for money in terms of education, I'm not sure I want to be paying for a five-year-old to get a private school kindergarten education. He's going to Mary Lindley Murray in the fall."

Barbarosa shrugged.

"It's an excellent school," Olivia spat not liking the look on the woman's face like it was some sort of shame that anyone would be attending public school but that it was likely a place that Benji would be regulated.

"It's over-crowded," Barbarosa stated flatly. "But I'm sure they'll be better able to address your son's special needs than us."

Olivia snorted and glared at her. "Benji is not special needs. He just needs a supportive environment," she pushed back.

Barbarosa nodded at her condescendingly and glanced at her watch. "Well, I'm sure on your way you can schedule an appointment in the administrator's office to discuss Benji's need for a supportive environment – and any concerns you have about my teaching abilities. But, now, I'm going to have to cut you off. We've already gone over your allotted time – and the next family is waiting."

Olivia leaned forward and put her hands on the woman's desk again. "I am not done yet," she said through gritted teeth.

"Well, Ms. Benson, you seem to be quite the expert on your son's needs and abilities academic, and early childhood education for that matter – so I'm going to suggest that you proceed downstairs and continue this discussion in the administrator's office. But I won't be able to continue it with you at this time. You can schedule another meeting for a later date, if you want to take this up further."

Olivia spread her hand on the desk – forcing herself to keep from clenching a fist or smacking her palm against the table top.

"Do you have much experience working with traumatized children?" she asked – again not waiting for an answer. "Because I do – but I've sat here and I've politely tried to come to an understanding about my son's grades and how we can work together to improve them and to find a solution to the discrepancies. Instead – you've sat here and patronized me and talked down to me. That might fly with other parents of 'difficult' children. But my son is not difficult. He can be challenging – but he is a good little boy. And I am not some parent from Chelsea or TriBeCa or the Village – dropping my kid off here for $12,000 babysitting until I can transplant him into some fancy private school that I can buy his report card marks at until he's off to the Ivy league. I'm an NYPD detective. I work the Special Victims Unit – sex crimes. I work down the street from you. And, I deal with traumatized children weekly. Most of them are a lot more traumatized than my son. But these kids are not lost causes. What these kids need is a supportive environment to ensure they are able to recover and thrive – as best they can. That is what my son needs – and it's what he deserves."

Barbarosa just observed her for several moments. "Then if you feel that he isn't receiving that in this classroom, I think it would be best that you talk to the administrator's office about having Benjamin transferred to one of our other classes. Perhaps Ms. LaPorte's afternoon class has space for him."

Olivia snorted and shook her head, rising to her feet and snatching her copy of Benji's report card from where she'd set it on the desk. She was done. It wasn't worth it at this point. There'd been enough discussion – for lack there-of for her to have made her decision.

"Oh, you can bet I will," she said, "because my Little Fox definitely won't be setting foot inside this classroom again."


	126. Chapter 126

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Hey sweetheart. How was work?" she greeted Jack with a glance over her shoulder as he clattered into the living room of the new apartment.

Though she hadn't been able to see him from where she was standing and working on unpacking a box of books, she'd certainly been able to hear him come in. She didn't think Jack knew how to leave or enter any room quietly. She never had to worry that it was someone untoward at her door when Jack was the one coming in.

She could almost hear him as soon as he got off the elevator. Sometimes his skateboard's wheels swooshing on the floor until he pounded his foot down on the tail as he pushed it off the elevator and snatched the deck up, usually still letting the wood scrap against the floor for a couple steps before he tucked it under his arm or swung his backpack off one shoulder and clipped it onto the back. Other times he had his music so loud that she could hear it through the door – blaring out of his earbuds – before he even got it open. And, then sometimes, it was just him.

He likely thought he was being quiet. She wasn't sure if he'd had likely his final growth spurt in the last six-months-or-so but sometimes he still seemed so gangly and like he wasn't completely aware of the complete extent of his body – tripping on his own feet, flopping his shoes on the floor likely more loudly than he realized and bumping and crowding into the hallway walls and eventually the door before he shuffled around and mumbled at himself until he found the keys buried in his pocket yet somehow still considered misplaced from the time he entered the building to the time he got to the apartment door.

But even with the acoustic tsunami that accompanied his approach – and his eventual entrance into the apartment as he stumbled and clattered and bumped around taking off his coat and boots – he didn't like when she acknowledged him coming in the door. She supposed maybe it made him feel more like a guest than a family member entitled to coming-and-going as he pleased. Or more likely it was just some teenaged rule that Jack had gotten set in his head. That she was being too overbearing or nosey or God knows what by poking her head out and saying hello and checking on him when he entered the place.

But she did her best not to rock the boat with him. They were on rocky enough waters most of the time as it was. She didn't need to add to it. So she just honoured his bark at her that he didn't like her greeting him at the door – and now waited for him to come into the living area or kitchen – or wherever she was before she took it as permission to acknowledge his presence.

He didn't look like an overly perky presence that Saturday afternoon. But that was just Jack too. He wouldn't be Jack if there wasn't some underlying grouchiness radiating off of him. But she did know that he had worked the night before and he'd been back to work that morning – acting as an instructor at one of Gecko's winter skate programs at a local community centre – before he'd put in a few hours at the shop. Not only that, but she'd definitely picked up from him on the phone in the evenings that week that he was finding the workload for his winter course a little challenging to keep up with.

She wasn't surprised by that from the opportunity she had to look over the syllabus. It was a lot of reading and prep work – and Jack was trying to put in afternoon and evening hours at work. She didn't think he was doing much sleeping so far that month and it was showing in his body language and temperament. He usually called just as he was leaving work around 7 p.m. to talk to Benji before she put him to bed and would chatter at her for a few minutes before she handed the phone over to the little boy.

All week the teen had been indicating that after he did get back to the dorms, he had to put in a bunch of time for his class. She kept telling him he should go to bed by 1 a.m. at the latest – give himself at least five or so hours time to rest. But she just got grunts from him and she didn't really think he was listening. Maybe he was but he hadn't figured out how to truly listen and implement her recommendation.

The reality was his drive to take on the extra shifts that month at work was cutting into the time he could invest in his academics. But she was biting her tongue about it for the moment. She hoped he knew what he could handle and if he'd taken on too much – he'd tell Gecko. She thought his boss was understanding enough, and had a large enough staff, that he would be somewhat flexible in cutting back on the number of shifts Jack was working a week, if it was for his schooling. It was a matter of Jack having the sense to speak up – and to remember he was doing the extra credit during City's extended winter break to bump up his grades to ensure he kept his scholarship. That meant he needed to be putting in enough effort to ensure he got the grade bump and that this wasn't some sort of rock to drag him down and further away from that grade-point goal he needed to reach by the end of the spring term.

He still hardly acknowledged her, though, and staggered over to the couch and flopped down, slumped nearly off the cushion. "'Kay," he mumbled to her in a monosyllabic response and typically vague teenaged explanation.

She had kind of hoped to get a bit more detail on how working as an instructor was going. He'd complained that it was an indoor class – and not at a skate park and that he'd been stuck with eight-to-ten year olds deemed as complete beginners so he'd mostly be teaching them how to put pads on and just stand on a board. She got the sense he kind of felt that was below his abilities. But Gecko must've felt he'd be a good fit for the group of kids to have put him with the group of weekend instructors. She wasn't going to drill him for detail, though. That would only make him shut down more and she'd likely never get an overview of how it was going.

Jack rubbed at his eyes and glanced around a bit. She knew he was likely looking for the television remote but he wasn't likely going to spot it from his seated position. In her tidying she'd placed all the remotes and the Xbox controller off the couch and the coffee table and over on the television stand. It wasn't likely a place Jack would immediately look and even if he did spot them, she didn't get the impression he was that motivated to move at the moment.

The teen made a small noise and settled back into the couch further and wrapped his arms across his chest – almost like he was cold, likely another sign of his fatigue.

"Where's 'Jamin?" he mumbled at her and his feet landed on the coffee table.

She glanced at him again – more as she heard the thud of his feet landing there than to respond to his question.

"Hey, hey," she chastised mildly. "If you're going to sit there and watch me – and not offer to help – the least you can do is to keep your feet off the table."

He groaned at her and she could feel his eyes roll. Apparently his whole body felt his eyes rolls – because he slacked over to the side and slumped more against the armrest.

"Gaawwwd," he mumbled. "It's not a big deal." His feet remaining on the table.

She shook her head at him and made firmer eye contact. "We've talked about this," she told him a bit more sternly. "You and Benji are both always eating off it. Benji is playing on it all the time. It's gross. I can see the wet, sweat marks on your socks from here."

She actually thought it as almost a little grosser when he changed into his sleep lounge wear for the evening and if he emerged back into the living space and then put his bare feet on the table. Only to go and make himself some toast or a bowl of cereal and to set the food down in the exact same spot his big, stinky, teenaged feet had just been minutes before. But he'd repeatedly indicated to her – he didn't see the problem. This was one battle she was fighting with him though.

It bugged her. She thought it was a little rude and disrespectful. And, if he was doing it in their home, she knew it was likely behaviour that he felt was fine while he was in other people's houses. She was sure it wasn't something most people would enjoy either. At least grown people – or maybe any girls he was attempting to woo.

He made another intelligible noise at her. Clearly tired enough that he didn't want to have a verbal sparing match but not quite tired enough that he wasn't still practicing some defiance.

So Olivia just kept looking at him for a couple beats while he still ignored her request and than snapped her fingers twice before pointing at the ground.

He groaned again but then his feet flopped back to the hardwood floor with a whack.

"Yes Mam," he grunted at he made the movement.

She watched him at that. She wasn't sure if the word that came out of his mouth was really Ma'am or Mom – or maybe a combination there-of. But with the way the silence hung between them and he suddenly became interested in examining the pile of boxes still waiting to be unpacked in that room, she thought it was likely more of a 'mom'.

She looked down for a moment and rubbed at her eyebrow. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to react. She didn't think Jack wanted her to. She was fairly certain from his body language that he hadn't meant to say it and was now regretting it. But it wasn't exactly new information to her. It was just verbalized now.

She actually thought it might make it easier for them. She knew that Jack was looking for someone to fill the gaping hole in his life that his mother had left there for him – guilt, worthlessness, lost experiences and affections, questions that he'd never have answered. She knew what that was like – and she also knew that she was filling that role for him now. It was an unexpected task and a different kind of parenting than what was needed with Benji. But she was trying to figure it out.

As much as she'd resisted it at the start of their relationship. As much as she had just wanted him to grow up and to be a man – to act like a grown up. That just wasn't him yet. He'd had too much loss and had too many things he was struggling and fighting against - so much to work through.

He had a lot he needed to process and cope with before he'd be ready to make take those final few steps into really being an adult. He might be housed in a man's body and he might've had some experiences that had forced him to be a grown up – but he'd miss so many other experiences and so much guidance in his teen years. He was hurt and confused and trying to figure out who and what he was – and where he fit in now that nearly everything he knew had been stripped from him. He was a scared teenaged boy in so many ways.

He'd shown her in multiple instances that he didn't just need a mother – or at least a parent – but that he wanted one. Some of them had been more in her face than others – the extended guardianship petition, some of his vague comments in their chats, the Christmas gifts, little things he said or didn't say and how he treated her.

She'd tried to express to him that she was ready to take on that role. That she was willing to, that she cared about him, that she loved him too. But he usually tried to shutdown the conversation or didn't verbally contribute to it. It'd be so much easier if they could stop dancing around it. If they could acknowledge that they were a family – and that by default she was the parent. She was his mom for the moment. In a couple weeks' time – it'd hopefully be official enough. At the very least she'd be his guardian, and he her ward – for the next few years.

She brought her eyes back up to him but he was still avoiding eye contact. So she pointed at one of the boxes he seemed to be finding very interesting.

"Bring that over for me, please, so I can unpack it," she said.

He glanced at her – meeting her eyes briefly – and let out a little sigh at her order, but did get up and picked up the box and walked over to her, setting it next to the near empty box at her feet.

"You've got a young back – you can hand me the books out of it to put on the shelf," she told him.

He made a small groan but listened and bent to remove the lid from the banker's box and pulled out a handful of the book to hand to her.

"You've got too many books," he mumbled at her.

She gave him a small smile as she looked at the spines of what he'd handed her to figure out where they needed to go on the bookshelf. Everything had been packed basically in the correct order she liked to catalogue them on her few shelves so it wasn't proving to be a huge deal to get them back in place.

"You think this is bad – you should've seen my mother's apartment. Cleaning it out after she died …" she just shook her head.

"Are any of these hers?" Jack asked, as he bent and grabbed some more.

"Mmm, some of them," she allowed. "I definitely didn't keep everything."

Jack just let out another grunt at that and she watched him as he rose. She met his eyes as he came back out and he again diverted his own – looking at the books in his hands.

She reached up and pulled his beanie off his head. She was really trying to break his habit of wearing a hat in the apartment. There'd been a couple days around the holidays where he'd actually been indoors without having a cap on. But since giving him the wool hat at Christmas – it'd been on his head near constantly when she saw him. She took it as a seal of approval for its apparent coolness factor – or at least warmth. Still, she'd prefer to see his face not hidden under the rim of a ball cap or his hair a matted mess under the beanie.

Olivia wasn't sure she was going to have much luck breaking that habit, though. A hat on his head almost seemed to be an extension of Jack's being. She wasn't sure if that was the farm boy in him, the skater dude, the teenager – or it was just Jack.

She held it out for him and he looked down and took it – not making any comment on its removal. He seemed to be at the point he was used to her snatching the things off of his head and the protests had at least stopped. Though she still did get the occasional groan and moan or dirty look.

As he was looking down at the hat like it was some sort of foreign object – or maybe deciding if he should shove it in his pocket or take it back out to the foyer – she reached up again and ran her thumb across his one temple before cupping the back of his head with her hand. His hair felt matted and it looked like he'd had the hat on while he was instructing the kids in the morning and likely sweating. It was a mess. But she pulled his head down a bit and placed a small kiss on his opposite temple. The fact he let her touch him and offer the affection without jerking away from her was just another sign to her how tired he was – or how much he really needed it.

"You can call me whatever you want, Jack," she told him quietly. "Whatever you're comfortable with."

He just gave a small nod but kept his eyes cast down. "Yeah," he allowed quietly.

She let out a small sigh and looked at him. She rubbed at his temple with her thumb until he gave her a small glance.

"Don't be embarrassed," she told him and moved her eyes and head to keep the their eyes connected as he tried to avoid looking at her.

Jack didn't say anything to that though. She let out another small sigh and set the back of her hand against his one cheek. It was flushed – likely partially from embarrassment that he'd slipped and called her 'mom' or 'mam' … whatever that meant – an offhanded correction as he realized it was coming out of his mouth likely.

But his cheeks were so hot and red – the same hot, red, flushed cheeks that Benji got when he was overtired. It was strange to her, in a way, how much she seemed to learn about how to interact with the one boy by spending time with the other. The genetics there did play a role – even if they were uncle and nephew and not brothers. There were similar mannerisms and cues she was really starting to pick up on to read their changing moods and to gauge what they needed from her in a given moment. Though the insights she got from one often had to applied to the other in a slightly different and more age-appropriate manner – she was still using what she learned from the one to try to parent the other.

"You can try it on for size, if you want," she told him.

In a way – though part of her had a deep fear and apprehension about being Jack's mom. She understood the baggage he had there in her own way. She knew the complexities of that absence and the emotions that went along with it. But she also thought it might be easier for both of them if they could settle into that. If they could acknowledge it and were able to say it out loud. Part of her wanted to hear it out of him – badly. To cement their family unit.

"If it doesn't work for you – or it doesn't feel comfortable – and you want to stop, I won't be offended," she told him softly, still trying to keep her eyes at least partially in his downcast line of sight. "You can try Liv too, if you want. You don't have to call me Olivia all the time," she tried to tease him.

He really didn't call her much of anything most of the time. She almost felt like they had a 'hey you' relationship. And, she was starting to think it was because he hadn't been able to find a name for her yet.

But he still said nothing and she just gave his shoulder a little squeeze, trying to reassure him again, before she dropped her hand.

"You should go lay down, Jack," she told him. "You're really tired. I can tell. Go take a shower and get a little bit of sleep. You can go in and lay on my bed if you want. Shut the door. I'll keep Benji from bothering you."

He just shrugged at that suggestion and she again released a small sigh and shook her head at him. She wasn't going to push it. She turned back to putting the books on the shelves.

"Where is 'Jamin?" Jack asked again from earlier, still quietly and his eyes still avoiding hers.

She glanced at him. "Last time I checked, he was passed out on the floor in your guys' bedroom. He's pretty worn out after this week too."

She'd bought him a car road play-mat in some of her purchases leading up to the move. She'd initially intended to put it in the living room to try to create a bit of a defined play area for Benji and to just give him something to sit and lay on other than the hard, cold floor that he seemed to favour spending the majority of his waking hours on at the apartment. But the living room was still a disaster in her efforts to unpack and work full-time and care for the little boy. So she'd ended up unrolling it in his bedroom earlier in the afternoon in an effort to keep him out of her hair for a little while so she could actually do some of the unpacking.

Benji had near instantly understood what it was and dragged his Rescue Bots and Hot Wheels and army men over to it to star his imaginative play. He'd quickly become so lost in it – she didn't think he even heard her when she told him she was going back to the living room. And, he'd been enjoying himself enough that he hadn't come running to find her when he realized they were no longer in the same room together.

She'd listened to him babbling and clattering his toys around for quite a while before she realized he'd fallen quiet. When she'd peaked in the room, he was literally asleep on the mat – Heatwave clutched in one hand but still firmly planted on the road while the rest of his Transformers and cars were scattered around him. They didn't look too pleasant to roll over on – so she'd bent and moved a few from his immediate area and then had grabbed the blanket off the foot of his bed and spread it over him.

She figured that must've been almost an hour ago now – longer than his usual 40-minute nap. But he still hadn't stirred – even with all Jack's noise coming into the apartment and his voice now in the space. She knew he needed his sleep too, though.

It had been a rough week with lots of tears and insecurities. She was happy that he was resting now. She hoped it would make him stronger and more able to handle the minor stir-up she was going to be creating in his life by pulling him out of the nursery school and finding alternative care for him until she could find somewhere else to enroll him. It was likely going to be a rough week or two.

She'd called Nick and he'd indicated he'd talk to his mom about her willingness to babysit Benji again for a few days. She was likely going to have to lean on Jack a bit too – maybe have him watch him in the afternoons after his class. But she didn't want to add more to his already bludgeoning schedule. She wasn't even sure he'd have time with the hours he was pulling at work. But she thought he might even be able to get away with having Benji in at work – especially on a quiet weekday afternoon at the shop.

Still, even if she managed to navigate Benji through that uncertain period, she was going to have to get him settled into a new daycare and pre-kindergarten class. She knew that likely wasn't going to be easy. But she hoped with a little research and some phone calls and visits she was going to be able to find a place with space for him that was better suited to his needs and abilities. She just didn't feel comfortable sending him back to where she'd had him. And, she wasn't sure her or Benji could handle continued meltdowns or teasing from children. There were too many other things going on in their lives. They both needed something stable and supportive.

"Did you guys go to a craft thing or something today?" Jack asked.

She gave him a bit of a funny look. Jack knew that was a Sunday thing for them. Now she was a little concerned he was losing track of days in his fatigue.

"Ah, no," she said and went back to placing the books he'd begun handing her again. "We went over to the Y. Now that his brace is off, he's pretty keen to try out swimming since he's been missing out on going with the kids at daycare. So we just checked out their facilities and picked up some stuff about their programs and the membership levels.

"We ended up taking the guest passes and going into the open family gym time. It was fun. Attempted basketball. He was pretty funny but not too bad. The ball is a little big for him. He ran his little butt off, though. Kept him quiet this afternoon. They've got a family membership level that I can put two adults on – if you think it's a place you might want to go to. It has lots of programs at it – the one on 14th Street. The catalogue is on the dining room table, if you want to check it out."

Jack was gazing blankly at her like that was way more of an explanation about their day than he wanted.

Olivia wondered if it was sad that it sounded like a pretty good Saturday morning to her. A hell of a lot more exciting than what her Saturdays would've looked like before Benji and Jack arrived in her life. If she'd actually decided not to bury herself in work – she likely would've stayed in bed and read or worked on the crossword in the paper for the morning.

Sleeping in and working on the Times' crossword wasn't exactly a Saturday option anymore. Benji didn't care that it was Saturday. He was still up at the crack of dawn and waiting on her to get up and going – extremely impatiently. But she thought she much preferred the making pancakes and heading out to a park or playground that had become their Saturday morning routine to the aloneness she'd dwelled in for years. There were times it was exhausting – in a different way than the exhaustion of the job. But she was having fun with it even in all the frustrations and challenges that continued to present themselves weekly – if not daily.

Jack pointed at her. "Then what's with the necklace?"

She looked at him nearly as blankly as he'd been looking at her before following his finger and looking down at her chest. She'd completely forgotten that she had the shoelace necklace around her neck. It was threaded with the penne pasta that Benji had coloured with markers before adding each 'bead'.

"Oh," she snorted and held it out a bit in case Jack had any interest in examining his nephew's efforts. "We were practicing his sewing, lacing and threading earlier – which apparently he doesn't know how to do."

Jack nodded in acknowledgement. "Is that one of the retarded things they failed him on?"

She rolled her eyes having to even think about his report card and her discussion with Benji's teacher the night before. "Yeah. But he didn't seem to have much problem to me. Only thing I did for him was tie the knots and watch," she said with a shrug.

"Did you tell his stupid teacher that she's stupid?" he asked.

She gave him a smile for his efforts and the spectacular language skills he was showing. Jack likely would've just learned himself a one or two on his early literacy skills in Benji's pre-kindergarten class.

"Pretty much," she said. "But it's not worth thinking about anymore. He's not going back there."

Jack finally looked at her at that. "What do you mean?"

She shook her head. "It's not the right place for him. I'm going to get him enrolled somewhere else."

Jack seemed to examine her at that with some concern. "Where?"

She shrugged. "I don't know yet, Jack. I'm looking at the options. I'll need to make some calls on Monday and see where there's space available. I'm likely going to need to ask you to help out a bit the next couple weeks until I get him in somewhere. Do you think you can talk to Gecko and see if it might be OK for you to have him over there with you for a bit in the afternoon at least a couple days this week?"

Jack looked at her with the same thoughtfulness that Benji gave her for much smaller requests. But he eventually nodded. "Yeah, OK," he said.

"Thank you," she said a little more quietly.

She wasn't sure she entirely expected Jack to agree to even asking without putting up a bit of a fight and some complaints. But he had moments of surprising her. Now that the entire weight of caring for Benji wasn't on him anymore – a lot of the times he seemed fairly flexible in helping, stepping up and demonstrating that he cared very deeply for his little nephew.

She knew the concept of having to babysit Benji and to deal with it while he was balancing work and his course wasn't likely appealing to him. But he was agreeing to do it. That was part of being a family – taking responsibility for and helping each other. He was doing it – and that was the mature thing to do. That made her proud of him.

She turned back to Jack to find him holding out a pile of books and documents that she'd left sitting on top of one of the empty boxes. She shook her head and nodded back to where they'd been.

"I'm going to take those to my bedroom after," she said. "Go grab another box for us, if that one's empty."

He gave her another funny look and glanced at the pile of book and documents in his hand again before placing them back down.

"That's your idea of bedtime reading?" he said sarcastically as wandered back over to the stack of boxes waiting to be unloaded. "They look like textbooks."

She rubbed her eyebrow as he dragged the last box that was labeled as books over for her.

"Yeah, they are. Sort of," she allowed.

She'd picked up a copy of the police exam preparation textbook and then pulled out her NYPD patrol guide, New York Penal Law, Criminal Procedure Law and other various acts and procedural documentation that it was strongly recommended be review (theoretically – if one was taking the lieutenant's exam they would already be well-versed in most, if not all, of it) before taking the test. The books likely weren't the best bedtime reading – but they probably would put her to sleep. And, really, she thought bedtime – or at least after she got Benji to bed – was going to be about the only time she was going to have to work at reviewing them and going over some of the preparation exercises and practice exam questions.

Olivia was fairly confident in her knowledge of most of the recommended reading materials. Though, she knew that the exam wasn't designed to be a cake-walk and she was concerned with not just passing but managing to earn a high enough score to land one of the limited slots on the promotion list.

She was taking some comfort in the fact that being on the preferred candidate list would at least give her a few points to start before even going into the test. Not to mention her years of service would add some to the score, as would her various honourable mentions, commendations, merits and other awards. She'd also noticed in going over the notice of examination that she could earn up to 2.5 points if she went and did the physical fitness test and the job standards test ahead of the exam.

She wasn't too sure how she'd do at the cardiovascular test, barrier surmount or stair climb. But she thought she'd likely do fine with the physical restrain simulation, pursuit run, victim rescue and trigger pull. And, really, she kind of felt like any extra points were worth going after. It might just give her the little bump she needed. Even if she didn't pass all of it – she could still grab a quarter-point here-and-there from it.

She thought too the parts she failed on would likely be a bit of an eye-opener. She knew her level of physical fitness and endurance weren't exactly at their prime anymore. But maybe this would encourage her to figure out how to get a bit more time at the gym - or at least away from the desk on her lunches now that Benji was in her life. Or maybe that Y membership she was considering for them could really pay off in some family fitness programs and activities – to get them all into an active lifestyle routine.

"Why are you reading textbooks?" Jack asked, handing her some more books.

"Ah," she said and weighed how much she wanted to tell him about it all at that point. But she was trying to encourage him to be honest and open with her about things going on in his life – so he deserved the same from her. Set the example, she thought.

"I'm taking a test at work to try to bump up my rank a bit. The books are the suggested review material."

She felt Jack examining her at that. "So like a promotion?"

"Yeah," she agreed.

He made a face. "They make you take a test to get a promotion?"

She snorted at his reaction. She felt about the same way. Though, she hadn't ever really thought about it that much – that in other professions that paying and studying to get a promotion wasn't exactly how it worked. Years of service, productivity, accomplishments were likely enough. But she'd never been anywhere else to know any other way. It seemed pretty normal to her. Though she still wasn't exactly excited about all the work needed ahead of the exam and the possibility that even then she'd miss the grade to get on the promotion list.

"Yeah, they do," she allowed.

"That sucks," Jack added.

She allowed him a small laugh at that and a thin smile. "Yeah – a little," she agreed.

"So what's your rank now?" he asked.

"Detective – first grade," she said, moving over to the next bookshelf to start her work there.

"So you'll be second grade after the test?"

She shook her head and looked back at him. "Second grade is below first grade. Third grade, second grade, first grade is how detective rank goes. I'm taking the lieutenant's exam."

He examined her a bit more at that – like he was processing and really thinking about it. "So you won't be a detective anymore?" he asked.

"Mmm," she thought about how to best answer that. "Technically – no. If I get the promotion, I'd be a lieutenant. But I'd likely still be assigned as a detective with my squad for the time-being."

Jack thought about that for a couple more seconds. "Then what's the point? A raise?"

She snorted and shook her head at him. "My pay is none of your business."

Jack shrugged and stooped to grab more books. "You're always up in my business – and bugging me about money."

"I am," she agreed. "That's part of my job description now. Line 114 of the Mom Contract."

He looked up at her from rooting through the box but gave no comment.

"There'd be a raise," she allowed at that. Him knowing that much didn't do any harm. He didn't need to know how much she made at the moment, though. Or that her base salary would enter the six-figures if she got this. "But that's not why I'm doing it. It's just … time for a change."

Again he examined her. "How's it a change if you're still going to be a detective there?"

"Mmm," she rubbed at her eyebrow again and stacked a few more of the books, running her finger along the spines. "It puts me in a position to start taking on a more supervisory role with my squad. Make more decisions. Open doors to other opportunities in the NYPD, if I wanted to move into another unit at some point."

"So … like … you wouldn't be chasing after bad guys anymore?"

She snorted at that take on it. It sounded like a comment she'd expect more out of Benji's mouth, and just another reminded of how young Jack actually still was. She allowed him a small smile, though.

"Ah, it means that slowly, over time, I'd be spending less time in the field, yes, and would start transitioning into a more supervisory role. I'd eventually likely be responsible for a unit or squad room."

"Won't that suck, though?" Jack said with some questioning disgust in his voice – like what she was saying sounded like about the most boring thing he could imagine. She thought it was a little funny since he was trying to set himself up to head into a career that would mostly involve him wading through bureaucratic mazes, red tape and politics to get to spend a small percentage of time doing the things he really wanted to do.

"Well, believe it or not Jack, somehow getting shot at, pursuing suspects and going to crime scenes gets a little old."

"Because you're getting old?" he put back to her with a shit-eating grin.

"No," she told him sternly. "Because I've got other things and people to worry about now. So I want a more flexible schedule and to not be putting myself in harm's way on quite as regular basis."

He got quiet at that and looked at her. "So you're giving up the job you always wanted to do for us?" he asked even more quietly and timidly – in an almost hurt voice.

"No, Jack," she said immediately, feeling like she'd made a mistake in how she's chosen her words and explained it to him. "Not at all. Look … a lot has happened in the past 18 months or so of my life. I'd been looking for a change anyways. I'd even been considering leaving the NYPD. I don't feel like I am giving up anything. I want to be able to spend time with you and Benji. I want to ensure that I'm around to support you guys in every way I possibly can. You two have been an incredibly positive change in my life – and having you both in my life is getting me to take some steps and make some changes that I'd been sputtering on. That's positive too. This isn't about giving up things. That's not how I feel about it AT ALL. It's about gaining things – and I've already gained so much from you two. OK?"

He stayed quiet and looked at her for several beats before turning away. Part of her wanted to step forward and offer him a hug – to try to further convey to him how much having him and Benji in her life meant to her and how happy she was that they'd arrived in it, and at a time she so badly needed them. She wasn't seeing losses in her decision-making process. She wasn't feeling like she was having to give up things. She was just having to think about things differently. She was having to think about other people – and a family she never expected to have. Her priorities had shifted and she was making changes and shifts in her life to match that.

But Jack's body language was closed off at the moment and she didn't think he'd accept the hug. She thought he needed some time to process the concept of her promotion and her change of responsibilities on the job – and what it meant for her and what it meant for them.

"When's the exam?" he finally asked quietly.

"Not until March," she said.

"That's a lot of shit to read," he added still sounding a little unsure about his take on the matter.

She nodded. "It is. But most of it I've read before and work with regularly enough. It's more of a review than reading."

"I'm good at studying and exams – if you don't remember how to anymore …" he offered quietly after several silent seconds.

She smiled at him at that. "I may take you up on that," she said. "You can be my quizmaster."

He snorted and glanced up at her – holding out the last of the books from the box.

"Did he leave any of that pasta for dinner or is it all hanging around your neck?" he asked, clearly at the point he was ready for a change of topic.

She shook her head and rolled her eyes. "You are always thinking with your stomach," she informed him.

He shrugged. "You wouldn't like the other body parts I think with."

She sighed. "Jack …" but he just gave her that look that said he knew he was being obnoxious and he was trying to push her buttons. "You know what body part I want you thinking with and using?" she asked and then reached out and lightly tapped a closed fist against the top of his head. "This one."

That earned an eye roll from him. "So what is for dinner?" he asked.

She sighed again and shrugged. "I don't know, Jack. I was going to go and do some groceries after Benji wakes up."

He looked at her with puppy dog eyes at that – clearly conveying that he was starving, or at least he thought he was.

She shook her head again at him. "You haven't eaten since breakfast, have you?" He shrugged at her and again broke eye contact. "Did you even eat breakfast?" Another shrug , which she took as a clear no.

"Why do you do that to yourself, Jack?" she asked. "That's not going to help with your fatigue when you've got such a busy schedule right now – and it's not going to help with your studying or overall health. You're going to make yourself even more rundown."

He glanced at her a little sheepishly. "I just wasn't hungry when I left for work," he said quietly.

"And you didn't think to maybe pack a lunch or some snacks? Or to take a lunch break and go out and get something to eat?" He gave her another shrug. She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow again. "Have you been eating during the week? Using your meal card?"

"Yeah," he said quietly.

She nodded. "OK. But Jack – you need to be eating on the days you aren't on campus too. I don't like talking about this to you over and over again – and I know you don't like it either. I'm not going to be that sympathetic when you get yourself sick from being so rundown when you're not taking care of yourself. I'm providing you with the resources to make sure you're eating. You're working and have the income to supplement that. There aren't any excuses anymore. You have to eat – and be eating regularly and properly."

"Yeah," he agreed quietly, and a little embarrassedly she thought.

She sighed and glanced at her watch. It was getting towards dinnertime at that point – but she didn't have any intention of waking Benji when he finally seemed to be getting some undisrupted sleep.

"Well, there's not too much in the fridge or cupboards right now," she said. "How are you feeling? I can give you a list and some money and you can run over to D'Agostino's and pick up a couple things for us and chose something for dinner."

"OK," he said quietly still.

She knew he was tired and likely would've preferred she just offer up take-out. But even if she had been willing to have a Saturday splurge there was no way she was going to fed him junk – especially when he'd likely pick pizza – when he'd just admitted to not eating all day. She needed to get something with some nutritional value into him.

She nodded towards the foyer. "Go get my purse – and the notepad off the fridge."

He disappeared for several seconds but returned with the items she'd requested. She took her purse but left him with the pad of paper and pen as she looked for her wallet. She wasn't sure how much cash she actually had.

"A bunch of bananas, couple oranges and some grapes," she recited to him, as she looked. "Orange juice, milk, cottage cheese, hummus, pitas, head of broccoli, some mushrooms, a zucchini, a bin of mixed greens. A couple boneless, skinless chicken breasts, a pack of ground beef for tomorrow … and then whatever meat you want for tonight. Pork chops?" she suggested. "Don't bring home anything from the freezer section for dinner," she said in added warning.

She held out $60 to him. She thought that should likely cover it - barely.

"Do you have any cash or your bank card with you?" she asked. He allowed a small nod. "If it's more than that – just pay for it, please, and I'll give you the difference tomorrow, OK?"

"Yeah," he allowed. "Can I get a box of Triscuits and a block of cheese too?"

"Yes," she nodded. "And – you can pick one," she stressed holding up her finger at him to make sure he knew she was serious, "treat. Either a dessert for tonight or a munchie for if you guys are watching a movie tonight or tomorrow afternoon. Cookies, ice cream, a chocolate bar or M&M's, a bag of chips or popcorn, something from the bakery. But I only want to see one of those things coming in here, Jack. And it's to share, not to wolf down and not to be touched until have you've eaten some real food at dinner."

"Yeah, I get it," he mumbled at her and avoided her eyes again.

"OK," she nodded and nudged his shoulder. "Then get going. The grocery bags are in the front closet. Cart's there too – if you think it's going to be more than a couple bags. I think you should be OK, though."

He started trudging back towards the front of the apartment with his list and the cash in his hand – so she turned around to examine the remaining boxes and decide which one to tackle next. She was thinking the one labeled as containing things from her little desk and workspace. That should be quick enough to unload.

"Olivia?" she heard Jack ask a little timidly as she was examining the boxes.

She turned back to him and gave him a small smile – though with a touch of her own sadness. Clearly he wasn't yet ready to try Mom, or even Liv, on for size just yet. Or he just wasn't sure they were the names or titles he wanted for her.

"You can call me J.P., if you want?" he offered.

She allowed him a more sincere smile at that – though she still somehow felt a little sadness at the offer. She wasn't entirely sure why. Maybe because it was the name his father had christened him with. Maybe because he was able to offer out that option to her but he was still struggling so much to say what he was thinking and feeling.

"I don't know," she allowed. "I think you're always going to be My Boy Jack."

He examined her for a moment and she saw the flash of question and hurt across his face before he nodded and moved to turn.

"It's Kipling," she filled in for him. "It's a poem. You should read it sometime."

He gave another nod. "OK," he said quietly and this time did turn.

She sighed and watched his back for a beat. "Jack," she called at him and he glanced over his shoulder. "I love you," she told him.

She did – and she knew they were at the point that he needed to hear it. And, it was going to be something he was likely going to need to hear and re-hear and have re-affirmed over and over again for him to eventually really hear it and believe it – and to understand he was allowed to feel whatever he was feeling too. She could only hope he'd reach the point where he'd be able to verbalize some of it in a way that didn't manifest itself in one of his fits of anger or overwhelming sadness and confusion that brought him to watery eyes and tears. That he'd eventually accept that he didn't need to hide it and bury it and deny it – or pretend that it just wasn't happening and wasn't there.

But at the moment she saw the flash of emotion in his eyes and he broke the eye contact yet again.

"OK," was all he allowed at a near whisper and then turned and disappeared into the foyer – hidden from her view while she heard him again clatter about until the door opened and then shut behind him.


	127. Chapter 127

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Again," Benji demanded and flopped back against her knees in giggles barely more than five seconds after she'd lowered him to the ground to give her legs a break from propping him up in the air.

That was the danger with Benji. After he found something he decided he liked – there was no stopping him wanting to do it over and over and over again. And her initial move while being silly with him on the floor – to lift his little body in flight, propped up on her knees while she was laying on her back where they'd been playing – had been such a hit that he wasn't giving her much of a chance to recover from each in-flight session.

She was telling herself it was exercise. She wondered how many other parents ended up using their children as free weights and for resistance training. He might as well be cardiovascular and strength training some days too. A lot of days interacting with a preschooler seemed to target most of the major muscle groups over the course of the day. It was no wonder she was so tired and sore by the time she got him to bed some nights. She wasn't used to this type of activity.

Still, she gave him a smile and once again grabbed a hold of his little hands and then lifted her knees – pushing his weight up above her and keeping a grip on his hands and out stretched arms as he teetered and balanced on his belly above her.

"Benj is, Benj is, Benji is Superman and he can do anything," she teased him in sing-song, tilting her knees just slightly side-to-side to make his flight a bit more interesting.

"What superman?" Benji asked as he teetered and balanced above her. She couldn't decide if it was working his core and balance more – or hers.

"He's a super hero," she told him.

"Hero? Like Transformers and firefighters?"

She snorted and looked up at him with a smile. Everything came back to Transformers – always.

"Sort of," she agreed. "But he's a super hero with super powers. He's faster than a speeding bullet." She moved her one index finger from his grip and pointed it at the ceiling and made a 'pow' sound.

"More powerful than a locomotive," she added and made some chugging cho-cho sounds, pumping both of their arms in training-engine motions - inducing some more giggles from Benji.

"And able to leap over a building in a single bound," she told him, bouncing her knees under him to earn even more laughter.

"It's bird! It's a plane! It's Super Benj!" she said and smiled at him, navigating his arms in flight a bit more before bouncing his chest up more and quickly moving her arms to catch under his armpits and then holding him at her full arm's length before dropping her legs back to the ground and slowly lowering him onto her chest and into a hug. He wasn't much up for it at the moment - and was in a fit of giggles and squirms on top of her from their little game.

Sometimes – more than sometimes – she didn't know where the stuff she was coming up with to entertain him was coming from. Sometimes she felt beyond ridiculous saying it or doing it. But the little boy's giggles and smiles usually made that self-consciousness fade quickly. Usually there was no one looking besides Benji – and sometimes Jack – anyways. And, really, she was becoming less and less concerned about anyone looking when they were out in public either. Not when it was for her Little Fox. Not when it made him laugh or smile – he needed that, he deserved it. And, every time he laughed or smiled – it ended up being contagious and she usually caught it. So the minor moment of embarrassment was worth it. Anyone who had a child would understand, she knew; just like she was understanding it more and more each day.

You did stupid, silly, ridiculous things for your kids – and then some. You did whatever it took. Benji was hers now. So she just did it. She didn't think about it. She didn't need paperwork to feel it. She just needed the paperwork to get the rest of the world and society and the law to accept it.

"You are a monkey," she told him, as he continued to squirm.

He looked up at her excitedly at that. "JUMPING ON THE BED!" he nearly yelled at her and bounced his weight on her belly, like she might as well have been a trampoline.

She definitely thought that Benji didn't have any concept of her being a woman – or at least not a piece of playground equipment. From the way he squirmed around and manhandled and roughhoused with her – sometimes she felt more like he thought they were a troop of fox kits rambunctiously tousling around in the den. But he was a boy – and as much as she thought she knew boys, or at least men – spending day-in and day-out with a little one and watching him play and learn and grow and think and react was teaching her that in some ways, she didn't know nearly as much as she thought. Boys were definitely a different breed – and different than she might've expected too.

She was just lucky she didn't bruise easily. But again she offered him a smile – knowing that they'd shifted from one game to the next in his short attention span but his love of repeated activities.

"Five," she told him and held up her hand to show him, Benji matching it with his own and calling out 'FIVE' too. "Little monkeys jumping on the bed," she recited to him in a loose sing-long rhyme – while he again bounced on her like she was a mattress. "One fell off and bumped his head," she added and tapped the top of his head so lightly with her fist, him reaching out to repeat the movement on her – gently, though that was something she'd had to tell him and repeat to him in their previous attempts at the rhyme. "Mommy called the doctor," she told him, moving her hand up to her ear and mouth – holding out her thumb and pinky finger to make the shape of the phone. "And the doctor said," she added and then held her hand over to his ear and mouth, still in the shape of the phone.

"NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED!" Benji screamed about as loud as possible into her fake phone and then looked at her proudly.

She had to try not to laugh at his enthusiasm and how proud he looked of himself. He was ridiculous. It took all she could muster to keep from shaking her head at him. Instead she nodded.

"Four," she said and held up four fingers for him this time – the little boy again matching the gesture. And, they worked their way down the rhyme, each time, Benji yelling out "NO MORE MONKEYS JUMPING ON THE BED!"

As they reached the end, Olivia began the last verse. "No little monkeys jumping on the bed," she told her Little Fox and shook her head sadly. He gave her a fake pout – that might not have been that fake, considering the little sing-song was about to come to an end. "None to fall off and bump their heads. But Mommy called the doctor and the doctor said …"

"NO MORE …" Benji started but she shook her head at him and then poked him in the ribs until he giggled.

"Put those monkeys straight to bed!" she filled in for him and then wrapped her arms around him in a hug until he settled a bit from his fit of giggles.

"What you say, Benj," she asked as he started to still – she knew he knew it was coming, "time to get ready for bed?"

But he shook his head and snuggled against her.

"Mmm? No?" she said and rubbed at his back a bit – preparing to coax him more into their nightly routine after he settled into the realization that playtime was definitely over.

"You think you're going to be able to be my brave boy tomorrow and be really good for Zara's grandma?" she asked after he settled on her quietly – like his quiet might earn him the privilege of not having to go to bed quite yet. Maybe he was right. But he didn't given her an answer.

Benji had survived his first day out of nursery school and seemed to have fun playing with Zara and her grandma. It sounded like there'd been some little kid bickering back-and-forth between the two of them – but Nick's mom had just brushed it off. She'd even said Benji had been a 'pleasure', which was something Olivia wasn't used to hearing about her little boy from the caretakers at the nursery school.

It had gone well enough, though, that Cesaria had offered to watch him for the rest of the week. But Nick understandably didn't intend to pull his daughter out of kindergarten for the whole week. She'd appreciated enough that he'd provided her with a babysitting option and that he'd taken Zara out of school for the day to ease Benji into the change when her Little Fox struggled with change so much.

She knew though Benji would be hesitant about going back to Nick's place when he was going to be on his own – and really, it was just a short-term solution anyways. But in the calls Olivia had made that day – things weren't looking good in terms of her options. Finding a space now full-on in the middle of an academic year was going to be difficult – not to mention, she just wasn't finding too many places that she thought might be suitable for her little boy, her schedule and her price range. She was almost afraid she might end up having to go groveling back to where she had him – but that just wasn't an option on so many levels.

"Because, then you and Abuelita can walk Zara to school and then she'll take you back to the house and you guys can play and make lunch together. You'll get to play with all Zara's Lego …"

"It pink and pup-el," Benji informed her quietly and she gave him a little nod at that.

He'd been so excited that Zara had Lego and that he got to play with it during the day. He was clearly a big enough boy to play with Lego and didn't need to wait until five, he'd informed her several times. But in his repeated telling of the highlight of his day, his disgust that the little girl's block set was dominated by purple and pink had begun to come out.

"Peedg's Lego not pink and pup-el," he added.

She snorted and gave him a smile, rubbing his back. "Well, Benj, Santa brought Peedg a Lego set that was a building – so no, it wasn't pink and purple. It was mostly grey bricks, wasn't it?" She got a little nod from him to that. "But Zara's daddy bought her a Lego set that's a dollhouse – so it has some pink and purple in it."

He remained quiet, though. "Do you want to play with her Lego more?" Olivia tried. She really hoped that it might be a selling point to having to spend part of the day with Nick's mom alone. "Because if you're a brave boy with Abuelita, you'll get to play with Lego for part of the day at their house. And then when Zara gets home from school – you two can play together for a while, and then I'll be done work and I'll come and get you."

"I go to work too," he informed her as a matter-of-fact.

She sighed. Part of her wished she did have a job where she could get away with having him at the office in a situation like this. That her little boy could be close to her. That she could see him and play with him on her breaks – when she got them. That she'd have more than just his picture to look at to get that grounding as she tried to push through a bad day or bad interrogation or bad case. But that just wasn't realistic. She couldn't have her little boy loitering around a police station – especially the Special Victims Unit squad room. It was inappropriate – if not outright dangerous – in some many ways. Having him in-and-out in some situations was one thing – having him there for the day was another. She wished it was different – easier. It created that little stirring that maybe she shouldn't be looking at a promotion. Maybe what she should really be looking at what a job and office situation that would be a bit more family-friendly while she spent the next chapter of her life being a single mom to a little boy.

"No, sweetheart, you can't come to work with me," was all she told him though.

"Why?"

She sighed again. "Because I need to do my job, sweetheart. So I won't have any time to play with you – and it'd be very boring for you."

"I play in den," he told her. She knew he meant he'd sit under her desk. That would really only fly for so long. As much as she would like it to be – it just wasn't a viable option, at all.

"No, sweetie," she said. "You need to spend the day with Abuelita tomorrow – and you'll get to play with Zara for part of the day. And, Little Fox, if you can do this for Mommy – if you can be so brave and so good and so co-operative and so polite – with Abuelita and Zara this week, then this weekend we'll do something. A super, special surprise."

"What kinda surprise?" Benji asked after examining her with skeptical eyes and his deep-thought pucker for several seconds.

She could tell he wasn't fully buying it. Even an all out bribe (which she felt like a crappy parent even offering but she was about ready to put anything out there just to get them through the week relatively unscathed) didn't seem like it was going to win his co-operation for at least four more days of tear-free mornings and no phone calls at work.

"A super, special surprise," Olivia tried again – vaguely.

The truth was she didn't know what the 'super special surprise' would be. It'd really depend. It'd depend on how she felt by the weekend and how Benji was holding up – and just his general temperament by the time it rolled around. She was expecting the worse – which meant clingy and whiney and probably not a joy to have out around town or operating anywhere outside of his routine. It'd depend too on if Jack followed through on his advance notification that he wasn't spending the weekend with them because he wanted time to work on his course's essay.

Olivia thought him taking the weekend to work on the essay was likely a good course of action. He never seemed to do much schoolwork while he was around the apartment. Normally, she'd promote him taking some time away from work and school and tell him to take some time to just be a kid – relax, catch up on sleep, do things he enjoys. (Though, she'd really prefer that some of that 'just being a kid' time was spent away from the apartment with friends and skaters and girlfriends and at parties and … normal university student antics and not the shy introvert that she seemed to be getting to know beneath the snarky, smart-assed teen that barked at her in the apartment each weekend.) But with the course workload, she was pretty supportive of him taking the time to focus on it and propel that grade as high as possible. Especially, considering that the past weekend – despite how tired he clearly was – he'd planted himself in front of Halo on Saturday night and played until Olivia had gone to bed around 11 p.m. and she'd still heard the television going when she got up to use the bathroom around four.

Jack then hadn't pulled himself out of bed until well after her and Benji had gotten back from circle time at the library. It wasn't to get to spend part of the day with them, though. It was just to complain about how loud they were being. If they weren't being 'loud', she was sure he likely would've slept away most of the day. She really didn't think it was the most productive use of his free hours on the weekend by any means.

Still, she was surprised that Jack wasn't planning on at least gracing them with his presence. She actually wouldn't be surprised if by the end of the week he changed his mind or he just showed up on Sunday afternoon. Jack missing out on Sunday dinner – which somehow had developed in to the night that she basically made whatever the teen requested – just didn't seem like it was going to happen.

Jack seemed to take great glee in putting in his order for down-home food that she likely rarely would've considered ever making before. But now meatloaf and mashed potatoes, pot roast and gravy and spaghetti and meatballs were becoming regular Sunday fare. Not on her list of favourites – but Jack would consistently eat them like he hadn't seen food for the week. And, it least it meant she could pack up the leftovers for him to take back to the dorms and know that he'd have something there to eat during the week (though it did look like he was using the credit on his meal card too. So she didn't know why he seemed so starving all the time. She was starting to wonder if the kid needed to be tested for worms.).

"Super special?" Benji pressed.

She just nodded. "Super, special. I can't tell you more or else it wouldn't be a surprise. But if you're really good and really brave for the rest of the week – there will be a fun, super, special surprise on the weekend," she tried again.

Benji just lay on top of her offering not response. She really didn't think he was buying it. She didn't even get the impression he was contemplating the possibilities – which for Benji likely involved M&M's or Transformers or getting to pretend skateboard at the playground.

Instead, he just started manhandling her face in his carefully examination of her that he seemed to conduct near daily. She sometimes wondered what exactly he was looking for or searching for. But as long as he was being gentle, she usually just endured the pushing, pressing and tugging manipulation he put her cheeks, forehead and hair through.

He seemed like he was fascinated with the fact she had long hair at times – as he'd pick up strands of it and examined it before dropping it back down or as he'd rearrange pieces of it on her head in some sort of strange hairdo that he seemed to think was much more suitable than it being neatly brushed or pulled back from her face.

Olivia supposed he may not have seen much long hair before. In most of the pictures of his mother, it looked like her hair had been chopped short – almost by her own hands or someone clearly inebriated. She couldn't imagine that his great-grandma's hair would've been kept long either if she wasn't able to care for herself anymore. She couldn't see anyone in the farmhouse having had the time or consideration to deal with an old woman's hair care.

And, really, Olivia, could see why many women switched to shorter hair after the arrival of a child in their lives. Between the decrease in time to do anything with her hair (really even getting the chance to blow dry it some days seemed to be asking a little much) and the grabbing and tugging that it endured at the little boy's hands – there'd been some moments where she'd seriously considered chopping it off again too. She just didn't think she could pull off a shorter hairstyle in her 40s in quite the same way she had in her 30s. So instead she just tried to look at the growing disaster on her head as a badge of parenthood - and that time Benji spent playing with it as a quiet bonding moment that he clearly needed.

"What dat?" he asked out of nowhere, apparently distracted from her hair as an index finger pressed firmly into her neck.

She flinched a bit at the pressure. He wasn't being anything that resembled gentle – so she reached up and moved his hand away.

"That hurts, Benji," she told him and met his eyes so he knew she was serious.

His eyes fell a bit at it. It was clear he hadn't meant to hurt her. Sometimes he just didn't seem to have much of a concept of gently yet.

"Sew-ee," he offered.

"You need to be gentle," she told him and shook his finger in her hand, giving him a thin smile in an attempt to reverse his frown. "What's what?" she then asked and let go of his hand.

He considered her a moment but then put his finger back against her neck more gently this time. So she traced her own fingers up to where he was pointing and realized he'd spotted her small scar from the slash to the neck she'd endured while working the Gitano case years ago.

"It's a scar," she told him and took his hand to gently rub his fingertip over it so he could feel the small ridge and change in the skin there.

"Scar?" he asked, pulling himself up her body a bit and looking at it with a bit more interest.

"It's a boo-boo that left a mark after it got better," she offered.

Benji met her eyes again at that. "Boo-boo?" he asked with some concern.

She allowed a small nod and ran her hand down the short buzzed hair on the back of his head. "A boo-boo from a long time ago. It just left a little mark."

Benji examined her for a moment his eyes filling with concern and curiosity but then he just bent forward and placed a soppy kiss on the little mark before looking at her proudly.

"All better," he declared for her.

She let out a little snort and smiled a bit wider at him. She reached and grabbed for his little arm and pulled his wrist to her own lips – putting a small kiss on his own scar from his surgery.

"You have a boo-boo scar from your surgery too," she told him after putting her lips on it and turned it for him to look at.

Little bodies healed fast. Already it was little more than a thin, pink line running down the side of his wrist. It was reaching the point that it was hardly noticeable and she knew in a year or two it'd likely all but disappeared. As it was, Benji had hardly noticed it. Though he looked at it with a bit more fascination now in their conversation.

He puckered a bit as he seemed to weigh the scar's appearance in his head – gazing at the couple inch mark and tracing it with a finger on his opposite hand.

"Mama had boo-boo scars on her wrist and arms too," he said quietly after a while. "I like Mama?"

Olivia stopped at that and looked at him – her heart sinking even more as Benji's observation set in.

In a way it didn't surprise her that the little boy's mother would be a cutter – or that she had outright suicide attempts. Not after seeing pictures of the girl who looked so sullen and depressed. Not after hearing little comments that Jack made. Not after hearing she struggled with drugs and alcohol. Not after knowing that the girl had lost … or taken … her own life at the hands of drugs. But it still pained her.

Olivia thought it may pain her more that most of the nitty-gritty details she was getting about the family dynamic that her boys had endured was having to come from the little off-hand comments and observations of a four-year-old – who didn't really understand what he'd been seeing or interacting with. A child with who she had to weigh his age and imagination and perception and memory creation against reality. But she still knew Benji had seen and understood enough that he knew what was going on was wrong and he didn't like it. That much was clear.

Olivia wished that Jack would talk to her about some of it. That he'd tell her what the hell had been going on in that house since his father died. That he'd give her a better perspective about what Benji had grown up with. That he'd tell her so she could help both of them better – so she could better address their needs and give them the support and guidance to try to cope with some of that emotional trauma.

She knew Jack probably didn't want to think about it. That he likely didn't want to talk about it – especially with her. But none of what had gone on was just going to go away if he buried it and ignored it. She actually thought his refusal to begin dealing with some of it was contributing severely to his current turmoil and stagnation.

She hated to think that Jack – and Jay – had been dealing with the emotional drain and abuse of having a suicidal family member holding them all captive in a walking-on-egg-shells existence of wondering if this would be the day and if they'd done enough to try to help. It's hard to help someone who didn't want to – or wasn't ready – to be helped, though. Olivia knew that. Too well. She wasn't sure if dealing with a suicidal family member or one that liked to self-inflict that kind of pain on themselves would be worse. In some ways the eventual outcome would still be the same.

Olivia really wanted to know more too about what had gone on with Jack and his uncle. She didn't buy that he just yelled at them. She imagined Benji's observation that Greg sometimes pushed his uncle and his mother likely meant that the man was actually hitting them. She only had to see how Jack avoided eye contact with her – especially when they were having more serious conversations, how his body language closed in on itself protectively when he thought he was getting in trouble – to know that Jack didn't just get firm talking-tos from his uncle after his father was gone. She worried about him so much – and this little comment from Benji made her worry and ache for them both even more.

She pulled Benji tight against her in a hug and placed a kiss on the top of his head. "No, Little Fox, you aren't going to get more scars like your Mama," she assured him.

He lay quietly against her again and she almost felt like there was a sadness there – like he knew that the scars on his mother's arms had been bad or wrong and not just boo-boos.

"Peedg have scars?" he asked.

She allowed a small smile into his hair and rubbed at his back. "I bet Peedg has lots of really cool skateboarding scars," she offered.

"My scar like Peedg? It a cool skate scar?"

She smiled a little wider at that. "Your scar is like Peedg's," she agreed. She knew Benji would love that.

"And Peedg really good, right?" he asked again.

She laughed softly and put another kiss into his hair. "I don't know, Little Fox. Is he really good?"

Benji nodded against her. "Becuz he knows lots of tricks and he skate street and vert."

"Mmm," she allowed. She wasn't sure she could offer much more of a response than that to the comment.

"When I skate, Mommy Fox?" Benji asked. "Becuz my arm fix now."

She nodded. "It is. But I think we'll have to wait until Peedg is less busy with school. Because we'd need to go indoors since it's winter, right?"

"Then it smooth like butter," Benji informed her – repeating something he'd clearly heard from his uncle.

She smiled against him again. "Apparently."

"Mommy, Peedg say Popa Jay send us here – not Mommy Fox asking for Little Fox," he told her almost out of nowhere. But it was clearly something he'd been thinking about for him to bring up.

She considered the little boy for a moment and thought about how to respond to that. She rubbed at her eyebrow as she did try to collect her thoughts. She wanted to make sure he navigated this territory properly.

Sometimes the things that came out of Jack's mouth got put up on a pedestal by Benji – repeated over and over and over again and held as absolute fact. There were moments it was difficult to contend with and had prompted more than a couple conversations with Jack about him being careful what he said around the little boy – because it did get heard and repeated. Olivia didn't think the teen quite realized the extent to which his little nephew tried to mirror him.

"Well, I do think your Popa Jay did help Jack decide to come here," she offered.

"But Pops dead," Benji told her – reverting back to another one of his favourite narratives that he liked to spit out there and have re-affirmed for him.

"He is dead," she agreed. "But I think Jack still likes to talk to him sometimes."

"How?"

She sighed and shook her head a bit. "Just like talking to the night sky or to God, Little Fox," she said. "You pray and remember people even after they are dead. You can still talk to them."

"So Pops don't really talk to him?"

She shook her head. "No, Popa Jay doesn't really talk to him. But sometimes Jack talking to him helps him remember things about him and to think of things his dad might've told him to do or he would've liked."

"Like come here?" Benji asked.

She nodded. "Yes, like coming here."

"Becuz you friends with Pops?" he asked – even though he already knew the answer.

Olivia knew that Benji didn't completely understand the concept of how or when she knew his grandfather. But somehow he seemed to find comfort in it. It was part of the narrative that he wanted told to him about why he was there. It was part of their story.

She thought part of the reason the little boy wanted to hear it repeated was because it was clear Jack did too. Even though it was unspoken, she knew it was something Jack found comfort in too. She knew if she hadn't known Jay Lewis half a lifetime ago, if he hadn't kept some picture from their college days and told stories to his son, that Jack wouldn't have shown up in her life and neither of the boys would be in her home right now. She'd still be alone. So – she thought she found a lot of comfort in it too. She thought Jack was right on some level – Jay had sent the boys to her. It was a gift she'd never get to thank him for – but it was one she knew she'd spend the rest of her life being grateful for.

"Because I was friends with your grandpa," she agreed.

Benji nodded against her and lay still again. She was reflecting a little bit on their conversation too and preparing to tell him it really now was time to get ready for bed when he spouted out his next question.

"Mommy – how come you didn't ask for Peedg to be your Little Fox?"

She looked down at him again where he was flicking at one of the buttons on her shirt with his little fingers. She let out a deep breath. The more she got to know Jack – the more she wished she had had a chance to be around and know him while he was a little boy.

Olivia would've liked to see him when he was happier. She would've liked to have tried to make some of what he'd been through easier for him. She would've liked him to not have felt so alone and abandoned by women in his life. She would've liked for him to have someone who resembled a mother figure. She would've liked to see the sillies and the smiles that she saw in Benji painted on his face rather than the dark cloud that hung over him 90 per cent of the time.

"Well … I wasn't asking for a Little Fox yet when Peedg was a little boy," she offered.

"But he do not have a Mommy Fox," Benji told her and looked up at her.

She gave him a sad smile. "No, sweetheart. Jack grew up without a mommy. I know."

"But you didn't want to be Peedg's Mommy Fox?"

She shook her head. "I do want to be Peedg's Mommy Fox too. But Benji – I just didn't know I needed a little fox yet. So I think maybe when I started asking for my Little Fox the night sky knew that you should be my Little Fox because then Peedg could be with us too. Because that makes our den even better, right?"

He snuggled into her at that – she hoped indicating it was an acceptable answer.

"But Peedg not Little Fox, right?" he asked after another short pause.

She smiled and rubbed at his back. "No, Benji, sweetheart, you're my Little Fox and always will be."

"Then what Peedg?"

She let out a small snort and looked at him. "Growling Fox," she told him.

"Gow-ing Fox?"

She nodded. "Growling Fox."

"So we one, two, three foxes," he told her.

She smiled some more and nodded. "Sounds like. Like the three bears. Just right."

Not exactly conventional. They were working at figuring out how to take modern family to a new level. But it was slowly working. Slowly getting there. They were functional. It felt just right to her – about the most right she'd felt in a long time.


	128. Chapter 128

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Hey. Happy New Year," a raspy voice said to her.

She didn't even need to glance up from her paperwork at the greeting and the clatter of the chair at the vacant desk across from hers to know that Cassidy had planted himself there.

She'd watched him come into the squad room about 40 minutes ago. He'd glanced at her as he walked by. But she'd been on the phone and they hadn't exchanged words. That was likely best. She wasn't sure she wanted to exchange words with him now either.

What Olivia had really seen as Brian had walked through the squad to Cragen's office had been the look on Nick's face. Or rather the look in his eyes as he drilled them like daggers into Cassidy's back.

Olivia knew that Cassidy's efforts to return to the squad had likely made it back to Amaro. But she certainly hadn't been the one to tell him. She'd left that up to Rollins or Munch – or the rumour mill. Whatever he had or hadn't heard, though, he'd not yet said anything to her about it. So she'd just left it too. She didn't really want to get into it with Amaro. She knew what his feelings were about Cassidy. He'd been one of the key pieces in the fall-out of their partnership. It had taken them long enough to work through some of that and to get back to where they were now.

Olivia liked where her and Amaro were at the moment. Not only had they settled into a flow that saw them getting the job done, closing cases and playing off each other fairly well out in the field and in the interview room – they seemed to have found a common ground in having things to talk about when they needed a distraction from the caseload too.

They were dealing with very different situations. But they both had lawyers and custody battles and family court crap going on. They both had little kids – and they were both trying to do it alone. She appreciated the quiet, understated support that her partner was giving in her efforts to become Benji's mom. He was giving her space and not hounding her about it. But when she asked for something – be it advice or free babysitting from his mom – he was stepping up to provide it without making a big deal about it. It was such a 180 from what she'd experienced with Elliot – what she was even experiencing with her former partner now at an extreme arm's length.

Olivia didn't even want to think about all the little unsolicited inputs he'd be giving her if they were still partners. The patronizing looks and the holier-than-thou take on parenting. She was fairly sure at this point that even if Elliot was respecting her right to live her life as she pleased – he'd still be prodding and pushing her in the direction that he thought were more acceptable.

Nick, though, hadn't said anything that gave her any indication that he approved or disapproved of what she was doing. She really didn't have a sense either way. But she hoped based on the small offerings of help he was giving – he at least got where she was coming from. He was being supportive in his own way. And it was really nice to have another single parent in the squad room with a kid near Benji's age to talk to and vent at at times. She was keeping it to a minimum. She didn't want all her personal life – or the life of her boys – hanging out there as public knowledge to feed the rumour mill even more than it already was. But she still appreciated that the option was there with Nick.

Olivia didn't get the sense Amaro was repeating anything she said to him while they chatted in the squad car or in-transit or while canvassing. He didn't want his personal shit hanging out there in front of everyone either. It didn't mean that he didn't occasionally want to complain about being up all night with Zara or the way his mother could take-over and ride him about the little girl and his parenting sometimes or his latest legal interactions or arguments with Maria. Though, with Nick – often silence was a better indicator of where things were at and how bad they were. If he was complaining – at least he was coping. It was when he shut up and got that dark, sullen look and hunched shoulders as he chugged yet another energy drink that she knew things weren't going well that day or that week on the home front.

But with the rapport they'd managed to establish – it made her a little sad that Cragen was talking about separating them. That the Captain didn't think having two single parents partnered together was the best move for the squad in the long-run.

Olivia understood where the Captain was coming from – but she wasn't sure she entirely agreed. She thought her and Nick were working really well together at the moment and she really wasn't sure who else in the squad she'd manage that with right now. Not to mention – she didn't think Fin and Rollins would be too impressed about being split up either. Or that Munch was interested in coming back onto day shifts at the moment even if it meant getting partnered back up with someone and seeing daylight.

Olivia wasn't sure if the partnership split was only on the table if Cassidy came back – or it was an overall ruling. Cragen hadn't said anything more about it since their talk. But things had been rather hectic since Christmas. It felt like they were just getting slammed with one case after another and they definitely had some pretty high profile ones on the roster at the moment too. It likely wasn't the best time to be mixing things up. At least not from her perspective.

She wasn't sure the Captain had even mentioned the possible mix up – which seemed even more possible if Cassidy did end up coming back – to Nick. But she wasn't going to be the one to drop that tidbit on her partner either. Part of her felt he had the right to know it was being considered. Still, she didn't want to bring that chaos into their dynamic – especially if it didn't end up happening. Nick's anger could be a little much to deal with at times. They didn't need to contend with that in addition to the current caseload and what they both had going on at home at the moment.

Olivia didn't think Cragen fully appreciated how much Cassidy's appearance in their unit might fuck up the squad. He hadn't been around to see the fall out of the escort mixed up and cover up. The Captain didn't see what his absence, Cassidy's involvement, the accusations flung at Nick had done to all of them. It had been a complete cluster-fuck – and they were all still working at recovering from it. Adding another piece of the original puzzle to their still fragile squad seemed like it was just asking for trouble. She knew that Fin, Munch and Rollins would be OK with it if Cassidy did appear in SVU. But Nick definitely wouldn't – and when Nick was angry, it definitely had implications for how everyone did their work.

Nick didn't just do angry. He did paranoid. It was different than Elliot's anger management issues and she hadn't quite figured out how to deal with Nick's yet. She usually just told him to calm down or outright ignored it. She ended up having to listen to some juvenile obnoxiousness and snarky little comments in the process, though.

"How's the Big Man?" Cassidy asked when she hadn't returned his greeting - or even looked at him.

"He means Bingo," Munch said and placed a hand on her shoulder as he walked by.

She glanced up at John and offered him a small smile at that. He'd arrived into work early that afternoon and that had attracted enough attention. Making it even more conspicuous about what was going on in the Captain's office had been him coming out and calling Munch into his meeting with Cassidy. But it was clear that the meeting was likely the reason why John was in early.

Olivia wasn't sure how much to read into that. But she knew from the get-go that Munch had been a key-player in Cassidy's efforts to return to SVU. It made her suspect that they were likely moving closer to that announcement – and the mix-up and chaos it would likely cause in their squad. She really wasn't sure she had the energy to deal with the fall-out of it all. She just wanted work to be as simple as possible until she got all the guardianship petitions through the court and until she got her boys settled into their home life a bit more. Having Cassidy around at work and everyone else all pissed off about their changing partnerships and trying to figure out their jive with a new day-in day-out partner wasn't going to do that for her.

"Oh way to butter her up for me Johnny," Cassidy said a little sarcastically and nodded at the older detective.

"Not Bingo? Casper then, right?" John threw back over his shoulder as he wandered back over to his desk and retrieved his coffee cup.

Apparently he was there until his shift started. It's not like there wasn't a shortage of work. There never was. It was a never-ending flow of trash and misery that paraded through their squad and inboxes. When it wasn't victims or perps they were having to look at – it was the paperwork for it all.

Olivia glanced at Cassidy and gave him a bit of a glare.

"Hey, you don't have to look at me like that," he said with a touch of hurt. "I just wanted to say hi."

She could almost feel Nick boring his eyes into him – not to mention the rest of the squad listening to the conversation. She hadn't made any comments to anyone to indicate that her and Cassidy had had any sort of interactions outside of the hospital or precinct. Thankfully Alex hadn't dropped that little tidbit in any post-Christmas chit-chat either. But Olivia definitely didn't think Nick knowing that her and Cassidy might be sort of establishing something that resembled an outside-work friendship was the best thing for their partnership – whether Brian came back or not. Not with how Nick felt about Cassidy and not with what he held against Cassidy.

And, really, Olivia didn't much feel like talking about it with anyone. She didn't even want to think about it. She was still more than a little upset with Cassidy about how he'd ended her Christmas Day with his 'is there more' press.

There wasn't more. There couldn't be more. She wasn't even sure if they could be outside-work friends. It was all too complicated. And, again, she didn't have a lot of room for complicated right now. Things were complicated enough. She needed simple and stable from anyone that wasn't Benji or Jack. Brian Cassidy didn't bring simple and stable to the table.

"Hi," she said curtly and turned back to her paperwork.

She could feel Cassidy watching the top of her now – in additional to Nick watching Cassidy, watching her. The guy always had to make everything fucking awkward. Nothing could be easy when Brian was involved in seemed.

He hunched forward more onto the desk and tapped at it with an index finger several times.

"Look – I kinda want to talk to you," he said. "Got a sec?"

She just shook her head. "Nope. I need to get this done – so I can get out of here on time."

Leaving Benji with Nick's mom for hours extra just wasn't an option. She was pushing it with the favour she was asking of the two of them as it was. She was doing her utmost to make sure she was getting out of the precinct on time. Even though couple extra hours at the end of the day weren't an option at the moment.

She didn't want to push things with Benji either. She knew he was teetering on a thin line. She was asking a lot of the little boy in being alone with Nick's mom for the day. It was a big change in his little unstable life. Olivia had no intention of leaving him there a moment extra than what was necessary. It didn't matter if Nick was putting in extra hours that night. That was between him and his mom. This was about her and her little boy.

Cassidy audibly sighed at her response, though. "OK. I know you hate the rumour mill but …"

She cut him off. "Yet you're sitting here feeding it," she snapped at him.

Her head shot up too and she finally caught his eyes. Now she was the one drilling into him. He just didn't know when to drop it. When to give up. She just wanted him to get it through his head and stop making it so hard on the both of them.

Brian just glared back at her, though. "So get up and come talk to me for two minutes," he said almost syllable by syllable to her with a clear edge of annoyance to his voice.

Olivia really didn't think he had any right to be annoyed. But she didn't like all the eyes and ears in the squad room on them at the moment. It wasn't that she thought that them leaving the room wasn't going to still feed the rumour mill. But at least they wouldn't verbally being adding to it. She hoped Cassidy's appearance, his beeline for Cragen's office, the fact he'd be in there for nearly an hour and that Munch had joined them – at a time when he wasn't technically scheduled – would supersede any buzz about her chatting to the other detective. So she rose from her desk and sauntered to just outside the entrance to the squad room – placing her shoulder against the wall and waiting for Brain to appear behind her. He gazed at her for a moment and then planted his shoulder against the wall too.

"What do you want Cassidy?" she asked – making sure her annoyance dripped from her voice, and crossing her arms tight against her chest for good measure.

He examined her. "Hear you're going white shirt?"

She looked at the ceiling and rolled her eyes with a shake of the head.

It was more rumour mill. But it wasn't. Cragen had gotten her name on the preferred candidate list. It was published and public information. But, of course, even being on the list just fed the rumour mill more – the who, why, what and how behind it. She was just trying to ignore it. It was for her boys – specifically her little one. That was more important that some errant and baseless chatter.

"That's what you want to talk about?" she spat back at him and moved to go back into the squad. "I don't have time for this."

His hand shot out and caught her shoulder, though. "Liv … just a sec," he sighed again. She glared at him and crossed her arms tighter, positioning her body so she could move passed him and back to her desk at his next wrong move without a second thought. "Lot of maneuvering going on right now," Brian offered flatly. "Christmas bumps."

She shrugged. "So? That always happens at this time of year."

He was stating the obvious. Beyond the obvious. Meritorious promotions and position adjustments always happened around the end of one year and the start of the next. People who'd kissed ass enough. People with hooks and rabbis. The scattered few who'd actually done exceptional work in the year previous. There was always lots of movement in January and February – as people took on their new roles and others moved into their old roles and the domino effect all the way down the line. It happened every year.

Olivia didn't think there was much to talk about in it – perhaps beyond the fact that the NYPD was actually running the Sergeant and Lieutenant exams this year. It meant there was the other dimension to it – as people did contend for real promotions and got on candidate lists and filled up the limited slots for the available rank spaces. It was a different dynamic and it meant the shuffle would go on longer that year – until well past the when the exam results came in. Really, the shuffle would likely end up going on for most of the year. There wouldn't even be much of a break before the Christmas bumps started again.

Cassidy just nodded, though. "Thinking maybe I'll do the serg's exam. Figure if I'm going to ride the desk – might as well take the pay raise."

She snorted and rubbed at her eyebrow. "OK," she allowed. "Good luck."

"I'm going to play the bump game too," he added and meet her eyes. "Hold off coming back here for now. Was talking to the Cap. You know … just going to see what options are out there right now."

She examined him at that. She wondered if the relief she was feeling at that statement was showing on her face. Sometimes she didn't feel like she hid her emotions as well as she used to anymore.

She knew he wasn't taking his return to SVU completely off the table. But at least it sounded like it was off the table for now. Really, with all the maneuvering that was going on this year – Cassidy could end up spending months trying to weasel his way into a vacant position. She hoped with it being a testing year too there'd be enough open slots appearing throughout the force he'd find something that was more interesting to him – more suited to him (And less disruptive to herself and her squad.).

"I don't know if that changes anything …" he threw out there, though.

She eyed him and it was her turn to sigh. She looked at the ground.

"It doesn't, Brian," she said, "and I'm not going to talk more about that here."

Cassidy nodded. "OK," he said quietly with a touch of defeat to his voice. Or maybe more acceptance – so she managed to bring her eyes up to his again. "How's stuff going with Benji?" he asked quietly.

She just allowed him a small nod to that. "It's fine."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah," she allowed and gave him a thin smile.

It was at least nice he was asking. Not many people directly asked her how the little boy was doing and she was doing with it all yet. She knew part of it was because she was keeping it private and she didn't want it all hanging out there. Part of her really didn't want to talk about it with most people. But in another way, the lack of acknowledgement about the additions she had in her life now made her feel like people didn't see it as a legitimate family development. That her family would always be seen by those around her as the move of a desperate woman who'd managed to reach her mid-40s without getting married, getting pregnant or having anyone really in her life – boyfriend, partner or child.

"I'd kinda like to hang out with you guys again …" Brian tested quietly.

But Olivia shook her head again. "I'm not doing this, Cass …"

He sighed and gazed at her. He looked sad. But she wasn't going to get into it with him. A relationship was off the table. And as for if they could be something else – she wasn't going to talk about it or start testing it at work. That just didn't work for her.

"Where you got him these days?" Brian asked and met her eyes.

She shrugged. "A babysitter," she said flatly.

He didn't need to know more than that. She didn't know why he was asking – or why he cared. She hoped he wasn't preparing to offer up some sort of Brian Cassidy Daycare Services. That'd be a gong show.

She couldn't imagine anyone trusting their child with Brian. She knew Cassidy and there was no way she was remotely near even considering allowing him to spend time with her Little Fox independently. That just had disaster written all over it in so many ways – if that was what he was thinking.

Brian Cassidy. The bumbling rookie. The narcotics cop turns U.C. at an escort service. Cassidy who drank too much. Who swore too much. Who slept with whores while on the job. Who had wandering eyes and was a bit too much of a player no matter how you cut it. A good kisser and just a little too good in bed in a way that made you wonder why exactly that was – and not in a good way.

He wasn't exactly the kind of male role model Olivia wanted her little boy around – even if she thought Brian had reformed his ways a bit. Even if part of her had felt the twinges in the hospital and since. Even though she'd been touched to see him try with Benji and intrigued to watch her little boy interact with him with a certain level of comfort. Even if part of her had the curiosity about if it could work – if it would work.

But none of it matter anymore – because what did matter was Benji … and Jack. And she wouldn't even consider putting Jack into a Brian Cassidy Daycare Service. If her teenager was too fragile for that – there was no way it was an option for her four-year-old. So that offer better not be the next words coming out of Cassidy's mouth, she thought.

"You hear O'Hallaghan downstairs got the Christmas shuffle," was what he asked, though.

She just gazed at him and shrugged.

Olivia really tried to stay uninvolved in any of that. It was all a game that she wasn't really interested in. If someone she knew and cared about was going to be part of the bumps she'd know about it. She could careless about the rest of it.

She never had been very good at the game of hooks, rooks and rabbis. She supposed she didn't need to. She volunteered for SVU. It had been all she cared about for a very long time. She hadn't really thought of going somewhere else for years and years – and even when she did start considering it when Elliot left, it wasn't elsewhere within NYPD that she was conceptualizing.

She didn't think it mattered that she hadn't kissed ass or played the political game of the job. She'd always felt the job and SVU's work – the victims – were more important than all that bullshit. So she could really care less where someone else in the precinct might be shuffled – not when they weren't a member of her squad room.

"She's got a kid, mmm?" Cassidy added for her like she was missing the point and nodded at the ceiling. "Upstairs."

Upstairs. He caught her attention a bit at that. The mythical force daycare. There weren't many left in the NYPD anymore. A space crunch had seen the main one at One P.P. – City's Finest Child Care Centre – close about three years ago. Since then other budget cuts had seen the scattered services that were offered in some of the larger precincts shut their doors too. If there hadn't been enough of a supply-and-demand issue for the child-care spaces before – the dwindling availability of the program had made it even worse.

Olivia didn't really know what the waiting list was like for the childcare upstairs at the 1-6. She hadn't looked into. The reality was when Benji appeared in her life she had been being so private about it, she didn't want to open the door for anyone to be even more up into her business. Parading the little boy through the precinct or trying to secure one of those incredibly limited spots wouldn't have helped with that at all.

Beyond that when Kathy had been pregnant with Eli, Elliot had cracked some joke about needing to get a kid on the waiting list the moment they were conceived and then you might have a chance of maybe finding a space for them there before they actually reached kindergarten. Not that it really mattered with Eli. There wasn't any way Kathy was going to consider letting their youngest be that far away from home nor for his child care to be basically dictated by his father's schedule.

Still, Olivia had felt there was likely some truth to the statement that made it even less worth looking into at the time Benji had come into her life and home. It actually had made her sputter on even calling or walking upstairs to see if maybe all the rumours about the waiting list weren't quite as true as a lot of people seemed to think.

The truth was she didn't want to see something she knew she probably couldn't have. She knew enough about how the centres operated to know that it would likely be ideal. But that's how they were designed – with police families in mind. They were subsidized. They understood the jobs at least one of the child's parents was working. They catered to strange shift start-times and end-times. They had extended hours for the actual daycare aspect. Hell – at the precinct facilities there was one staff person available 24-hours in the centres as a babysitting service in the case of an emergency. Not ideal – but at least it was somewhere safe and supervised to take your kid in a worse-case scenario in the middle of the night if you couldn't arrangement something else.

Olivia also knew they kept the enrollment caps low. She'd heard that each location only took on 30 kids. They were small, intimate centres. It was likely exactly what her and Benji needed in so many ways. He could be close to her. She hoped that the staff would be more sensitive to at least some of his issues. And with the small number of children there, he'd likely get more attention. Out of 30 kids too, she was sure a lot of them were likely infants or toddlers. It would probably mean the preschool class – if they had one, though she assumed they would – would be even smaller.

The safety and security of the centre in the precinct too was almost soothing for her too. Anyone getting into the building had to go through sign-in and security anymore after some of their SNAFUs in terms of gunfire, injury and death at the precinct. The collection of three rooms that made up the centre at the 1-6 was on an upper floor that was mostly used by archivists and for storage in their building. No one really had reason to go up there and the fact there was a child-care centre there wasn't noted on any of the building's directories. People coming-and-going from the precinct were likely none-the-wiser that it was on-site.

Not to mention, the location of the various child-care centres was one of the best kept secrets in the Force. She was sure some people didn't even know the service still existed anymore. A lot of cops just assumed when the main centre at One P.P. had closed the rest had followed suit. She supposed a lot of them had but a few had managed to hold out. There were still two precincts in Manhattan that had the service and a total of about seven in the whole NYPD. The problem was that you didn't have to be assigned to a particular precinct to access the service. You just had to be a member of the NYPD and you could get your child on the waiting list in the hopes of getting them a slot at one of them somewhere in the city.

Unless it was actually at your home precinct, Olivia didn't really see how convenient it would be. Though, she supposed the subsidization and the extended hours would still be the motivation for many. And, a lot of people – especially after they started their families – didn't necessarily live near their precinct. A cop in Manhattan might still be trying to get their kid into the sole remaining NYPD day care in Queens if that was where they called home.

"Hear she's moving over to 61th. She lives out in Brighton too, eh? Can't see her trucking the kid all the way over here for daycare," Cassidy offered.

Olivia just shrugged again, though. "Don't know. Can't see anyone giving up a slot after they've got it. The child care is a pretty good deal, if you can get it."

Cassidy nodded. "Yea. Hear it's good. Hear there's a slot too. Maybe you should go upstairs before everyone else hear there's a slot here too."

She eyed him and considered that. "Why are you telling me this?"

He looked at her. "Com'on Liv. How are you going to do this job as a single mom?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "That's not your problem Cassidy – and me and Cragen and working that out just fine. Thanks."

He shook his head at her. "Yeah. You've got it all figured out, right? Like always," he said with some disgust. "Just go upstairs, Liv," he said and moved like now he was the one going to walk away.

She sighed. "There's a waiting list that goes on for eons," she said and gestured at him as he was moving away.

He glanced at her. "Yeah. But I hear the list is partially based on seniority."

She shook her head and looked down. She hadn't heard that. "That doesn't make sense. Not for all the kids starting out on patrol, starting their families. It wouldn't be fair."

He snorted at that and looked at her like she was stupid. "Since when is how the NYPD does anything fair?" he asked pointedly. "You've been here since the last millennium. Go upstairs, Liv."

She just watched him without comment as she processed and weighed that. She imagined she almost was mimicking the thoughtful pout she'd watched paint across her boys' faces for the past several months. But Cassidy interrupted her thought-process again.

"Still waiting for you to get off your ass and call me too, mmm," he added as he pushed at the button for the elevator. "That offers still out there. If you need help with Transformers … or something. Show off this new person you are."

She gave him a small glare – as much as she could manage at that point when he'd just handed her the possibility that maybe there was a daycare alternative – an ideal one, available for her little boy. But he hardly acknowledged the look in her eyes. The doors dinged and he got on – watching her with that same steely but somehow soft stare as the doors closed again around him and he disappeared.


	129. Chapter 129

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Are you ready yet?" Olivia heard Jack ask her and glanced up from the paperwork she was dealing with at her little dining table, that seemed even littler now that she actually did have a small alcove that was masquerading itself as a dining room in the new apartment.

Jack was loitering in the doorway and looking at her a little timidly, his laptop open and resting on his one forearm.

The teen had shown up not long after her and Benji had arrived home and sat down to some dinner. It was unusual – almost unheard of – for him to appear on a weeknight. But she wasn't entirely surprised. The night previous she'd spent over two hours on the phone with him after she'd gotten Benji to bed helping him with some of his prep for his role playing in the next day's policy debate.

Jack seemed particularly worked up about that week's case study and simulation. He seemed to feel that his prof had pointed out to the students in the class who had picked crime and justice interests for the course that they should really be speaking up and stepping forward in that week's debate and trying to shape the policy the group was trying to create, implement and then evaluate.

Jack felt like the onus was on him that week and that the professor was going to be particularly critical in the marking, if he didn't step up. So he'd been at her to get her feedback on near everything he was reading, everything that was being said in class by the other interest groups and everything that he was preparing to argue and present.

In some ways, it was reassuring for her to see Jack so actively engaged in his academics. Talking with him and hearing him discuss what he was reading and how he was putting forward his thoughts and arguments was demonstrating to her just how smart he actually was. She was starting to truly appreciate why he was on scholarship.

The teen really did have a way of expressing himself and of forming thoughts and opinions and arguing them. Even if she didn't entirely agree with him in some of them, he was articulate and persuasive. He was definitely his father's son in that regard. Jay did well with the articulation, persuasion and manipulation too. She actually thought Jack might make a better politician or lawyer than an architect from some of their discussions they'd been having that way. But she supposed with what he saw himself doing in urban revitalization, he would need to have that side to him anyways while dealing with the bureaucracy to achieve what he – or his employer or interest group - wanted.

Sometimes she thought it was funny how Jack viewed skate-park development as a key factor in urban revitalization and green-space, park and waterfront development. Still, she was sure his ability to be able to express that and to take that different slant on urban policy, planning, development and architecture had likely helped earn him a spot at City's Spitzer School.

Jack definitely wasn't cookie cutter. He was unique and had his own take and own slant on things – likely because he'd been forced to make and find his own way during his crucial teen years. Still, despite him being an original – Olivia took some comfort in knowing that Jack wouldn't just walk away with his schooling as a skateboard and skatepark designer. She wasn't even really sure he was getting too much opportunity to dabble in that yet. Though, he seemed to think he would start to get to experiment with all of that a bit when his studios and workshops started in the spring term in a few more weeks. He was excited. It took a lot to for Jack to express much excitement about anything.

Olivia, though, was more excited that he'd be qualified to do something when he was done his degree. It wasn't like walking out of his post-secondary career with a general arts or general science degree. He'd be qualified to be an architect. With his specialization in urban design, he'd be opening even more doors for himself at firms, municipal governments, likely even other levels of governments and certain lobby groups. Or so she hoped.

She knew that any sort of degree really wasn't any sort of guarantee for young people – or anyone – to secure any sort of employment anymore. But she was still trying to be in Jack's cheerleading section. She was hoping that his smarts and his efforts might some how collide with a shift in the economy and he'd come out of school with some job opportunities waiting for him. She actually really hoped he did – because she'd just recently learned that he was in a six-year program.

Jack would be completing a four-year undergraduate program in architecture before he had to do a fifth year that would give him the first-level of his professional degree as an architect. It was then that he'd complete a final and sixth year to get his credentials in urban design.

The process was longer than Olivia had expected. She wasn't entirely clear on if his scholarship would continue into his fifth and sixth years or if he'd be looking to her, student loans and wracking up even more debt in those final years. She was taking some heed in that he'd be over 21 by then and the money his father's will had left in trust for him would be available. Though, Jack also hadn't told her how much that actually was. Nor was she clear on if he had any rights to the family's farm if Greg did actually sell it. She was sure that would be a landfall of money, if Jack did. But that was something she was just leaving and not wading into for the moment. It would involve careful discussion with Jack to keep him from getting his back up against the wall. Ultimately dealing with it all was likely going to involve more lawyers too. So for the moment – they had more than enough on their plate and enough court dates and lawyers and legal paperwork looming. So even though she was conscious of it – she was trying not to think about it.

Still, she was proud of him. It almost surprised her how quickly she'd become proud of his efforts and achievements. She thought maybe it was more she was proud of Jay for having managed to raise a young man like Jack. She was proud too that Jack was still trying to live up to what his father had given him and his skills and talents, even in his dad's absence. She was interested to see him working on his urban policy course. She liked looking at the various blueprints and drawings he sometimes had pulled out on the weekend as he puttered on an assignment. But she was just finding helping him that week a little much.

His requests for her help and guidance on the week's assignment was just highlighting to her one of the reasons why she'd tried to encourage him to pick something more in-line with his own interests - and not crime and justice – for his classroom representations in the course. It wasn't that she didn't want to help him. It was just that she didn't always have time to help him.

It was a bad week for him to be needing the extra help and attention. With everything that was going on with Benji - as she worked to find him a new daycare and pre-kindergarten slot - she was just overloaded.

Olivia was exhausted by the time she got Benji to bed as it was. She had her own things to be researching and making calls about and paperwork to catch-up on after she did get him down for the night. Dealing with any of that was being pushed even later with the amount of time she was spending with Jack on the phone that week helping with his assignments – providing perspective, advice, statistics, examples and feedback. And now he was in the apartment and wanting to do it in-person. She wasn't sure if that was going to be faster or if it was just going to make the entire process take that much longer.

She really had to resist the urge to sigh at him as he gazed expectantly at her – waiting for her to give the time and attention that he wanted. She had to mentally remind herself that her committing to be his guardian meant that he needed – and deserved – her time and attention too. Sometimes it was just harder with Jack. She almost never visibly showed her annoyance at Benji's demands for time and attention from her. But he was a little boy. It was easier to keep that in check. Getting annoyed with Jack was easier. He did things to annoy her. She had higher expectations of him than she did of a four-year-old. But he still deserved her parenting – he'd asked for it, she committed to it. She had to live up to that.

It was just … she didn't have the time that night. She'd gone up to the precinct daycare center that afternoon – and now she was near desperately trying to figure out the best way to fill out the application and answer the various short essay questions.

The director of the center she'd spoken with hadn't given her any guarantees about if Benji would be able to attend the school. She really wouldn't give an outright answer even to if there was a space opening up there nor how the waiting list worked – if there was a seniority consideration or if it was just a matter of who was next on the list. All the woman had said was they keep all applications on file and took a variety of criteria into consideration in deciding how to fill any vacant slots at the center in ensuring that they have balanced classrooms. And, then she'd been handed the rather lengthy application package.

But Olivia had every intention of getting the forms filled in and returned the next day. She figured at least that way she'd hopefully get ahead of anyone else who started to hear about the possibility of an open space. She was finding answering some of the questions a little agonizing, though, and she wasn't sure being pulled away from it to help Jack was going to help her focus to get it done in a timely manner at all.

She rubbed at her eyebrow for a moment – gazing at the next question on the form that she was trying to figure out how to best respond to – before looking up at Jack.

"Jack, I really need to get this done tonight – and after I get this daycare application out of the way, I've got some court prep I need to do. And beyond that, I just don't know how much more I have to contribute to your policy discussion. Did you call Lt. Gori like I suggested? I think he might be really helpful in getting you some facts and figures. I dropped him an email on your behalf. He said he's open to talking to you. He'll make the time. He's expecting your call."

He looked at her a little disappointedly and even a bit more timidly. "It's not about that," he offered quietly.

She gave him a questioning look as she processed that – some concern starting to creep into her about what it was about then. What would prompt Jack to come to the apartment on a weeknight when he was overloaded with school and work? What would he be dragging his laptop around about? What would have him looking so unsure and timid about around her?

She put down her pen – devoting more of her attention to his presence in the room. "OK," she said. "What's it about?"

He looked down at the floor at that – examining his feet and clearly trying to collect his thoughts. The silence and the way he was scrunching up his brow as he tried to find his words actually ramped up her concern about what was coming a little bit more. But he finally glanced up at her, though, he still kept his head positioned so it was downcast – leaving him with the option to break the eye contact and going back to looking at his feet with a moment's notice.

"I got offered an interview spot for a summer internship," he told her still in a quiet and timid voice.

She near instantly felt a sense of relief and a small smile tugging at her lips. But she knew just as immediately that there had to be more to it than that. She really didn't see Jack coming all the way to the apartment to tell her that he had a job interview. Jack could be needy and often needed some reassurances – but he didn't need that much reassurance. An upcoming interview seemed like a telephone conversation – not an out-of-the-way, out-of-routine, in-person conversation.

"That's great," she told him, though. "Congratulations. One of the big firms? A small one? The some department in with city?"

He looked down again at her questions, though, almost like he was embarrassed. "It's with a skateboard company," he said even more quietly and didn't meet her eyes that time.

She took another couple beats to process that. She really wasn't sure how she felt about that – or if she really had a right to feel much of anything about it. It was just all she could think of was getting some practical experience in architecture or urban development and municipal work and policies – sounded like a much better use of his summer break than working with a skateboarding company.

Olivia understood that skateboarding was his thing. She understood he was interested in designing skateparks. But the adult – the working, employed adult who was supposed to be acting as a parent to him – didn't really think working for a skateboard company sounded like the best use of his time in the long run. Not if he wanted to have as many doors open to him as possible when he was done school. Working part-time at Funky's during the academic year was one thing. Making meaningful use of his full-time summer work experience opportunities was another.

"Is it related to your degree at all? Is it architecture related? Urban design? Urban policy?" she asked – trying to sound interested but also trying to get his own mind turning to open a bit of a discussion between them.

He looked at her again, still keeping his head tilted so he didn't have to make complete eye contact. She hated how he did that. She wished he made eye contact with her when they were talking – when they were having serious, important discussions. But he couldn't seem to bring himself to do it.

She'd tried pushing him about it – talking to him about it, expressing her distaste about having conversations with him that way. But it'd quickly had become clear that there was more going on there than Jack just avoiding eye contact. It was a method of self-protection and self-preservation that she knew was likely connected to his interactions with his uncle. That, though, was another area that he wasn't ready to broach with her yet – and she was having to patiently wait and continue to chip away at earning his trust and getting him to open up to her and feel comfortable confiding in her and letting her help. It was a slow process. She had to remind herself that it'd only been months, though. This was something that could take years. Years of damage didn't repair themselves over night. Wounds that deep took time to heal. Some of his scars, she knew, weren't ever going to go away.

"It's a ramp design and ramp building internship," he told her – at least making firmer eye contact for that statement. "Designing some park features and maintaining a skate park."

She gave him a small nod and rubbed at her eyebrow again. At least there was a design and building aspect to it. She took some heed in that. It wasn't just working in a skate shop or a skatepark or something. Technically, it sounded like it was related to what he ultimately wanted to do. But, she supposed the mother in her - worrying about what his career would actually look like when he was done school - would've still preferred to hear he was working for a firm or the city or some sort of development company – not a skateboarding company. But it was his life and he had a right to live it.

"When's the interview?" she asked, trying her best not to let any concern or disapproval creep into her voice.

Jack met her eyes against a tapped his foot against the frame of the alcove's entrance a couple times. "February 4th and 5th," he offered.

She raised her eyebrow at him. "Two-day interview?"

He gave her a small nod and leaned his head against the doorway's frame at that.

"Ah – they kind of do a few things with you," he told her, keeping a bit better eye contact. "The first day is like skating for them and them seeing how you kind of teach and interact with kids and other people, I guess. And the second day is like the interview and the portfolio showing."

She looked at him a bit more questioningly and tapped her pen a bit. It was pretty clear at that point he was leaving out information and was slowly trickling it out.

"Why do they need to see you skate and how you are with kids?" she asked, even though she didn't really like to be pulling teeth.

She spent all day playing the question-and-answer game half the time. She really didn't like having to do it at work and then to come home to do it with the boys. But it seemed to pretty much be standard fare with Jack. Usually if he wasn't answering her questions, she'd just leave it. This was different, though. He clearly wanted her to be asking questions. She just wished he'd be more up-front and lay whatever this was all out on the table or they could get to the meat of what was clearly going to be some sort of discussion.

"The internship is kind of at this summer camp," he told her not looking at her but then gave her another half-ways glance. "On the West Coast. It's like … an internationally renowned camp. Like … everyone in the industry goes there. Their skate facilities are sick. It's … kind of a big deal."

She felt herself release a deep breath at that. She supposed it was a sigh but she hoped it wasn't audible to him.

Olivia didn't really care how 'sick' the skate facilities were or how 'internationally renowned' the camp might be in the skateboarding world. She just wasn't sure a summer camp on the West Coast was the best place for Jack – assuming he did get the job, which she supposed was questionable. He was just talking to her about the interview for now. But beyond some drive-throughs on buses, she got the impression that Jack had never been out of the state. Not to mention, she just wasn't sure he was in a mental spot to be that far away from the limited support network she was trying to provide him with at the moment. Half-the-time, he seemed so fragile and teetering. She feared that it was only a matter of time before something happened that broke him and she really didn't want to think about what Jack would look like when those floodgates opened. She certainly didn't think him being around a group of children would be the best place for it to happen – especially when he was on the other side of the country.

Then a selfish part of her just wasn't sure about him being away for a summer. She was still settling into parenting Benji. She didn't lean on Jack a lot – but it was nice to know he was around for babysitting services and some support too. Not to mention, him being away might have a pretty big impact on Benji. Her Little Fox was used to getting to talk to his uncle nightly and to see him at least once a week. He expected it. He even needed it. Taking that away from him might be disruptive to the progress they were making and just downright confusing. Then, they just hadn't settled their family situation yet. They still had to get through their court date next week – and despite Mark's assurances it would be fine, she wasn't going to count on anything until she had her paperwork in-hand and signed by a judge. Jack being on the other side of the country if they were still battling the courts for guardianship and her parental rights to Benji seemed like a bad idea too.

"The interview is in Irvine," Jack told her quietly. "It's near L.A."

She shook her head a bit as the pieces started to fall more in place about where this conversation was likely going. She looked down for a moment, staring again at the questions about Benji that were waiting to be answered. Dealing with them were suddenly starting to look a lot more simplistic than navigating this with Jack.

"So they're going to do the interview with you by phone or Skype or something?" she asked, still trying to be hopeful and supportive despite everything that was going through her head at the moment.

Jack gazed at her looking a little more timid and maybe a little hurt. She was clearly expected to have responded to his previous comment in a different manner.

He shrugged. "Yeah. I could send them some video and stuff and do the interview on Skype."

She nodded and waited for him to say more – waiting for what she was just expecting to come out of his mouth at that point. But nothing came.

She sighed again and looked at the ceiling for a second. "But you don't want to do the interview that way?" she filled in for him.

He glanced at her again from where he was again examining the hardwood floor of the tiny room. She got another shrug.

"Gecko says it'd be better if I went. That I'd make a bigger impression them if I was there," he told her quietly.

She watched the top of his head. She knew Gecko was likely right. She was sure most interviewers were liable to remember someone they talked to in-person rather than one of God knows how many demo videos and faces on a computer screen they viewed. But Gecko also didn't have to consider the larger picture of what any of this meant for Jack – or their family.

Apparently she stayed silent long enough, though, that it forced Jack to try to push things forward a bit more.

"You said I shouldn't put stuff on my credit card unless it was an emergency and to come and talk to you about money stuff," he said at a near whisper and still didn't meet her eyes.

She let out another deep breath at that and placed both her elbows on the table clutching her hands together. She knew she'd likely only have a few seconds to organize her thoughts and react to that statement before he went into a tizzy.

"Come sit down," she said, trying to buy herself at least a couple more seconds.

He glanced at her and shrugged. "I'm OK here." He clearly wanted to have the option of escape. He was anticipating he wasn't going to like what she had to say.

She shook her head. "Come sit down, Jack. We need to have a bit more of a conversation about this."

It was his turn to let out a sigh but he slowly came over and sat himself on the chair across from her, cluttering his computer on the table rather loudly.

"Do you have something on the computer you want to show me?" she asked. It was clear he was toting it around for a reason. But all she got was another shrug at that point.

"I just had the camp's site up and like a video about it," he said – trying to find somewhere to look that wasn't at her.

"Do you want to show that to me?" she asked again.

Another shrug. "No. You don't want me to do it," he said flatly.

She shook her head at him. "I didn't say that, Jack."

"I can tell," he said, staring off into the corner. He didn't sound angry at her. He just sounded defeated. He sounded like he expected to be disappointed and she was living up to his expectations.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "I'm really glad you're applying to internships and looking for a summer job, Jack," she offered. "And I'm really happy for you that you've been offered an interview."

He just shrugged again.

"California is kind of far away," she tried.

"It's not like I have the job yet," he said at a near whisper again. "It's just an interview."

"California is a pretty long way to go for an interview," she clarified.

He sighed and looked at the table. "I could pay you back," he said. "I just … don't have much money right now. And you said not to use my credit card and to talk to you about money stuff …"

He sounded a little frustrated with her but embarrassed too. She knew that him asking for this was likely hard for him – and she certainly appreciated that he was being man enough to involve her in the discussion, even though it was hard for him.

"Jack – I'm glad you're talking to me. But when we talked about me spotting you on certain things – I was thinking more along the lines of groceries or textbooks or some sort of drafting equipment. A trip to California – for a job interview? That's a pretty big expense for a maybe – and for a maybe that might not be the best idea for you right now if you did get offered the internship. And what about school? That'd be right at the start of your spring term – and you'd be missing class."

He looked at her and met her eyes firmly for the first time in the whole conversation. "I really want to do this, Olivia," he said with a firmness but a timidness still there, like he was afraid she might react adversely to him pushing it. "This is like … what I want to do with my life."


	130. Chapter 130

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia wasn't sure how long she'd been gazing blankly at Benji's NYPD preschool application at that point. Her conversation with Jack had completely disrupted her focus. Even though their talk was long over and he'd headed back up to the dorms likely more than two hours ago, she was still churning it over in her head.

It'd taken some coaxing and reminders – but he'd managed to sit there and talk to her like a grown-up about the internship, the camp, the interview and why he wanted to do it. She'd patiently listened and asked questions – and tried to get him to think about it all from alternative perspectives too: being far away from home, how it would affect Benji, the cost of the experience versus the pay if he did get the job, other job experiences and opportunities he may be giving up, how this internship may or may not help his future.

She'd sat and watched a couple of the camp's promotional videos. She'd looked at the screen while he clicked around, showing her photos and information about the camp off in Sequoia National Park. It's programming actually sounded really interesting. In some ways, as she sat and looked at it, she could really see the appeal. Getting to spend a summer away from all the bullshit of city life and doing something he loved didn't necessarily sound like a bad thing. She didn't know a lot about skateboarding or skateparks or the ramps involved in it – though she was trying to learn and absorb it all as Jack and Benji talked to her. Still, from the video clips he was showing her, what some of the campers were managing on the course looked impressive.

But in the midst of their conversation – Jack had disclosed that the internship wasn't exactly paid. He'd get his room and board and a small per diem. If he completed his internship commitments – his travel fees to and from camp would be reimbursed and he'd get a very modest honorarium at the end of the whole thing. If he didn't keep his scholarship for the following year – the money wouldn't nearly be enough to even begin putting a dent into the costs of his schooling.

Olivia wasn't too excited about that realization. But she was trying to tell herself that thinking about those sorts of things was really getting ahead of things. Right now the discussion was about the interview: if he should do the interview and if he did the interview, if it made sense for him to go across the country to do it.

They'd managed to agree that a plane ticket to Los Angeles, on relatively short notice, and a hotel for a couple nights wasn't exactly chump change (especially if he didn't get offered the job and especially when he'd be missing classes for it). So, Jack had reluctantly agreed to let her think about if she'd subsidize that for him. Some quick initial price checking had suggested that they'd be looking at about $800 for the trip. But that was with a basement bargain hotel.

Olivia really wasn't sure how she felt about Jack staying in certain areas of that city alone, getting around alone or even staying in a hotel alone. She knew he was 19 and had survived New York City on his own. But he was still a kid in a lot of ways – and he'd never travelled before. He didn't know L.A. She didn't know L.A. It was a strange place – and she wasn't sure she exactly considered it safe. And, it was a lot of money and a lot of effort and worry for a big maybe.

Still, Jack had indicated to her that if she didn't help him with it – he thought he was still going to go out there. He'd put it on his credit card and take extra hours at Funky's until he could pay it off, he'd told her. She wasn't sure she much liked that idea either. And, she didn't want this to be a point of tension between them. She wanted to support him. She wanted him to be able to do the things he wanted to be doing. She was happy he was making an effort to find a summer job, to get an internship, to live his life. Those were all things she'd been pushing at him. She didn't feel like she should be punishing him when he was doing things she'd been telling him to do. It was just that this wasn't exactly in the realm of her considerations when she'd been trying to motivate and encourage him. She just wasn't sure it was the best for him or the best for their family.

But for the moment she had a couple days to figure out what was the most appropriate way to approach the situation. He had a few days before he had to let them know if he'd be participating in the interview process. So now Olivia just needed to determine what the answer to this question was. Somehow she didn't think there was a section in the parenting manual about how to deal with your emotionally damaged teenager wanting to go to an interview for a virtually unpaid internship at a skateboarding camp on the other side of the country while missing the beginning of the semester at a school he where was on scholarship. She wished there was a parenting manual on how to answer preschool essay questions too.

There wasn't a manual. But apparently there were lots of courses and people you could hire to fill out the applications for you. She thought that was a little ridiculous. She hoped that the NYPD preschool wasn't looking for quite those caliber of answers on their forms. But some of the questions still seemed a little too mindboggling for her now distracted mind.

It was a little hard to switch from teenaged drama to preschooler drama. Some days she felt like she was having to operate on way too many different spectrums: from the crap she dealt with at work to her two boys at complete opposite ends of a child's age realm.

She stared at the form again. She was trying to be as honest and specific as possible on the application – without laying too much of their lives out in the open unnecessarily. And, without disclosing something that might raise too many red flags about her Little Fox in a way that would bump him down on the list of acceptable candidates for the daycare program. But after the debacle at the previous nursery school – she wanted to make sure her child was understood and that their situation was understood. She didn't want to deal with a repeat situation. She wanted a situation that was supportive to their family and lifestyle – and more importantly to Benji and to getting him ready for kindergarten.

After shoving the application form at her, the director had agreed to give Olivia a short tour of the small facility. It had given her an idea of their structure and had helped in determining if it was even an appropriate place to put Benji. She thought it was – it was small and it seemed more organized and supportive than their previous school in a lot of ways. During the tour Olivia had taken the opportunity to try to talk to the director about the little boy and to discretely talk a bit about their situation and some of Benji's issues and needs. The woman had listened politely and had even asked some questions about the little boy and provided some commentary and reassurances about how they conducted their programming and curriculum.

So now it was a matter of making sure she answered the application questions in the best way possible, which was proving even more challenging in the limited space they were giving her. Each 'essay question' was only allowing her to write a few sentences while attempting to summarize her child's life, her expectations and their family's needs. It felt like nearly as impossible task as dealing with a teenager.

She wasn't sure how much more she could keep looking over her answers, though. It was almost midnight and she still hadn't reviewed her case file ahead of having to testify in court tomorrow. She really didn't think she was focusing on the form enough at this point that she'd be able to formulate her thoughts any better. So instead she resigned herself to reading over her responses one final time before moving on.

_**What are your expectations of this daycare program (and the pre-kindergarten program, if applicable)?**_

_I expect a safe and nurturing environment. I want Benji to feel encouraged and praised - not discouraged and criticized in his learning and behavior. I want the program to recognize all children are different and have different needs and abilities. I'd like my child's teachers to supportive and understanding of his unique needs. I'd also prefer him to be in a class where he can build friendships, feel valued and where he is able to be himself without fear of teasing._

_**What are your expectations of your child while attending this daycare program (and the pre-kindergarten program, if applicable)? What do you hope your child will achieve or gain while in attendance?**_

_I expect Benji to go into each day putting in the best he can do while demonstrating his positive attitude, curiosity and generosity to his teachers and classmates. I'd like to see him gain more independence and confidence. I want him to come out of the preschool program as prepared as possible to enter kindergarten in the fall. He needs to put some extra attention into his math skills development. I'd also like to see him establish some friendships and develop his social skills._

_**Outline your approach to parenting and to your child's education and development.**_

_I've established routines for Benji while gently pushing his boundaries. I am firm in tone with him in discipline but he also gets lots of affection and reassurances. We embrace daily learning opportunities to explore new things and to practice what he's learned. He is read to daily and participates in crafts and circle-time at the library. I am an active participant in his education. I expect him to try to the best of his abilities but I will put in the time to ensure he excels academically too._

_**How would you describe your child?**_

_Benji has had a challenging and complicated life thus far and because of that he is often shy and timid. He can be unsure around new people and takes time to adjust to new situations and changes of routine. But as he comes out of his shell, my son is an extremely imaginative and outgoing little boy, especially with the people he is close to. He is very active and incredibly articulate and curious. He has a generous spirit and always wants to help people and make others happy. _

_**What are your child's greatest strengths and your child's greatest needs?**_

_Benji's greatest strengths are his imagination and his innate curiosity. He will try almost anything once as long as he is gently eased into it. His imagination keeps him entertained, articulately expressing himself and asking some great questions. But Benji needs lots of reassurances because of his complicated background. He also needs to work on developing his social skills and sharing so he can better relate to and play with his peers._

_**Your child is having a difficult day at school. Knowing your child best – how do you feel this situation would best be handled?**_

_Benji responds best to verbal reassurances – especially down at his level and with some physical reassurance (held hands, touching shoulders). His energy can often be redirected. Coloring usually works well. Perceived criticisms or a raised voice will cause a bigger meltdown. I'm open to being called if he is having a particularly difficult day. But I want him to continue to develop his self-soothing skills and to be able to receive assurances and redirection from other trusted adults._

_**What are your child's interests or major choices in activities while he has free-time at home?**_

_Benji loves just about anything with wheels. His favorite toys at home are Transformers, Hot Wheels and Tech Deck skateboards. He is really into Transformers and firefighters right now. He also enjoys building blocks. Benji likes hands-on activities. He loves Play-Doh and also enjoys crafts, painting and coloring. He likes to be read to and will repeat silly rhymes and songs as well as any actions or dances. He spends a lot of time in imaginary play with his toys and storytelling chatter._

_**Does your child have chores or responsibilities at home?**_

_Benji doesn't have any specifically assigned chores. He does have to pick up his toys each night. He also takes his own plate and glass to the kitchen after dinner and snacks. He dresses himself in the mornings. Benji is good about, and generally eager, to help when asked. Other things he helps with around home: carrying a small bag of groceries, taking to/putting things in the fridge or another room, putting away clothes, matching/folding socks, sorting laundry, dusting, setting the table._

_**What are your expectations of your child at home?**_

_Benji is expected to be courteous and polite. Yelling, hitting and talking-back are frowned on. He usually listens to instructions and is expected to do as told. We're working on his manners and his please and thank yous. We are also working on his sharing and getting him to be gentler with his touches and interactions with others. Most of what is asked of him is completed with some guidance and supervision but he is also being allowed to develop independently and make mistakes._

_**Are there any special concerns we should be aware of (health issues and allergies, learning/developmental issues, fears or anxieties, special circumstances at home or in your family)?**_

_Benji had a recent concussion so we are careful of bumps. He also had surgery on his wrist and is just recently out of a brace. He still has some stiffness and pain. We are being diligent about following up on any bumps there too. Benji is a little behind in his development, especially socially. He is very timid in new situations and with new people. He is especially cautious and fearful of adult men. He likes routines. When he is upset, he can be clingy. He can be anxious when we are separated._

_**What are your philosophies and guidelines on food and diet for your child? Are they allowed special treats and/or sweets/sugar? Are there any food restrictions your child has? Is your child a picky eater? What are your child's favorite foods? What are your child's least favorite foods?**_

_Benji doesn't have any food restrictions but we do try to eat balanced meals. He is allowed sweets but I try to restrict that to weekends and special occasions. He isn't allowed to drink soda. He isn't a picky eater. He will try new foods as long as the decision is left up to him. He really enjoys most raw vegetables but isn't a big fan of fruits, especially if he perceives them to be slimy or browning. He does enjoy grapes and bananas. Among his favorites: hummus and pita, peanut butter toast. _

_**What should we know about your family?**_

_I'm Benji's guardian. We are in the process of turning that into a permanent situation for our family. Benji's teenaged uncle, Jack (Peedg), is actively involved in our lives. Benji was born to a teenaged mother who died last year to a drug over-dose. Benji did not have much support in his development during his first four years of life. Because of his background, my son needs some extra support and understanding to ensure he continues to develop the exceptional little boy that he is._

_**What level of involvement do you see yourself taking in our school community? What do you feel you can contribute to our community?**_

_I want to be involved in the school community and my son's education. I am willing to contribute as my schedule allows. We are a single-parent family and I do operate on a detective's schedule, which can be unpredictable. I would be happy to help with some planning and organizing of activities or event supervision. I attend a lot of craft groups with Benji and would likely be good at helping in that area. I do have a lot of experiencing interacting with children._

She sighed as she finished reading through it again. It still didn't read the way she wanted it to read. She wasn't sure it cast her son in quite the positive light she saw him. But she didn't know how much more she could work on tweaking the wording. She almost felt like she was filling out an application and background check for the police academy. She just had to hope that Benji would pass and that their application would end up somewhere near the top of the pile when they were working out who would get the slot. Maybe it was about time she took up prayer – or she could task Jack with that.

For the moment, though, she pushed the form across the table and away from her and pulled her case file over closer to her. She glanced at her watch. She thought she might get to sleep in another 16 years.


	131. Chapter 131

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia was actually surprised to see people inside Funky's. It seemed like near every time she'd been in it previously it'd just been Gecko or a couple of his staff members at the establishment. She could only think of one previous visit where there'd actually been customers at the shop. But apparently lunch hour on a Thursday was a busy time for the store. It had a whooping four people inside of it. It was enough, though, that Gecko wasn't immediately aware of her presence. He was over helping a young guy find a size in a pair of shoes. So it was actually a young woman, who looked a bit like a skidded out punk rocker more-so than a skater, that approached her and asked if she needed any help.

She gestured over at Gecko. "I was hoping to talk to Gecko for a couple minutes," she offered.

The timing at worked out well. She'd barely more than pointed at him and made the statement when he turned towards her with the box of shoes the customer he was helping was apparently ready to purchase. He gave her a nod, having spotted her, and handed off the box to the girl.

"Vicki will check you out," he told the guy, again nodding his head in the direction of the cash. He looked at her as the customer walked by. "Hey Mums."

Olivia wasn't sure how much she liked that moniker coming out of his mouth. Hearing it from the boys was one thing. It was something she was still waiting and hoping for from Jack at some point. Or at least to her it more officially than his 'mam' slip. So hearing it out of Gecko's some how seemed to demean what she was working towards – even though she didn't think he really meant it that way at all.

"Do you have a minute?" she asked – leaving her hate of his assigned name for her for the moment.

"Sure," he allowed and started to move towards the back of the store and Jack's usual station in the skate shop. But as he rounded the counter, he opened the door to the storage and staff room and gestured for her to join him.

By the time Olivia got in there with him, Gecko had taken up a spot on the counter – one of the few flat spaces that didn't have anything on it – and had crossed his arms over his chest. She wasn't sure if it was meant to look intimidating or defiant. Either way, it reminded her a bit of herself and perhaps more of the look and stance that Jack seemed to take with her when they were about to have a conversation he didn't really want to have.

"This 'bout Whack?" he asked.

She rubbed her eyebrow at that and collected herself. She hated Gecko's assigned name for Jack possibly more than she hated being called Mums by him. So she just allowed a nod at that point.

Gecko allowed his own pouty nod in response – like it was some sort of deep revelation yet absolutely expected. But, of course, it was about Jack. There wouldn't be any other reason or topic of discussion she'd be in there for. Well – not on a personal scale anyways.

"Kid said you ain't too excited about his interview," Gecko allowed.

"I'm actually not sure how I feel about it," she told him. "I was hoping you could help me out with that."

Gecko gave her a bit of a shrug. "It's a good opportunity for him," he said flatly, like she clearly hadn't considered that.

But that was actually one of the key aspects of her consideration. She knew it was a good opportunity for him – in the moment and likely if his whole skateboarding dream did work out. She wasn't sure it was a good opportunity in terms of where they were as a family, where Jack was mentally and emotionally and where his career might go if he didn't end up chasing his dream – or his dream changed and became a little more practical.

"The interview is in California," she clarified – stating what she thought was the obvious now to Gecko, in case he'd missed it. "The internship – is in California."

He gave her another shrug. "So?"

She snorted and nearly rolled her eyes at him. "It's the other side of the country."

"So? I think he can handle it," Gecko told her.

She shook her head. "I'm not sure I agree with you there."

Gecko took his turn to roll his eyes at her a bit. "Oh com'on, Mums. He's a 19-year-old man. I think he can handle a couple months at sleep-away camp."

"Man?" she asked. "Do you know the Jack I know? Because man isn't exactly how I'd describe him."

Gecko snorted. "He's one of the more mature guys I've got on my staff."

"That's not saying much for your staff," she informed him, giving him daggers.

Gecko crossed his arms a bit tighter at that and returned the glare.

Olivia sighed. She wasn't looking to fight with Gecko. She was just looking to get some insight that wasn't as emotionally fueled or as evasive as when she tried to talk to Jack. She rubbed at her eyebrow again and composed herself for a moment.

"Look …" she sighed. "I don't know how much you know about Jack …"

"I know enough," Gecko informed her. "I've known him longer than you."

She held up her hand in truce at that. "OK," she allowed. "Then you know that Jack's …". She sighed trying to find the best way to describe it that wouldn't be too-telling of things Jack didn't want his boss to know but would be expressive enough to get Gecko to see her point. "Emotionally damaged," she tried.

Gecko laughed out loud at that and then looked her in the eye. "No fucking kidding," he spat at her. "You don't say?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Gecko … he … me, Benji … us … we're dealing with a lot right now. Jack's never left the state. He's … I don't know what he is half the time. But he … needs a lot of support and reassurance."

Gecko nodded. "Yea. So I'm supporting him and reassuring him that this internship it's a good fucking thing. This could be his golden ticket."

"Not if it …" she gestured into the air and shook her head, "…pushes him off some edge. And neither me or you or … anyone … is going to be there to grab him if he's teetering."

Gecko nodded. "Yea. But he needs that too. And there will be other people there to keep him from falling – and the kid fucking needs that too. This camp – this internship – this could be sweet for him. I wouldn't be on-board with it if I thought he couldn't handle it or that it couldn't direct him somewhere awesome."

She sighed. She'd come to sort of like Gecko and almost respect him – at least when it came to gleaning information about Jack and how to navigate her interactions with the teen. But sometimes she found dealing with the man a little awkward. He clearly was educated to some point and knew how to run his business and its place in the community – thus how to interact with certain aspects of the community to maintain that status. Still, talking to him at times made her feel like she was dealing with a 20-something stoner – not a 30-something father and businessman who managed a small staff of young people and coached children at schools, community centers and parks in the city.

"What's so awesome about it?" she asked – trying to bring it down to his level – or at least trying to meet him in terms of language.

"Whack didn't talk to you about that?"

She shrugged and shook her head. "We looked at the site. Some videos. He said he wanted to go. Jack doesn't exactly excel at expressing himself about these sorts of things."

Gecko gave her a snort and small smile at that. "Yea. Nah. He doesn't," he allowed quietly, examining the floor for a moment. "Site didn't look awesome to you?"

She returned his small smile at that. "It looked like a summer camp that would be a lot of fun to attend. But that didn't convince me that it'd be a great internship for his future – or a great way to invest part of my next pay cheque in sending him out there for an interview," she told him directly.

He nodded and examined the floor a bit more before looking up at her. He was clearly trying to collect his thoughts on Jack's behalf.

"Well," Gecko finally said, "I can tell you it's a pretty sweet opportunity. It's pretty impressive that his application even got pulled for an interview. They've got kids from all over the country – all over the fucking world - applying for this camp. This is it when it comes to skate camps – not just here, in the world, Mums. So, it's not just about him getting an internship and being a fucking camp counselor. He gets it – he's not going to be some fucking kid babysitting campers in a cabin. He's going to be doing a fucking internship at an internationally recognized camp with an internationally recognized skate company, 'kay? You get that?"

She wanted to roll her eyes at him at that. She didn't particularly like being talked to that way. But she bit her tongue for the moment – trying to get through it and hopefully ending up with some greater perspective in determining how to make this decision and talk it out with the teen. So she just gave the man a nod for the moment.

"'Kay," Gecko said again with his own nod. "So the thing with Skate Camp – it's not just skate camp for kids. This place attracts people from all over the industry. Every facet. Ya gonna have people who design and build parks there. Ya gonna have pro-skaters there. Ya gonna have people from major skate labels who will be hiring people to work in stores and events and design and PR teams and just about everything imaginable. Ya gonna people from skate magazines and recording companies – shooters. Ya gonna to have people from the music industry. Ya gonna to have people from all sorts of youth groups and sports groups and indie local stores. Not to mention – he'd be getting himself in as an employee of a major international label – even if it's just for the summer. That's a foot in the door, Mums. And, the networking opportunities there … that kid can leverage this shit to be bigger things."

She sighed and shook her head. "I don't know if Jack and networking opportunities go together."

"Yea. Well. He gets this – and I'll be talking to him 'bout that. I'm already talking to him 'bout that. This ain't no summer of him hanging out in the back corner rigging up shit and not talking to no one. He has to put himself out there for it to be worthwhile."

She eyed Gecko at that statement. It was about the first thing he said that truly resonated with her as an indication that he saw Jack for what and who he was and understood at least some of what was going on there with the teen.

Gecko pushed himself off the counter to a standing position, though he still leaned back against the edge and watched her. He rocked himself on the heels of his hands a bit.

"Look, Mums, I get it. I get a lot of parents as the kids progress through some of our different programs or who've got kids who show some raw talent and like interest in the industry – who are reluctant 'bout it all. I get that you probably don't think there's a job for him at the end of all this and this is like a waste of one of his last summers before academia spits him out into da cruel world. But there's all kinds of different jobs in the industry – and if he can start getting his foot in the door at 19 … that's a hell of a lot better than him fucking daydreaming about it and then trying like three years from now with no experience and some fancy degree."

She snorted and examined the floor at that. "He's studying to be an architect," she said quietly but forcibly.

She didn't like Gecko demeaning that into some meaningless degree. It was prestigious. It was something with career opportunity attached to it. She felt like there was hope for Jack to make it – that someone at the university had recognized his potential enough to hand him a spot in the program and a scholarship to go along with it. That's what she thought he should be leveraging. That's the dream she hoped he'd be chasing. Or at least keeping the doors open for himself. She didn't want him to limit himself by latching onto some sort of fantasy maybe a little too early and missing out on those careering building moments that might be there while he was still in school but would quickly dry up as soon as he was labeled a graduate.

Gecko shrugged, though. "Yea. I know. But com'on? Can you see Jack working in some stuffy firm right now? That kid going into work in a suit and tie and having to lick some ass? I can't. And – let's be reals, 'kay? He gets an internship with some firm or some shit this summer … what they going to have him doing? Getting coffee and filing?"

She glanced at him. "It'd be a networking opportunity too," she told him.

Gecko snorted. "OK," he allowed. "A networking opportunity for some job that he ain't that interested in right now? What's the point? This – he'd at least be developing some skills and getting some contacts in something he's interested in. He'd be getting some real experience in park design and building. Park maintenance and management too. That shit has a cash value.

"Or maybe the whole experience will be so fucked up that he'll just realize he ain't interested at all. Next summer he'll be all about … whatever … building convenience stores and redeveloping ghettos and pushing people out of their homes so they can build some glass towers and fancy condos or some shit. I don't see him getting offered any interviews with any of these firms anyways, Mums. You just going to keep waiting and hoping that maybe he'll get one while making him pass up an opportunity like this? He'll end up working for me this summer. You want that?"

She gave him a small snort and a weak smile at that. The reality was until a couple days ago, she'd figured that Jack's summer likely would be working at Gecko's – and that maybe he'd beef up his hours by snagging a part-time position in a coffee shop or busing tables somewhere. She really wasn't sure he'd land an internship after just his second year of schooling. He hadn't even let on to her that he was applying to any – even though she'd been encouraging him to. She actually wasn't even sure if he'd applied to any beyond this one at the skateboarding camp.

"The camp would be good for him," Gecko told her a bit more quietly. "The interns – they get to participate in other camp activities and shit there. He'd have other jobs and interactions with the kids and the rest of the staff. He'd get to take part in some of the programming on his time off – do some of the extras and shit. They do good work there. They're all about youth development and leadership and opportunities for disadvantaged youth.

"Look – I don't know all the dets. But I know Jack was fucked before he arrived here on my doorstep asking for a job. I knew that his life clearly got more fucked when he started showing with Jammer. I know you're trying to get them both straight. I think that's cool shit, Mums. My Tyler – my princess - was in this kind of situation. Fuck yea – I'd want someone stepping up for her. I tried to step up for Whack. I do for all my staff. But you're doing it more. I say good on ya. But, ya know, the kid's gotta deal with some of his shit and be his own man too. This is an opp in so many ways and it ain't going to roll around 'gain."

"You're assuming he's even going to get the internship," Olivia sighed. "I'm not sure he will even be able to manage the disappointment if he doesn't. Let alone, I'm not sure how he'll manage himself – alone, in a strange city, in a high stress situation – for the interview."

"'Kay, to start – he's 19, he's been living in New York. I think he can manage L.A. for a couple days. But he's going to get the internship."

Olivia snorted at that and rubbed at her eyebrow. "How do you know he's going to get the internship?"

She actually wasn't sure if Gecko's apparent assurance that Jack would get the internship made her feel better or worse about the situation. She still wasn't sure how she felt about if he actually got the internship – if he was away for that long. She didn't feel as confident as Gecko that Jack could handle it with where he was at and if it would ultimately be good for him in anyway.

"Bunch of reasons," Gecko said with an increased certainty. "To start the company that runs that camp – they're all about helping disadvantaged kids. If Whack's able to go into the interview and clearly articulate his story. That kid goes in there and says, 'Hey, I built my first ramp with my dads when I was 12 and learned to skate in the backyard of my fucking farm. That my dads died but I found a way to the city and am fighting for my dreams.' They're going to hear that shit. It's going to resonate with them.

"I don't know much about architecture but I know that the prints that Whack does up from ramps – people eat up that shit. The ideas he has for parks and lines. The kid just sees shit. It's a talent. He's a fucking rigger. He just puts shit together and then is able to skate it in a way that not everyone else can see. And the fact he's such a fucking rigger – such a fucking street skater when he grew up on a fucking farm? It's just …" Gecko gestured like he wished she'd get it appreciate it more. "This kid didn't have parks or even fucking streets and curbs and rails. He had a fucking wooden, homemade, piece of shit half-pipe in his backyard. If anything he should be a vert skater – and sure, the kid can catch air, but you watch him on his lines and it's like … magic. You seen him skate?"

She nodded. "Yeah. A couple times."

Gecko nodded. "You should watch more. You should come out to one of the classes I've got him coaching at too. Because there's another reason they're gonna grab him. He knows how to explain shit and show shit to these little groms in a way they can grasp and mirror. I have kids who've never fucking stood on a board before coming away from our program where Whack's been their coach not just pedaling but manualing, ollieing, dropping into a ramp with confidence. That shit doesn't just happen. You seen Jammer skate?"

She nodded again. "Yeah."

"'Kay. Four-year-olds – they don't skate like that. I'm telling ya. Jammer – he ain't raw talented. He's just got a good teacher. But Whack - he's got multiple layers of talent in there. I know it. There's skater, rigger, designer, teacher, leader in there. He deserves the opportunity to have some other people recognize that. And maybe when he's got some other people recognizing that shit in him, he'll start to see it in himself. Cuz right now – you know what I've got here? I've got this fucking fucked kid that plays skate rat in this back corner. Mums – I'm paying him to sulk in the corner. But why am I paying him to do that? Cuz I know at some point me or you or him or something is gonna to get him to snap the fuck out of it – and he might be a fucking force to be reckoned with. Maybe not for the industry but at least for whatever fucking community he's in."

She watched Gecko at that. Somehow hearing him saying that – knowing that there was someone else who was seeing Jack and was in her teen's corner – was comforting. Jack wasn't quite as alone as he liked to think. He had more people who cared about him – and were rooting for him – than he thought. She thought it should give him great comfort – but it also gave her great comfort too.

She sighed, though, and examined the ground. "It's an expensive trip for an interview – for an unpaid internship. You don't think he can just do the online submission and interview?"

Gecko shook his head forcibly at that. "No way. Whack's shooting and video editing skills – not so sharp. And the snow and shit – we'd have to shoot him indoors. Outdoors – that'd be a better showcase. They need to see him skate. See him dealing with some groms. Hear him tell his story to their faces. Let him show off one of his blueprints or designs to them in person because when he's showing off and explaining that shit – that's about the only time I see that kid actually look like … in his element."

"It's still a lot of money for a what-if," she stressed again. "An unpaid what-if."

Again she got a shaken head. "It's not a what-if. The kid's gonna get it. And as for the unpaid shit - when Whack lands this – I'll give him sponsorship."

She eyed him a bit more questioningly at that. "What's that even mean?"

Gecko shrugged. "I'll give him some shit to take out there with him to represent Funky's – and then give him some money for his troubles. I mean obviously I ain't going to pay him like he was working here full-time over the summer. But you know – we'll sort something out. Cover off his textbooks or some shit. Draft up some sort of contract. He hands out so much shit, slaps a Funky's decal onto his deck, wears a tshirt representing so many times, keeps up his commitment to the shop – and I'll make sure he ends up with some cash."

She rubbed at her eyebrow. She wasn't sure about the accounting legality of that. "That's above board?"

Gecko nodded. "Oh, for sures. There will be lots of campers there who are sent out on sponsorship deals. Quasi-scholarships."

"But Jack would be an employee … an intern … not a camper."

Gecko shrugged. "We'll figure it out. He'll get some money from the internship and I'll make sure he gets some money from Funky's. Maybe we'll sponsor a kid from our programs to go out there and have Whack on as his mentor for the session or something. Heys, I paid good money to get Whack his Stoked mentor certification last year. I needs to be gettings my money's worth outta that too."

She sighed. Knowing Jack would end up with a bit more reasonable amount at the end of the summer helped too. She wasn't a fan of unpaid internships. They basically amounted to slave labour in a struggling economy while giving kids false hopes about their employability. Meanwhile, it was requiring youth to become even more overburdened with debt because of it. But she knew even if he did end up with an internship with an architectural firm in the city, chances were it would be unpaid or a just small honorarium just like the skate camp was offering up.

If he didn't take an internship – Jack would likely be working for minimum wage somewhere that wasn't remotely related to his career interests. So it was a bit of double-edged sword. She thought she should sit down and try to calculate how much he was likely to earn working minimum wage over the summer versus the per diem and honorarium he'd received at camp. She thought in reality there might not be as much of a different as she might think. She might just be going through a bit of sticker shock based on the low figures that Jack had quoted at her. But she supposed there'd be the savings on food while he was there since that was covered. And, really, what would he be spending his money on when he was stuck up in the Sierra Nevada of California for a couple months? He should technically be walking away with almost everything he earned while he worked there. But she somehow doubted that when he was working at a summer camp he'd just be putting in a business day-type shift. She figured he was likely more looking at 16 to 20 hour work-days – even if some of that was 'fun' time.

"You seriously worried about him spending a couple days out there for the interview?" Gecko asked suddenly while she was still processing her own thoughts and the conversation. "That cost really the hang up?"

She shook her head and shrugged. "It's lots of things, Gecko," she allowed. "I just feel … Jack's sort of vulnerable right now. We've got a lot going on …"

"Your court stuff," Gecko spit out. "Jack booked Tuesday off next week."

She nodded. "That – and us settling into that if it goes through. Us dealing with it if it doesn't. Benji dealing with Jack being gone for a summer. Me dealing with him being gone for the summer."

Gecko nodded. "You know we're here for ya, eh? I'd put Jammer into one of our summer programs if you needed to cover off shit. Me, Whitney, Tyler – we can spot ya. Tyler likes Jammer. Fuck. She actually misses having him around here in the afternoons. They were like babysitting for each other. Keep them the fuck out of my hair when they could harass themselves."

She gave him a small smile at that. She hadn't actually had Benji into the shop since before Christmas. He'd asked about it a couple times. But by the end of the workday – she usually just wanted to get home – not swing down to Funky's so he could play with skateboards and visit Jack. She should likely put more effort into that, though. Or at least maybe let Jack take him over for a bit at start of his shift on a Saturday. It'd give her a couple hours to herself and Benji some needed boy time with his uncle and enjoying the skateboarding world she didn't quite understand yet.

"It's not just that," she allowed. "Just right now. I feel like Jack's …"

"He's kind of fucked up right now," Gecko finished for her. "I get it. I mean, I see it. Lots going on. So what? You think flying will send him into a tailspin?"

She sighed. "No. I just think the whole situation would be … really stressful for him. The travelling, the new city and navigating it, the interview. He puts himself under a lot of pressure and gets worked up … really easily."

Gecko nodded at that and looked down like he was thinking about it all. He glanced up at her.

"I know people in L.A.," he said finally. "I get someone to put him up. Help him get around. Pick him up at the airport. Watch out for him. Whatever. You let him go?"


	132. Chapter 132

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia looked away from the woman she was speaking with and towards the door of the lounge at the sound of a knock. Rollins was poking her head in by the time she turned that way.

"Sorry to interrupt," Amanda said apologetically and nodded out into the squad room. "Jack's here. Been sitting there a while. He says you told him to stop by but he has to get going to work?"

Olivia nodded and rubbed at her eyebrow for a moment and gave the woman sitting across the table from her a weak smile. "I'll just be one minute," she offered and stood from the table.

By the time she got outside the door, Rollins had waved Jack over and he was closing the gap. He was looking a little intimidated. Olivia got the sense that the intimidation may be more directed at Rollins than her in that particular moment, though. Rollins caught her eyes for a moment – clearly looking for reassurance that she was OK on her own, so Olivia allowed a small nod.

She knew Rollins had only seen Jack once before – when he'd been in for her to rip into him in an interrogation room about leaving his little nephew alone in the dark on her building's front stoop. It was crazy how that felt like forever ago in how they'd managed to evolve their little family. Forever ago in everything that she'd been trying to juggle in getting the boys settled into the apartment and what was becoming their new lives. But really it'd all just been a blink of an eye.

It'd barely been two months since Jack had pulled that stunt. So it hadn't likely been enough time passing that Rollins had forgotten her body language around the teen – and enough had happened in the other detective's own life since than that Rollins understood the intricacies of shuttling family through the squad room. Though, Olivia hoped that she'd uttered Jack's name enough times in passing at that point – that his inclusion in the picture on her desk – had been enough quiet and passive indicators to the rest of the unit that he was a part of her life now and she'd like him treated like family on the off-occasion he did appear at the precinct.

Rollins eyed them both for a few more seconds but then moved back towards her desk in the squad room. Jack's eyes followed after her.

Olivia wasn't entirely sure if he was sending daggers into the other detective's back or if the teen was leering at her. She'd pretty much concluded that Jack's interactions with women were somewhat complicated. Sometimes he seemed completely disinterested in them – likely because of his past and distrust of so many women. Sometimes he seemed completely oblivious to any sort of obvious advances, gawking or flirting that was going on around him with other young women. Olivia figured that was likely partly related to his own shyness and social awkwardness probably rooting from his father's death and whatever his sister and uncle put him through in the years following it. Then there were the moments where his gazes and looks at women seemed possibly a bit more what you'd expect from a teenaged boy and were definitely more hormone driven than anything else. She'd seen the look pass across his face or the wandering eyes a few times. There was something about it that didn't make her entirely comfortable. Though, she thought it had more to do with the other looks and interactions she saw out of him when it came to women more-so than him thinking with the wrong head.

"She's kinda bitchy," Jack said quietly, still looking in Rollins' direction and not at her.

Olivia was starting to think that particular look Jack was giving the woman was a bit of a mix between daggers and a hormonal leer. She rubbed her eyebrow and watched the side of his head for another beat.

"She just knows I'm with someone right now and didn't want to interrupt the flow unnecessarily," she allowed flatly.

Jack's eyes came back to her at that and then drifted to the glass door and window of the more comfortable longue that they generally took victims, their families or children into for meetings and interviews. He squinted a bit at the woman sitting at the table inside there and seemed to consider her – like he was trying to determine what had been going on before she stepped outside the door.

Olivia knew that Jack was curious about her job but that he didn't really understand it. She knew he could easily grasp that she was a detective – even Benji had managed to wrap his head around that much. But she could see Jack struggling with the concept that she interacted with 'bad guys' or she carried a gun or that she had to be rather in-the-fact of a lot of perps – usually men.

She knew Jack likely saw her job as a 'men's job'. Though, she didn't think he'd ever quite get the guts to say that to her and she hadn't quite pinned him as a chauvinist despite how he seemed to feel about some women. She thought most of that hate and despair he had was directed at particular people – not the entire gender. He was snarky with her – but he was never a class-A male asshole with her. She thought – or hoped – his father or his grandmother (or growing up with a sister, no matter how much she'd hurt him) had instilled that in him.

But she knew what really confused Jack was the Special Victims Unit aspect of the job. Dealing with sex crimes. Dealing with crimes against children. Dealing with abuse, torture, rape. It made him uncomfortable. She could tell. But that's likely the way it should be. She'd likely be more concerned if any of those things fell into his realm of normal – or something that he accepted as normal, acceptable behavior.

She knew, though, he hadn't wrapped his head around why she worked in the unit. Or why she would want to work in the unit. She knew he found it confusing and that it made him really uncomfortable that she interacted with 'sex' – or rather the crimes and violence around it – on a daily basis. The entire situation was such a foreign and confusing concept to him in a lot of ways. She thought some of that had to do with inexperience and naivety – an innocence that still existed somewhere in him despite the pain and darkness that she saw in him.

She'd tried to tread into conversation about it with him a couple times. But he was clearly uncomfortable with it and would either shut it down or direct it into areas that she'd rather not talk about. Things that upset her. Questions that she didn't feel were appropriate. Things she just didn't feel like thinking about at that time. She knew too, though, in a way that was him just rerouting the conversation in another way to shut it down. So it usually did get dropped.

She hoped though at some point they'd actually be able to have a real conversation about it. She felt like Jack needed it – in so many ways. But there were a lot of conversations she felt like she needed to have with Jack – and that he needed to be more open to having with her. It was an incremental battle, though, of him slowly opening up to her and she picking up on the small cracks in his walls or when the draw-bridges were down and making a move to take advantage of it.

Jack may be naïve about some of the crassness and inhumanity of humanity. He may be inexperienced about sex. He likely didn't want to contemplate much on rape. But she had seen enough of him and Benji – she'd heard enough – to know that he'd experienced some type of abuse. He'd dealt with the pain, the torture, the darkness of it. He just hadn't disclosed the full extent of it yet. But she didn't think she needed to be a detective to know he was a victim. She just hoped that some day they'd actually really talk.

"Did something happen to her?" Jack asked quietly still looking through the window at where the woman was wringing her hands. But he quickly looked away as she glanced in his direction too – likely feeling watched – and briefly met his eyes.

Olivia shook her head again. "I can't talk to you about that really. But, no, not to her."

Jack made the same thoughtful pucker that Benji did for a moment – clearly processing that and weighing it. His mind likely clunking and clicking along again as he decided what that statement meant. But she wasn't in a position to explain and she wasn't really sure how much she wanted too.

There was really only so much she wanted the boys to know about what she did and what she dealt with – even though she knew Jack was older and really needed, and deserved, to grasp it a bit more. Or at least some of the issues around it. She just generally wanted him to be more comfortable with the concept of her job and what it meant for their family – and for him to know and understand some of the horrifying crap that happened in society on some level, at least to the point that he understood the laws, understood where her morals lay and she got more reassurances that he was one of the 'good guys'. She wanted her sons to be good ones. She didn't want them doing anything stupid or hurtful. She wanted them to have self-respect and respect for others.

He met her eyes again and shrugged. "Your message said you wanted me to come here before work?"

He looked to the ground after that statement, though. He likely knew what it was about. He was basically at the deadline for when he needed to get back to the skateboard company about if he was going to participate in the interview process. They were at the deadline for when she'd said she'd give him an answer about if she was going to subsidize it – or if he was going to have to decide how he wanted to handle it on his own, likely driving a bit of a wedge in their still tumultuous relationship. That's what he was expecting, though. He was used to being disappointed by the people – the adults – around him, especially women. He was used to having to find his own way.

She nodded, though. "Yeah. I did," she agreed but gave a small gesture back to the room. "I just don't have a lot of time right now. I'm sorry."

Jack looked half-ways up at her from his downcast positioning. "Yeah. That's OK," he said. "I need to get to work anyway."

Another small nod she provided and reached out and squeezed his elbow and he managed to look at her a little bit more.

"I want you to talk to Gecko when you get there," she said quietly but firmly. "You're going to stay with the family of one of his friends."

He looked at her a little more questioningly – so she gave him a thin smile and squeezed his elbow again.

"So you call the interview scheduler – and you firm up the times and the dates you need to be down there. Text me those details. Talk to Gecko and get sorted how you're going to work out the accommodation. Then when you get back to the dorms – start some research on flights. I want you flying out of LaGuardia or JFK – not Newark – and I want you to go direct. I'll look at some of the options too and you take a break from your essay writing on Sunday, come over for dinner and we'll get it booked. OK?"

Jack still looked at her like he was confused. "So I'm going to the interview?" he clarified.

She allowed him another nod. "You're going to the interview. I'll pay for the flight. I haven't decided how we're going to work payback yet, Jack. But you're going to have to take on some financial responsibility for this too. It's not a free ride. And – even this interview – you're using it as a networking opportunity. The trip out there isn't a vacation. It's work. And," she stressed a bit more forcibly, "you're going to get in touch with your teachers for the upcoming term. Let them know you'll be missing a few days for an internship interview. You're going to know ahead of time how you're going to deal with any of the schoolwork you're missing so you don't get behind. Keeping your scholarship is doubly more important if you get offered this internship, OK?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

He sounded a bit more excited. Anything that made Jack excited was good. It took a lot – and it was so good to see him even with his little smiles. They happened so infrequently but there was something about them that just felt good. It was about the most she got from him on a lot of occasion. But those tiny moments filled her with almost as much contentment as when Benji cuddled into her like it was the most natural thing in the world for him. She liked having those feelings with both of the boys. She had to work harder to get them – to earn them – from Jack.

"OK," she agreed and brought her hand up and cupped his cheek for a moment, giving it a small stroke with her thumb. It was still a little cold from being outside. He still looked tired from all the studying and working and running himself into the ground he was doing that month – but at least there was the tiniest sparkle in his eyes for the moment.

"Get to work," she told him, now reaching back for the door. "Get on all that. We'll talk tonight – and I'll see you on Sunday."

He nodded again. "OK," he agreed yet again.

She gave him a smile. "Good man. Love you," she said quietly and then stepped back into the lounge, returning to the victim's mother. She could see Jack still gazing at her through the glass for a couple beats before he turned on his heel and headed back towards the elevators. He still had the small smile pulling at his lips.


	133. Chapter 133

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Your son looks a lot like you," the woman commented as Olivia pulled the lounge door shut behind her again. "He's very handsome."

Olivia paused at the comment. She didn't like to visibly let on when she might've been taken off guard at work. But the statement threw her a little for a split second.

She was used to random people mistaking Benji as her son. She actually kind of liked that. It made it more real for her - and she hoped going forward the little boy hearing the assumption and acceptance from even strangers would be reassuring for him and for their family. She thought it was a little silly, though. At least if the comments indicated a biological assumption that he was hers. Though, she supposed that wasn't necessarily what people were thinking either. Adoption and surrogates and donor sperm and every other combination and technological reproductive description imaginable was near commonplace anymore when it came to children and families. The 'your son' comments in relation to Benji were likely just in reaction to people seeing a woman with a little boy and them making sweeping assumption and statements. She was just glad she didn't get asked if he was her grandson though she supposed that was technically just as plausible seeing as he was Jay's grandson – and he hadn't been any older than her.

Still, there was something about the statements from a biological standpoint that seemed so wrought with humor in some way. Benji looked so different from her physically that she didn't even want to consider who she would've had to slept with or what sperm she would've had to pick from a catalogue to end up with him as her child. Considering that it looked like Benji had about every feature that would've required a recessive gene to take hold – it likely would've meant her more dominant features didn't hold much weight in the DNA pool if she'd managed to produce him. It'd made her wonder more than once what Benji's mother had looked like before she'd turned Goth and what his father's genes could've possibly offered. But it was all another area that she wasn't allowed to tread with Jack yet.

She could hope that one day she'd at least get to see some childhood photos of Izzy. She could also hope that when she eventually got a hold of Benji's medical records she might be able to glean a bit of information that way too. But it was seeming like – unsurprisingly – Benji hadn't made many trips to the doctor in his early years. Even though she had the power to obtain his files and have them transferred to the city – they were arriving with very little information. Not to mention, it didn't seem like he'd had a dedicated pediatrician and Jack had been little help in even suggesting who and where Benji would've gone for any of his medical care, follow-up or shots. So it was a matter of Mark shooting out requests almost into the dark – and to near every doctor's office and hospital within a 100-mile radius of the farm - seeing what they could get about the little boy. The answer seemed to be – not much.

Hearing it about Jack, though – 'your son' - was different. No one had vocalized that to her before. Maybe people had looked at him – or seen them together – and thought it. But she hadn't heard it out of anyone's mouth before that.

It wasn't like she hadn't looked at him and considered his features. But she mostly saw Jay – at least most of the time. Sometimes she felt, though, like she was looking at him a little more closely and working at stripping away Jay and trying to decide what his mother had looked like too – what she had contributed to his genetic make-up and his physical attributes.

It wasn't lost on Olivia that her and Jack shared similar darker features. It wasn't lost on her that if people were considering them together, from a biological standpoint, his appearance likely mirrored hers. The dark brown hair. The hazel eyes. Even looking at his facial structure – his chin, his cheekbones. The complexion of his skin. He was still a little pasty but his coloring was starting to improve. He'd always been darker than Benji but now she was getting a sense of his actual skin tone and it looked like he had some Mediterranean in him or maybe some Persian or even Native American. There was just that unknown hue in him that she recognized in herself too – and it was something that Jay definitely hadn't had.

Still, she knew he was Jay's. She knew as a woman – he obviously wasn't hers. She hadn't carried him. She hadn't donated her eggs anywhere. She'd never even been pregnant and beyond that brief period of the scare with Jay she'd never had to fully consider the ramifications of carrying a child inside her. There wasn't some lost child long ago given up for adoption out there. There was no way that Jack was hers in any capacity. But there were still things in his appearance that sometimes she slipped from seeing Jay into seeing aspects of herself.

Sometimes it was his stubbornness. His attitude. The way he talked to her and snarked at her and patronized her. She could hear herself too. Especially when he crossed his arms over his chest and gave her that 'I'm not budging and I'm right and you're wrong' glare.

Olivia didn't know how many times she'd used that look in her teens and 20s. Even her 30s. She hated to admit it – but likely still now too. It drove her a little crazy to sometimes feel like she was looking in a mirror. That it was some sort of payback for her own youth and ego and arrogance that was now standing in front of her. A reminder of her youth and an enlightenment that no one is ever as perfect or sophisticated or as right as they might think.

Sometimes, though, what she really found herself thinking about – or a little disconcerted about – when she looked at him and interacted with him. When she considered his characteristics and personality and mannerisms. Where her mind went was what his mother looked like? Who his mother was?

Sometimes she just felt like she saw too much of herself there. She supposed it wouldn't be abnormal for Jay to have had a 'type'. That maybe her and Jack's mother did share some physical characteristics and personality traits. That that had been something Jack's father had been attracted to in women. But it was odd to think about. It was odd to look at the teen and strip away his father in the search for his mother.

What Olivia usually ended up telling herself was that she was trying to see things she wanted to see and that weren't really there. What Jack looked like, who he was, who his mother was, what she looked like, if his father had a type of women – none of it really matter. Though, part of her - that she wasn't sure she'd ever admit to Jack as she certainly wasn't even ready to admit it to herself yet – sort of liked that maybe the teen really did sort of physically appear to be hers.

It was strange, though, too to look at him and think about the fact that not only had she reached her mid-40s and not had a child of her own – but that she could have a child Jack's age – easily, older even. She could have a grown child – a legal adult, an almost man or almost woman, a young person in her life. Instead she was just starting out and figuring out the parenting thing – and she was doing it with two kids who were already well developed works-in-progress.

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow as she took her seat back at the table with the woman.

"He looks like his father," was all she allowed, hoping that her momentary stagger at Jack being called her son hadn't shown too readily.

The woman gave her a thin – and a little bit of a sad smile – at that. "Don't they all at that age?" she commented quietly.

"You hear so much when they're little that they're you. They're their mommy's boy and then at some point they grow up and all you see there is their father. Every day," the woman added even more quietly.

Olivia watched her at that – carefully weighing the woman's comment, processing how her seeing Jack and her perception on what and who Jack was had brought it about after what had been nearly two hours of trying to direct and nudge her towards co-operation.

"Has Gavin become his father, Agnes?" she asked.

The woman looked at her at that but then her eyes seemed to gloss over while she looked out the windows behind them and off into the squad room again through the slatted blinds.

"You have another son?" she asked softly after a while of Olivia just letting her sit like that, letting her decide. "A younger boy?"

Olivia eyed her for a beat. It took her a moment to realize that the woman had been sitting next her desk earlier and had likely seen the boys' photo and the growing collection of Benji's arts and crafts that were following her into the office due to lack of space on the fridge. Or because they were 'special police presents' to protect her or to use to solve crimes or to collect clues or to call on the Rescue Bots for extra help since apparently the real Copper, Barricade and Chase were hiding from human view in the precinct's squad car lot.

She'd allowed the collection to grow because she wanted it there. She thought she needed it there. After years of not having to truly think of anyone in her personal life but herself – sometimes she needed the visible reminders that her decisions at work affected things on the home-front. She needed to be safe – mentally, emotionally and physically. She needed to get out of there at a reasonable time. She needed to think about more than the job and the victims. That was all still important but there were other very important people in her life now that needed her there for the long haul.

She'd rationalized that perps weren't likely to ever be at her desk. They got marched into interrogation rooms or the cage – shuffled from processing to arraignment. She thought most of the people who'd notice the changes on her desk would be her work colleagues. She knew it might fuel some chatter from other detectives and patrol officers and unis who might be passing through the room. But she figured that'd mostly be the extent of it. Even though, she had known that she'd occasionally have victims or witnesses at her desk filing reports or looking for support or participating in an informal interview. She hadn't really cared about them getting too much of a glimpse into her life.

There was really only so much they could glean from what was on her desk. Previously it had been that she had a mother and friends from what seemed like another lifetime based on the aged pictures framed there. She supposed having the picture of the boys and Benji's crafts didn't give away too much more. Most people would've likely just automatically expected that she had a family even before there were children in her life or before there was a photo frame on her desk. It was just what most people who'd reached her age did – what they had. Only she hadn't until recently. But despite knowing that people she'd be interacting with would see the photo, or see evidence of her having a little boy in her life, she hadn't entirely considered exactly how she'd react to the when it got verbally brought up.

She'd listened to Elliot disclose little tidbits about his life as a father and about his children in her years as a partner with him – as he tried to establish a rapport with victims, witnesses or even perps on occasion. She'd seen Nick reach out to women with little anecdotes about his daughter or his observations as a parent. There'd even been occasions where she'd disclosed bits of herself – her mother's rape, some of the emotional abuse she'd endured at her hands, and her own assault – in an effort to connect with the people she was dealing with. But somehow bringing her own little boy into it – her own family life that she was just now trying to establish – jarred her for a moment. Olivia wasn't sure she was ready to use her relationship with Benji or her developing experiences as a mother of a preschooler and a teenager as a pawn in the collection of information game.

This was a potential witness, though. It was the mother of a victim. It was a woman who they needed the help and co-operation from to move forward with their case. Not just that – but for her younger son to get the help he needed and deserved. And to provide an opportunity for other victims to come forward – and she suspected there were other victims, though she didn't have enough evidence to prove that yet.

Olivia met her eyes, which still seemed distant. "I do," she said with a quiet firmness. "I have a four-year-old at home."

She knew Agnes' little boy was older than Benji. He was nine – almost ten. But she still thought that she needed to hear his age.

Agnes looked back at her at that and gave he a small smile but her eyes looked more filled with tears at that point.

"He likes crafts?" she said and gestured back out to the squad room and her desk again.

Olivia gave her a thin smile at that and looked down for a moment before meeting her eyes again. "He does," she nodded. "He's always making me something."

Agnes smiled a bit more at that but Olivia could see her eyes welling more. She let it sit there for a second. She let the woman reflect on it. She could see that she was processing and reflecting and remembering and thinking of her own two sons – and their abusive father, where she'd thought the violence and abuse had ended when he'd gone to jail – the limited amount of time that would be. But it hadn't seemed to have worked out that way for their crumbling family.

"You have quite the collection out there," Agnes said quietly. "An art gallery. You should charge admission."

Olivia returned her smile – trying to connect more with her, trying to give her just enough to get over the hump that had been stalling her as she tried to protect her son and their family from the self-destruction and meltdown that she clearly felt they were in.

"I save the admission for the fridge in our kitchen," she said.

Agnes snorted at that and looked down at the table. Olivia could see her swiping at her eyes, now trying to hide the tears that had been welling there but hadn't fallen.

"Malcolm used to have our fridge covered too," she said quietly, not looking up. "He doesn't anymore."

Olivia nodded and reached out touching the woman's hands lightly until she slowly gave her a downcast glance. "He's an artist too?" Olivia asked gently.

Agnes nodded. "He used to be," she said and paused. "He stopped. He stopped lots of things."

Olivia allowed another small nod. "Agnes, if you let us talk to Malcolm again – we can sit him down with one of our psychologists. We can use some art therapy. It will help us. It will help him. We'll be able to find Gavin with Malcolm's help. We can help him too – and we can make sure there's no more victims. We can make sure no more families have to go through this."


	134. Chapter 134

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

She heard a thump in the living room and knew that the point it was time to put down what she was working on to get dinner ready in the kitchen and visually check on what the hell the boys were doing.

So far it had seemed like fairly typical play and banter going on between Jack and Benji since he'd arrived at the apartment.

As usual, Jack had promptly flopped on the couch and sought out the remote, shortly followed by his Xbox controller. Benji, though, had quickly been at him – wanting to catch up on the playtime he'd missed with his uncle that he usually got on the weekend. So Jack's attempts to get in some time on his videogames quickly faded and it had seemed he'd settled on trying to watch a movie. But Little Fox hadn't even been very interested in that – not surprisingly. Unless it was Transformer, Bob the Builder or Thomas the Tank Engine, Benji's attention span for television didn't usually span beyond about 10 minutes. Even getting him to sit through the animated movies that he picked out for himself at the library every Sunday was near impossible. He was a constant running commentator, an endless conveyer of questions, a toy re-enactor consignor, and a flip-flopper couch hopper during them.

He didn't want to be watching TV with Jack that afternoon. He wanted to PLAY!

Jack, though, had done his best to ignore Benji's demands for attention. There'd been some bantering and spats. From the kitchen, where Olivia was working on Jack's requested Sunday dinner, she'd been sort of supervising their interaction that seemed more brotherly than that of an uncle-nephew to her. She would've gone and refereed a bit more. But the entire dinner process was taking a lot longer in terms of prep work than she might've liked.

She was sort of regretting that she'd gotten into the habit of letting Jack pick what they'd eat for Sunday dinner. He seemed to like that little routine they'd established, though. It was definitely exposing her to a lot of food that she wouldn't normally consider eating – or at least not making for herself to eat. It was also really testing her cooking abilities and forcing her to sort of learn how to cook in a way she never had before.

Jack had declared that he wanted his grandmother's chicken stew and dumplings for dinner with her carrot cake for dessert. Olivia had considered vetoing that as soon as he had told her it over the phone on Friday night. But some rummaging through the recipe box – that now very clearly was something she'd received from Jay's parents years and years ago – had confirmed that she did, in fact, have the recipe. Whether it would actually end up tasting what Jack was craving was another story.

She definitely wasn't a cook or baker – or a woman who'd grown up on a farm doing down-home cooking for a family coming in from long days of hard labor. She knew she didn't cook like Jack's grandmother. Sometimes it felt silly to even try – like it was setting herself up for failure and Jack up for disappointment. Then he'd usually sulk about things from days gone-by and missing things that Olivia knew she'd never be able to replace for him no matter how hard she tried. Then even getting beyond all that – it was a lot of chopping and dicing and grating for this particular meal request. That might not have been too bad if Jack was helping prepare the food. But left to her own devices meant that she was supervising from a distance - and with the new apartment layout, she couldn't see directly into the living space. That bothered her a bit for watching Benji while she was trying to make him a meal on weekdays – and it was bothering her now while listening to the boys natter at each other.

Benji had grown tired of Jack being flopped on the couch trying to watch his movie and had opted to sing 'Jack's Wake-Up Song' that she'd been working at teaching him. It had more been meant for Saturdays when Jack stayed in bed until about 20 minutes before he was supposed to be heading out the door to Funky's. But Benji had decided to demonstrate his new love of the sing-song rhyme in that particular moment in an effort to get his uncle moving.

"Fera Jack-kah. Fera Jack-kah. Door-me-vue. Door-me-vue," Benji had rattled off at him in some mangled French – sitting a top of his uncle's chest and bouncing while Jack barely more than acknowledged him beyond turning up the volume on the television.

After Jack had expressed some fascination with the fact that she knew other language – or maybe more that his dad had known other languages and that was something that Jack hadn't known about his father – Olivia had been puttering a little bit at teaching both the boys some various words and sayings. Jack had some interest but Benji was a better pupil - mostly because he was a captive audience who loved to repeat back just about anything. He loved it even more if it was a silly little sing-song rhyme. Frere Jacques had seemed like an easy one to get buy-in from Benji to learn quickly.

And, really, Olivia was kind of enjoying getting to teach the little boy. She kept sputtering off some French, Spanish and Italian at him. He was picking it up bit-by-bit. It was kind of cute, actually. She hadn't gotten to try to teach him words and spoken English in his infancy – waiting and listening for those first early words and developing vocabulary. It felt nice to sort of get to experience that in another way now.

It was fun too to actually get to use and practice her languages. She got to do it sometimes at work – but not often enough – and it was really a use-it or lose-it situation. As she got older and she used any of her language skills less and less, she felt more and more like she was losing it as it slipped away in the crevices of her mind and memories.

She liked to now be trying to be keep it a little fresh and to again be trying to push forward her Little Fox's memory and vocalization skills and mimicking and word-sound-sight recognition. She wanted to play an active role in his education and making sure that he got caught up with other kids. So she was telling herself that this could be part of that process.

"Sunny-let-me-tina, sunny-let-me-tina. Ding-bang-dong. Ding-bang-dong," Benji finished loudly.

"What the hell are you even saying?" Olivia had heard Jack say with some clear annoyance when Benji was done his little ditty.

"It mean get up. Wake up, Peedg!" Benji had declared.

Olivia had poked her head out of the kitchen at that and caught Jack's eyes.

"Jack – don't use that language," she reminded him.

He was getting better about it. But he still had definite slips and it annoyed her to no-end when he did. He looked away, though – his embarrassed reaction – which told her it had been a slip and not a purposeful flaunt at her requests he not swear in front of his four-year-old nephew.

She sighed and shook her head at him. "It's Brother John," she informed him. "In French."

"It French!" Benji had repeated for good measure as she disappeared back into the kitchen to continue working on dinner.

"Why didn't you just teach it to him in English like normal," Jack had called after her.

She rolled her eyes as she went back to chopping up the carrots for the stew.

"Because I'm teaching him some French," she said back – loudly enough so he could hear her from the living room and above the sounds of the television and Benji still chattering. "It's an easy song for him to learn."

"Why don't you teach me French?" Jack had called back.

She snorted and shook her head again even though he couldn't see it. Jack drove her crazy sometimes. She actually had been teaching him some words in her three languages too. But he only wanted to learn so much – and it was clear that his interest wasn't strong enough that he was likely to ever become bilingual in anything at that point in his life.

"Because you keep asking me how to say obnoxious things," she clarified for him.

And, that was the truth. Jack didn't want to know useful phrases or the words for various food items and kitchen utensils and household items that she was teaching Benji. He wanted to know swear words or ways to cuss at people and how to tell them off. Not exactly phrases she felt the need to be adding to his vocabulary in any language. He had more than enough of that in English.

"That's the good stuff," he informed her.

She looked at the ceiling again and shook her head. Every day she spent with Jack she usually ended up putting out a silent plea that Benji would not develop into that in 15 years.

"You want to learn a real song?" she'd heard Jack ask Benji.

"YEAH!" Benji had near shrieked – likely just grateful that now his uncle seemed ready to play with him.

Olivia hoped that Jack actually was planning on giving him some attention – or else they were likely nearing a Benji meltdown point, if not an outright tantrum. If that happened, her dinner-making efforts would inevitably be put on hold.

"Teenaged mutant ninja turtles!" she could hear Jack more saying than singing to the little boy.

"Teenaged mutant ninja turtles! Teenaged mutant ninja turtles! HEROES IN A HALF-SHELL! TURTLE POWER!" the teen had near yelled and that's when she'd heard the thump that had made her stop what she was doing and actually go out into the living room.

It was clear that Jack had flipped himself and Benji from off the couch they'd been laying on to the floor. Jack had Benji half-ways pinned under him and Benji was flailing around in a fit of giggles – working at pushing his uncle up and trying to scurry out from under him. Jack was making some dramatic movements to make it look like Benji was almost succeeding before dropping his weight closer to the boy – though not on the little boy – on his bent elbows. Benji didn't seem any worse-for-the-wear. He actually seemed to be enjoying the sudden bout of roughhousing. But Olivia still sighed.

"Jack," she called at him and waited until he glanced at her questioningly. "You need to be careful," she said. "His head."

Jack made a sound of disgust at her. "He's fine," the teen protested but apparently was listening. He should be. It seemed like they all had near constant mini-discussions about being careful after a concussion and watching his arm. So Jack let Benji push him up and rolled over onto his back, letting the little boy then jump on top of him in the continued wrestling.

"Be gentle, Benj," Olivia reminded the little boy that time.

Jack visibly rolled his eyes at her at that. "He's fine," he informed her again.

So she sighed and again returned to the kitchen. She knew the reality was that Jack usually was very gentle with Benji in their play – he was conscious of how much bigger and stronger he was, and he loved the little boy. He wouldn't purposely do anything to hurt him – not physically. And he had the best intentions for him mentally and emotionally too – despite his various slip ups, poor judgments and decisions and actions that you'd basically expect from a teenager trying to be a parent or uncle.

It was actually more likely Benji who would end up hurt Jack in their roughhousing. The teen was liable to take a knee in the crotch or a slap, hit or pinch that really wasn't gentle. And, Benji had some pretty pointy bones in his little knees, elbows and chin. They could dig into you pretty good even when he wasn't trying to roughhouse. But she decided to trust Jack to referee that on his own.

She knew how important roughhousing could be in a child's development – especially boys. And, she'd definitely taken a crash course in how to roughhouse since Benji had come into her life. He was constantly throwing himself at her and play wrestling in his fits of giggles. She got some enjoyment out of it too. She liked to see him goofy and silly. But she definitely had the bumps and bruises from the play too. And, that was her major concern.

She wanted to make sure Benji grasped the concept of gentle touches even when it was rowdy play. She wanted to make sure he understood good touches versus bad touches – and that no and stop meant no and stop. She also wanted to make sure he understood that not all kids wanted to participate in rowdy play or roughhousing or his really flip-flop, crash, tumble, giggle wrestling matches. Or at least didn't want to participate at quite the same extent and level he did – and that he had to respect that and match his intensity to what they were willing to play at.

They were challenging lessons to teach to a four-year-old – especially when she only had limited opportunities to supervise him and instruct him while he was playing with other children. It was even more challenging given his social development delays. But him being rough-and-tumble likely didn't help with him making friends and keeping them. She could only hope that would improve when she got him into a new preschool. It made her a little sad because his play wasn't that rough – it was just vigorous and even though some of his touches ended up being harder than he likely knew – he really was a gentle, caring, loving little boy.

More than that, she knew that for Benji a lot of his roughhousing was rooted more in the tactical sensations. It was about touch and hugs and embraces – things that he hadn't gotten enough of in his early years. He was still learning and cherishing them. He was exploring – and playing. She didn't want to deny him that. She just wanted to make sure his play was done within reason. She'd expressed that to Jack too – since he was Benji's other major playmate when it came to rowdy play. She was observing their interactions but the teen had seemed to have taken heed to what she'd said. She'd been noticing that Jack would sometimes stopped Benji now too and told him something hurt or was too rough. So she hoped they'd eventually all be on the same page and Benji would just be a typically wild-and-crazy little boy.

"So was swimming awesome?" Jack had asked Benji.

Olivia had heard Benji trying to relay his swimming adventures to his uncle earlier but Jack had barely been grunting at him and not showing any real interest. Apparently he was interested now, though. She peaked out again and saw that he had a hold of Benji's two hands while the little boy straddled his chest and was making almost freestyle swim motions with them and little dolphin dives now-and-then while Benji struggled a little against the grip while bouncing up-and-down on his uncle's stomach.

She'd bought Benji a swimming suit and taken him over to the pool as his 'super, special, fun surprise' for having co-operated for the most part during his week of being under Nick's mom's supervision. For all the pontificating that Benji had done about how the other kids at his former nursery school got to go swimming and he didn't because of his cast but now he was going to get to go swimming since his arm was all better – she'd pretty much expected him to jump right in. It hadn't really gone that way.

She'd actually spent so much time standing next to one of the ladders in the shallow end – waiting for him decide to put his feet in and step down one or two steps so he could grab onto her neck and waiting arms – she'd started to think she might get hypothermia. She'd even told him she was cold and if he wasn't going to get in – they'd go get changed and go to the family free-time in the gym instead. But that had induced shrieks – which had drawn looks from other people in the pool.

When he finally did manage to work up the courage to start his way down the ladder, so she could effectively grab him without him having to go too far into the water, he'd clung to her neck and nearly climbed up her with his little feet like he was trying to keep as dry as possible.

"Benji – it's just water. It's just like the tub," she'd stressed at him. But it really hadn't calmed him.

She'd ended up carrying him around the water for some time and bouncing him on her hip, splashing him bit-by-bit, until finally he managed to actually settle around her waist and let himself get wet. There really hadn't been any attempts at swimming – or her trying to teach him to swim. As far as they'd gotten was her being allowed to sink down a bit in the water, getting him more wet. But the one time where she'd lowered herself a bit too far, he'd gotten some water in his mouth and then he'd spit and sputtered on her. And, that had about been the point, where she'd decided they'd had enough swimming for one day.

She supposed it wasn't a bad first attempt. But she definitely had a long way to go in terms of even getting him comfortable with the water – or at least that large of mass of water. Maybe after they managed to reach the point where he didn't have a death grip on her – they could try some floating and then start to consider some swimming lessons or something. She wasn't sure how much he'd even enjoyed the experience, though. She suspected not much – since there hadn't really been any other mention of it. Usually Benji talked about their little outings almost endlessly and like she hadn't been there too.

But Benji responded with, "Very awesome. There a slide and ladders."

"And a diving board?" Jack had asked.

"Yyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeees," Benji had agreed, though Olivia wasn't sure he knew what a diving board was.

"Did you do a cannonball and yell Cowabunga?" Jack asked.

"Peedg, you do not talk 'bout cows or udders at da pool. 'Livia says," Benji informed his uncle with a very serious voice. "It a rule."

She snorted at that. She wasn't sure Jack would clue into what he was babbling about but she sure did.

If it hadn't been long enough since she'd been in a bathing suit – she couldn't even think of the last time she'd been to a pool or the beach – Benji had felt the need to point out that boys' bathing suits and girls' bathing suits were different. She would've been fine with that. Benji was always full of observations. Where it had gotten awkward was when he'd rather loudly cleared, "It because girls have udders." Then his hands had landed deftly on her breasts – as if to prove his point and maybe draw her attention to the fact they were there, in case she hadn't noticed.

She'd sputtered at him for a moment but near instantly reached up and removed his hands.

"Benji, don't touch me there, please," she told him quietly. Him adopting her breasts as a pillow in their cuddles was one thing. Him deciding he could grab at them – in public – was another.

And, he was speaking loudly enough for them both – and they weren't alone in the family change room. She could just feel the other mothers, who were in the process of readying their children for a swim, glancing at them and near snickering quietly about the epic parenting fail that was taking place down the benches from them.

"Girl cows have udders too, Mommy," he informed her very matter-of-factly. "They for milk."

She just looked at him and then rubbed at her eyebrow for a moment. She really didn't feel like touching the topic at the moment – not with their audience. So she just shook her head and stood – grabbing their towels and taking his hand.

"OK, Benj," she said to him as they headed for the pool entrance, "let's not talk about cows or udders at the pool."

"Why?" he'd look up at her questioningly like it was a completely ridiculous request.

She just shook her head again. She had nothing on that one. It likely was a little ridiculous. She just didn't feel like re-educating him on human body parts – as opposed to animal terminology he'd apparently absorbed on the farm - while they were out in public.

"Because there's no talking about cows and udders at the pool," she said. It was a little white lie. It wasn't a pool rule. But she'd decided it would be a rule for when her and Benji were at the pool.

He'd given her his thoughtful pucker, like he wasn't quite buying it. But the topic did get dropped ask soon as he saw the actual pool.

Jack, though, would know none of that. She could almost feel him thinking, 'What the hell are you talking about?' again out in the living room.

"I was informed I have udders," she called from the kitchen.

She heard Jack snort back a laugh at that.

"You sorta do," he'd called back to her.

She shook her head but then smiled as Benji informed his 19-year-old uncle, "They called breasts not udders on mommies."

She had taken the time to give him a minor boy and girl part lesson after they did get home. She really didn't want him informing anyone else they had udders – or giving that bit of information to other children.

"Breasts, udders. Same difference," Jack declared loudly enough for her to hear.

Benji – always up to following his uncle's example and ready to take Jack's statements as gospel - quickly repeated it. "Breasts, udders. Same def-fer-ence," called out.

She rolled her eyes at that and poked back into the living room. "Hey," she called at Jack teasingly and he looked up at her from where he was still sprawled on the floor with the little boy. "You be careful," she warned sternly but teasingly – pointing at him a little with the knife she'd been using to chop and dice up their dinner, "or you'll be getting an anatomy lesson from me too – and I don't think you want that."

But as the statement had come out of her mouth she'd watched as Jack's entire face changed. It drained of color, his eyes going wide and near glassy, as he startled upright and back, sending Benji tumbling off him. The sudden movement of the little boy's fall and Benji's yowls as he hit the floor just seemed to startle Jack more. He backed up more on his hands, dragging his ass further away from her, across the floor, until his back hit the couch. He jerked again and glanced around him before seeming to realize what he'd hit. Or at least realizing he had no farther to go – his back was to a wall. He stilled for a moment but in his stillness she could see the tremble in him. His eyes growing more empty and his whole being seeming disassociated from what was happening as he shook.

Olivia didn't have to watch it for more than a few seconds to realize that she'd just inadvertently triggered a flashback. She'd seen it before in other victims. She'd experienced it herself. She knew exactly – to a point – what he was going through.

She immediately put the knife down on the counter and wiped her hands against her pants – not wanting to take her eyes off him for even a second to step back farther into the kitchen. She walked quickly into the living room, crouching and scooping up Benji.

"It's OK, Little Fox," she hushed him softly. "Jack didn't mean to."

She was already scooting herself across the floor and closer to Jack – setting Benji down on the floor next to her but keeping grip on his one hand. He was going to need connection and reassurance too while he tried to calm while having to watch his uncle like this. She knew it would likely scare the little boy too. But it was clear that whatever Jack was experiencing in the moment was terrifying him.

"Jack, sweetheart?" she said levelly but firmly enough to try to attract his attention. He hadn't even seemed to register her move towards him. "Can you look at me?"

She could see how glassy and wide his eyes had really gone now – and as he turned his head slowly towards her, his trembling still visible – she could see his pupils had dilated too. She wasn't sure if he was hearing her voice – the words – of if he was just turning his head towards the sound.

"Jack – you're having a flashback," she told him, trying to keep firm eye contact. But he looked so unfocused. She didn't think he was registering that she was right there or who she was yet. "What you're seeing or feeling – it's not really happening right now, OK? You're here with me – Olivia - and Benji, your nephew. You're safe."

He just gazed blankly at her and made no comment. She could see the growing clamminess on his skin and hear the catch in his breathing.

"Can you take some deep breaths, sweetheart?" she asked of him. "Focus on your breathing?"

She didn't think he was going to but then his whole chest trembled a bit more as his shoulders rose and fell with his breathing.

She gave him a little smile and nodded. "Good man," she assured him. "Good boy. Just keep focusing on your breathing. Keep taking those deep breaths."

"What wrong with Peedg?" Benji asked still sputtering a bit on his own. She glanced at him – she was likely gripping his hand too tightly but he hadn't complained yet. She reached and rubbed at his shoulder and swiped at some of the streaks of tears running down his cheeks.

"Peedg is just a little upset right now," she told him quietly. "But you just keep being brave for your uncle, OK?" She gave him a reassuring smile and then shook his hand in hers again before turning back to the teen.

"I'm going to touch you, Jack," she warned him. "I'm just going to take your hand. You tell me if that's not OK – if it doesn't feel good right now."

She moved her hand towards him slowly. He clearly still hadn't come back yet. She didn't want to startle him – and she couldn't tell if he was having a visual or sensory flashback or a combination of the two. She wasn't sure if touching him might be too much but she wanted to try to ground him. For him to feel something in the now and in the present and in his new reality – not his past.

His hand was pushed so heavily against the floor it was turning red from the pressure while white at the crease in his wrist and across the top of his clenched knuckles. She put her hand over top of his first and he startled for a moment and looked down.

"Can you feel that?" she asked. "Is it OK, if I take your hand, Jack?"

He let out another shake breath and she felt some of the tension in his arm ease so she quickly slipped her hand under his and gripped it softly but he returned it tightly – near crushingly. But she just nodded and gave him another small smile.

"Good boy," she assured him again. "You can feel it? You're right here. You're safe – and you've got a hold of my hand right now. That's real. OK?"

He nodded and let out a really shaky, "Yeah."

She gave him another small smile. "Good. You're sitting on the floor. Can you feel it under you? Look down and see it, OK?"

He blinked a bit but then did glance down and nodded his head in acknowledgement.

"Do you know where you are right now?" she asked.

He glanced at her then. He was starting to come out of it. His eyes were still glassy and he was still shaking – but she could see him in the look he returned to her again. He hadn't completely disappeared. He was coming back. Slowly.

He lifted his opposite hand and swiped the back of it against his eyes for a moment and let out another ragged breath.

"The apartment," he said quietly. "Your apartment."

She gave him a little nod and a small squeeze. "Yeah, sweetheart. We're at our apartment. You're safe. You're here with me and Benji. In New York City. It's Sunday. We're just making dinner and watching movies. Our usual Sunday afternoon routine."

He nodded again. "Yeah," he offered quietly but then hung his head. "Fuck," he let out at a near whisper.

"It's OK, Jack," she told him. "Just take your time. Take all the time you need."

He shook his head again – a bit harder. "Fuck," he mumbled and let go of her hand, reaching up both of his hands to press against his eye sockets like he did when he was trying to hold back tears.

"It's OK, Jack," she assured him again.

"It OK, Peedg," Benji added in too. "I not mad. I OK too."

But the teen's shoulders just started to shake harder as his hands remained buried against his face.

Olivia let out a nearly inaudible sigh. She hated that she'd just done something to trigger this in him. She hated that he likely wasn't going to talk to her about what he'd just experienced – or what had even given him the basis to have flashbacks in the first place. She knew the basics but she was starting to think he'd never tell her the details of what had gone on in his home, what his uncle had put him and his sister and her Little Fox through. She hated that he didn't want to let her in or let her help.

But she still dropped Benji's little hand for the moment and moved a tiny bit closer to the teen.

"I'm going to touch you again, Jack," she warned and then rubbed her hand up his bicep before allowing it to come to rest on his shoulder.

She wasn't expecting it but he near toppled against her at that – his trembling becoming even more apparent – and she wrapped her other arm around him, carefully, attuning herself to any changes in his body language or physical reaction that indicated he couldn't take the touch right now. But he seemed OK with it – at least for the moment.

"It's OK, Jack," she said quietly to him. "It's not your fault. Whatever your uncle did to you – it's not your fault. You're safe now. You and Benji are both safe."


	135. Chapter 135

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia watched as Jack stood from the little dining room table and worked at stuffing his laptop back into his school bag. They'd just finished booking his flight out to L.A. for his internship interview. About $400 later and she really wasn't sure she felt like this was the best idea anymore – not that she was ever really sure she had. But she could've at least saved herself about $150 if she'd put him on a flight with one or two stopovers – but given his state, she thought that was probably an even worse idea.

Jack had done his best not to look at her while they sat on the computer and discussed some of his flight options. They'd finally settled on him flying out fairly earlier on Saturday morning. It'd give him a day or so to try to adjust to the time difference before his interview and maybe even get out to a skate park in the city to get in some practice outside before showing off his skills. If he felt up to it or was being particularly social, it might give the family who was putting him up the chance to show him some of the sights too.

They'd debated back-and-forth (though Jack quietly and monotone) about if he should come back on the Tuesday night following the interview or the Wednesday morning. She'd initially been favoring getting him on the plane on Tuesday night. The interview was taking place right at the beginning of his spring term. She thought she seemed slightly more stressed than him about the concept of him missing some classes in that second week of the semester. She wanted him to miss as little as possible. Still, after clicking around she'd realized even if he did fly back on Tuesday night that he wouldn't be rolling into the city until the wee-hours of Wednesday morning. Wednesday would likely end up being a write-off anyways for him with that plan. And, she really didn't want deal with having Benji up-and-about at 2 a.m. so she could meet Jack at the airport.

She knew that the teen was perfectly capable of navigating New York on his own – that if she gave him cab money, he'd be fine getting a taxi back up to the dorms. But she just worried about anyone wandering around the city at night – especially someone like Jack. There was something about him that just screamed victim – particularly at the moment. Beyond that, he'd never dealt with airports or travel before and she was nervous for him. She would want to be there to make sure things went OK and to hear about the trip. She knew that if she didn't get face-time with him, she'd likely get one-word answers over the phone that would be hard for her to read what he was actually saying. So they'd settled on him being on the plane Wednesday morning. The family would be able to drop him off as they headed into work and by the time he got into JFK it would be the end of her workday for her and Benji to go over and greet him. It seemed like it would work out OK. Or – at least the flight timing would work out OK. Olivia wasn't so sure about the rest of it. Not observing him that evening.

She'd held him for a while after his flashback and amidst his tears until he calmed down. His eyes had been red and puffy looking when he'd finally pulled away from her and there'd been wet spot from his tears on her shirt. But he hadn't wanted to say anything more to her at that point – even with Benji pushing him about if he was OK and going in for his own hugs from his uncle who didn't seem that excited about having the little boy crawling all over him. Still, Jack had eventually clung to Benji too and cuddled him in a way she hadn't really seen before. For the first time she'd actually seen Jack give the little boy a small peck of a kiss too. So she hadn't pushed him to talk more at that moment. She tried to let him do it at his own pace and in his own way.

Eventually she'd gotten up and headed back into the kitchen to finish working on dinner. Though, in there she'd found herself cursing the layout of the kitchen even more. She was really missing having the open-concept living space of her smaller apartment downstairs – where the only thing that divided the kitchen from the living room had been a small counter island. Here, even when she positioned herself on the counter space closest to the kitchen entrance she didn't have a clear view into the living room. She couldn't see her boys – supervise her boys, observe how they were doing. It was bothering her more than usual.

It bugged her that when she was looking at apartments that wasn't the sort of thing she'd even considered. The developing parent in her likely would've noticed that now – two months ago when she'd been looking … well … she supposed she'd manage to come a bit of a-ways since then. She wondered if the landlord would be amendable to her knocking down part of the one wall and creating a little island and serving window area into the living room. She somehow doubted it.

Jack had remained quiet at dinner and had continued to avoid making eye contact – likely concerned she was going to press him to talk while she had him trapped at the table. She hadn't. But she did observe him. It was apparent he was still trembling slightly and she'd seen some of the veggies and broth from his requested stew sloshing off his spoon each time he moved to bring part of the meal to his mouth. Now, he was trying just as hard to ignore her and to make a beeline for the door and back to the dorms – to be alone – as quickly as possible.

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow, as he pulled a textbook out of his backpack with a sound of frustration as he tried to get his laptop back into the space it'd previously occupied. He clearly wasn't all that stable if he was going to get mad at the positioning of an errant book.

"Jack, I really think you should just stay here tonight," she'd said to him – again.

She'd already told him that earlier in the evening. She'd really feel more comfortable knowing he wasn't alone that night. Even though she knew that his suitemates and other people in the dorms would be around if something really developed. But she thought he'd be more comfortable - and more likely to seek help if he needed it - if he just stayed put. She thought she was in a better position to be able to help him and handle any emotional fall-out.

"I don't have any clothes here," Jack mumbled back at her.

It was a statement he'd made previously too. She wasn't sure if was entirely true. She was fairly certain if she went digging through the basket of folded laundry - that'd been sitting in her bedroom for days but hadn't yet been put away – she'd be likely to at least find some of his socks and underwear. He was always just tossing his dirty laundry into the hamper when he was there on weekends rather than taking it back up to the dorms to wash on his own.

Still, she'd made a mental note of the excuse he was using and had filed away that she'd need to stop on the way home from work one night and pick him up some underwear, socks and maybe a pair of sleep pants and tshirt that could just be dedicated apartment attire. She was sure he'd love that she went shopping for clothing for him on her own – especially underwear. She was also sure he'd likely ignore that they were supposed to be apartment-dedicated clothes. And, as much as he usually left anything that he had with him that needed to be laundered there – she was just as sure that somehow the apartment-dedicated items would purposely get dragged back to the dorms. But she intended to make the purchases anyway.

"And I need to finish my essay," he added that time, though, like he suspected she might call his bluff. "And I'm fine," he said a bit more forcibly for good measure.

He zipped his backpack up and started to move out of the little dining room and into the living room – headed for the front door. She stood and followed after him, gesturing at the couch, as he continued his beeline.

"Jack, I really think we should just talk for a few minutes," she pressed a little more that time.

He glanced at her and made an audibly annoyed sigh. She knew he just wanted to leave – that he really didn't want to talk about it. But she also knew they really needed to talk at that point.

They couldn't keep ignoring it or dancing around it and pretending that she didn't notice that something was clearly wrong. They couldn't keep putting off having some sort of discussion about what was going on with him – what had gone on with him. He still had a right to direct how they'd deal with the process of coming to terms with it – but they needed to get it out in the open and acknowledge it was there first.

"I don't need to talk," he said quietly. "I'm fine."

She gave him a small nod. "OK," she agreed. "You don't need to talk. But I'd like to talk. So for me – please come and sit down – just for a few minutes. And, then you can go – if that's what you want."

He made an even more annoyed sound but went over to the couch and near threw himself down onto the middle cushion, slumping forward with his elbows on his knees as he let his backpack fall between his feet, where he also cast his eyes. She watched him again for a moment and then rubbing at her eyebrow, she went and sat next to him.

She could feel the tension radiating off of him but then gently reached out and took his one hand. Jack glanced at his hand as she did it – so she rubbed her thumb aacross the top of it and then twined her fingers with his and bounced the joined hands on his knee a couple times. He didn't say anything.

"Has that ever happened before?" she asked him, after giving him several seconds to adjust to the fact she was sitting next to him and that they were going to be talking.

He just shrugged in response. But he didn't really need to answer. She knew the answer. She would've known the answer anyway but while she'd been putting Benji to bed, the little boy had only confirmed the obvious to her.

Benji had definitely seen his uncle like that before. He didn't understand. It was scary and confusing for him. He was still asking her if Peedg was OK even as she tried to get him settled into bed. He wanted to know if Peedg was sad or if he had a boo-boo – if a kiss would make it better. He thought that maybe his uncle needed another hug and had gone scurrying back to the living space to bestow yet another one on Jack before he finally let her tuck him in. But, she thought that Benji was likely right on some of those things. More than right. Jack was sad and he definitely had a boo-boo. He likely needed more than a few hugs and than some.

She gave Jack's hand another small squeeze just trying to reassure him and to keep him grounded in the moment, to know she was there - and there for him.

"Have you ever heard of post-traumatic stress, Jack? PTSD?"

He shrugged again – his shoulders hunched far forward in his examination of the ground. "Sure," he mumbled. "The soldiers come back with it."

She allowed him a small nod at that. "That's true," she agreed. "A lot of them do. But it's not something that just affects soldiers, sweetheart. Lots of things can cause PTSD. Any kind of traumatic experience … a natural disaster, a major health issue, a car accident …. Witnessing a death or the death of someone close to us … a suicide of someone close to us. Abandonment, Jack. Neglect … violence … abuse…"

Jack sat quietly at that and didn't say anything.

"Jack, you've been through a lot for someone your age. A lot has happened to you – especially these past few years. With all that – it wouldn't be surprising for you to have PTSD. It'd make sense, sweetheart."

"Nothing bad has happened to me," he near whispered. "I'm fine."

She gave her head a small shake and looked at him, squeezing his hand again.

"Sweetheart, you don't have to lie to me," she told him. "Don't lie to me. We both know 'bad things' have happened to you. I can think of several traumatic things that have happened to you. Some of them you've told me about. Some of them you haven't – but I know, OK?"

He gave her no response again so she bounced their hands again a bit on his knee until he looked at them – though not her.

"You know how we talk about how Benji idolizes you?" she asked. "How he watches you and repeats things he sees and hears from you?"

Jack nodded slightly. "Yeah …"

"He saw and heard other things too, Jack," she said, "before you guys came here. Little kids … sometimes they may not really know what they are seeing or hearing. They may not completely understand it. But they know what something is a little off – when something feels wrong to them. Little people can be pretty smart and pretty observant, Jack."

Jack still remained quiet.

"Benji's said some things to me that leave the impression that your uncle was pretty rough with you guys," she filled in for him gently. "And, sweetheart, a lot of your body language comes across as signs I'd normally be looking for in someone who'd been abused. You take very protective and closed-off posturing. You struggle with maintaining eye contact in conversation – especially if you find them a little confrontational."

The teen gave her a small sideways glance at that and she felt him loosen his grip on her hand a bit and just slightly pull his hand away. But she didn't let him – holding on for a moment. He needed to be held – gently.

"Jack," she said quietly and looked at him, squeezing his hand again and waiting until he allowed her another small glance. "Jack … there is nothing you could say to me right now that would shock me. There is nothing that you could tell me right now that is going to make me think less of you as a person. You've been dealing with a lot – I know that. And, none of what you're dealing with – none of what's happened to you – is your fault."

He didn't let go of her hand or try to pull away again – but he still didn't offer any sort of comment. He sat there quietly and Olivia weighed again in her head what she could say to try to get him to open up – to get him to trust her, to drop some of his guard, to let her in … to get him to say anything.

She slowly moved their hands from his knee to her own and laid her other hand over top of their pair – and looked at him again. The movement forced him to move his eyes slightly – a little questioningly - from his knee and his space, to hers. He looked up from her knee to her for a moment – what she'd been waiting for – and she caught his eyes.

"PTSD is nothing to be ashamed of, Jack," she said as they landed on her. "I have PTSD."

His eyes stuck on hers at that and questioning set into them more. "Why?" he asked quietly.

It was just one word – but it was a start and getting the lines of communication open, which was what she had been going for. So she'd take it.

She just shrugged in that moment, though. "I've been working my job a long time," she allowed. "I've seen a lot of things. Some bad things have happened to me. We all have our demons, sweetheart."

She knew it wouldn't be an answer that would float forever. She knew as he had time to think and to process that he'd likely want to know more. But she hoped that would do for the moment. She wasn't sure he was entirely in the state of mind to completely have absorbed what she had just said or to think of any sort of possibilities.

She wasn't ready to get into any sort of possibilities with him – she didn't need to add that to his plate right now. She was just trying to get her foot in the door at the moment. She'd deal with opening her own doors more for him later.

"I know you don't really want to talk about, Jack," she continued before he had too long to think on it. "But I really think I need to know some of your triggers, sweetheart, because I don't want to be the one doing something that triggers you. I don't want to be the one pushing you towards a situation that might get you hurt or where someone else might get hurt. What if Benji …"

"I'd never hurt Benji," Jack interrupted forcibly at that point and glared at her and did try to yank away then.

She gripped his hand and gave it another squeeze and nodded at him. "I know, Jack. You would never purposely do something to hurt your nephew. I know how much you care about him. But sometimes with PTSD, if something triggers us … if you're having a flashback … you aren't going to have much control. It just happens and we … or our body … reacts."

He glared at her more at that and tugged his hand again. She let go that time and let him return it to his own space. She sighed and looked down for a moment and then met his angry eyes again.

"One time, Jack, I got knocked – hard – and it triggered me and before I knew it … before I really came back through … I'd drawn my weapon and I had it at someone's head. It was a bad situation for me. It was a bad situation for them. It was … bad for everyone in the room. If someone else hadn't been there who could see what was happening – who could help talk me back – it might've turned out very differently."

"That would never happen to me," Jack said quietly.

She nodded again. "That exact situation might not. But Benji fell off you today. There were tears …"

"It was an accident!" Jack protested.

She took his hand again at that and he seemed to let her. "I know, Jack. But what if something happens in another context? What if Benji triggers you? What if something happens at a skate park or work or school to trigger you? What if something triggered you when you were alone with a partner … a girl? What if you get this internship and something triggers you at camp … when you're around other people's children?"

He glanced at her again at that and she positioned her line of sight to stay connected with his.

"Do you know what some of your triggers are, Jack?"

He shrugged – but she knew he must be aware of at least some of them. He'd been dealing with it long enough to know. Jack was pretty self-aware. Closed off – but he knew he had problems. He was just scared to deal with them and he didn't know how to get help. No one had tried to help him before. So she suspected he knew what the trigger had been that afternoon. She suspected she did too.

"Can you tell me what your trigger was today, Jack?" she asked. She let it hang there and let him decide.

"The knife," he finally whispered.

She nodded again at that and gripped his hand more. "The knife," she agreed quietly.

She'd figured as much. She'd been beating herself up about it a bit internally since then.

"Jack, I just want you to know that I take responsibility for that. I am always at you guys about wielding weapons – even the toys here. And, I did it with something real - that was very clearly a weapon. Being threatening wasn't my intention. But it was still wrong of me – and I should've known better and I should've been setting an example for you guys. So I'm very sorry that I did that – and I'm promising you that it won't happen again. I would never, ever do something to hurt either of you."

He just shrugged. "Yeah, I know," he conceded quietly.

"I know you know," Olivia said gently. "I just want to make sure you really know."

Jack gave a small nod again. "Yeah …"

"Do you want to tell me anything more about the knife – as a trigger? About this afternoon's flashback?" she asked, holding his hand a bit more tightly.

Jack shook his head. "No."

She gave him a small nod. "OK," she agreed. She wasn't going to press him on it too much more. "Are you OK with the knives being visible in the kitchen? Or would you like me to be storing things a bit differently?"

He glanced at her again at that and looked like he was considering saying something but then shrugged.

"You can tell me, Jack," she said. "It's not going to be weird. I can change things up in there – move things, get rid of things. It's OK."

She could tell he was processing again and hesitant to say what he was thinking or what he wanted. But there was clearly something.

"You know sometimes triggers are kind of weird," she told him. "Sometimes it's hard to even make sense of what a trigger is right away – and then we do and it's just easier to try to avoid it." She gave him a small smile and watched him for a moment. "You know how I don't drink soda?"

He snorted and looked at her. "What? Now Coke is some sort of trigger for you?" he asked a little sarcastically.

"Sort of," she gave him a thin smile again. "Not quite. But you know the bill collectors on vending machines? That sound it makes when it's taking your cash? That sound reminds me of something else. Sometimes it can trigger me – even though I'm aware of it now. It's part of the reason I don't drink soda anymore. Avoiding that sound on the vending machine at work."

Jack eyed her for a moment. "You could just use quarters and not ruin it for everyone else," he said flatly – but she saw the first tiniest bit of a smile tug at the corner of his lips in his 'I gotcha' smirk.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, giving him a bit bigger and more genuine smile before leaning over slightly and knocking his shoulder with hers. "Smart-ass," she told him.

He smiled a tiny bit more at that.

"So is there something you want to ruin in my kitchen?" she teased him gently after giving him a beat to enjoy the sarcasm he'd laid on her.

He shrugged again but glanced at her – still a little hesitantly and shyly. "I don't really like the knife block being out on the counter," he said quietly.

She nodded. "OK. I'll move that, sweetheart."

"Not to the top drawer," he said a bit more suddenly but then dropped his voice back to hushed tones. "I don't really like that you have the steak knives in there with the other cutlery either."

She squeezed his hand. "OK, sweetheart. Thank you for telling me. I'll move them."

"Yeah …" he allowed.

"Do you know any of your other triggers?" she asked. But he went back to his standby shrug.

She reached and rubbed at her one eyebrow while she considered it again for a moment.

"Sometimes people can be more susceptible to their triggers when they're overtired, Jack," she told him. "When you're not sleeping – and you've got things going on that you have you under a lot of stress. Maybe you're feeling a little anxious or worried – sort of powerless. All of that can make you a bit more susceptible to having a flashback. And, I know Jack that you've got so much on the go right now. Working extra shifts at Funky's, your winter course, spring term coming up, trying to keep up your marks and keep that scholarship, our court date, your internship interview. That's a pretty overwhelming schedule. I know I've found myself pretty exhausted – a little stressed, a little anxious about some of it these days."

"Yeah, I guess," he allowed.

"When I'm like that … I know… I have to try to be more aware of myself … more aware of my triggers and how I manage that. Or sometimes my mind … me … can end up other places. Does that sound familiar?"

Another shrug but it was accompanied by a, "Maybe."

She watched him – letting him decide again on his own but then he sighed heavily and a little shakily.

"I just … don't like being … in spaces where like my back is against a wall and there's too many people … like an elevator … or a staircase," he started to near sputter out. "I don't like when there's too many people in the fucking stairwell moving between classes on campus. I really … I just … wait … and then … sometimes I miss the start of class and … I just feel like I'm always getting there late and people are looking at me and think I'm some sort of slacker and don't know why I'm even there or a scholarship kid and … whatever. I mean. Right now there's like … no one on campus. I kind of … like that. And the prof he's like … you know … more of a poli sci urban issues type guy and … ".

Jack sighed and shook his head in a way that Olivia thought that tears might began trickling out of him again.

"A lot of the architecture profs and stuff … they always are rolling up their sleeves," he said more quietly and gave her another small glance before shifting his gaze back to the floor. "It's just … I know it's so they don't get dirty when we're moving to workshop or drafting or modeling or whatever. I mean … I know it. But … I just don't like it."

"Even though we logically know something – doesn't mean that in the moment it doesn't scare us," Olivia told him. "And when our resources are overburdened – when they're depleted – it's harder for us to keep ourselves grounded. Flashbacks can happen more often."

Jack sighed again and examined the ground. "It's just … like … I guess … sometimes maybe Greg was sort of rough … and now … if I'm … knocked the wrong way it's like I go into a trance thing. And it's just … I don't know … I guess I've been … spacey lately. That's all."

Olivia squeezed his hand. "You have a lot on your plate right now, Jack," she told him again.

She let her own small sigh out and let go of his hand, instead moving her hand to his back – rubbing there before rubbing across his slumped shoulders.

"I know you don't really like the concept of counseling or therapy, Jack," she said quietly. "I get that and I really do think I understand what some of your hang-ups there are. But I also want you to know that after Tuesday – after we get your guardianship sorted out – we can fill out the paperwork right away to get you onto my benefits, and they're good, sweetheart. It will open some opportunities up for you – even to just try, if you want. Because learning how to manage this – being able to talk about it – it's important. It can be healing."

He again reverted to not responding. She knew he'd be hesitant about therapy. He'd expressed he wasn't 'crazy' before when she'd mentioned it in passing. She knew that part of his balking was just based in the fact he was a boy … a man … it seemed to yield a built-in hang up. But enough little comments had been made she knew that part of it was likely based on whatever experiences he'd observed and interacted with in his sister, who's mental health clearly hadn't been stable. But she also knew another major hang up likely just was he still had so many walls built up that he was terrified to let down.

She was working at slowly chipping away at them. She was seeing minor successes. But Olivia wasn't sure it was something she could do all on her own. She wasn't sure she was comfortable doing it all on her own.

"I've done all kinds of therapy," she disclosed – trying to set the example again – and earning a glance from him. "It's not because I'm crazy, Jack," she told him and kept the eye contact. "It's because I want to be a whole person. I want to be the best I can be with what I've been dealt. I've done therapy about things from my childhood. I've done therapy about different things that have happened or I've seen on the job. And, I've done lots of therapy for my PTSD. It's helped."

He gazed at her more but didn't say anything.

"There's all kinds of therapy and counseling, sweetheart," she added, giving him a small nod. "There's individual, group, family. Male and female counselors from all kinds of backgrounds and with all kinds of focuses. And, if you aren't comfortable with individual – we could find you a teen group. Or we could find you an all-male group. Or, if you're scared to go alone, sweetheart, I can go with you until you're ready to be alone – until you want that privacy to talk about and explore some of this stuff on your own with the help of a counselor. But we could go to a family counselor too – the both of us, even Benji, maybe. There's lots of options. And, you can always, always talk to me, Jack. I'll help as much as I can – but you need more than me, sweetheart – and you deserve the kind of help that goes beyond me too. And, right now, that's something we can get for you. It's within your reach – our reach. OK?"

"Yeah," Jack mumbled.

"Can you think about that a bit? Please? For yourself … but for me too? And for Benji?"

He glanced at her again and gave a small nod but then leaned forward and grabbed the remote and his videogame controller from the coffee table. She watched as he flicked them both on and slumped back into the couch.

He'd clearly decided he was done with the conversation but it also didn't look like he was planning on making a bolt for the door. He started flipping around until he found the Usual Suspects and then started it playing.

She watched him for another moment – examining him – but he'd turned his attention fully to the television, ignoring her at that point. So she adjusted her eyes there too.

Jack was always picking crime dramas. She wasn't sure if he did that for her benefit. Though she'd expressed to him repeatedly that, in general, crime movies and television shows weren't at the top of her list of viewing preferences. He didn't seem to care and he seemed engaged in them. She wondered if that was him – or that was his dad … or where it came from?

She let him watch – dropping the topic of flashbacks and PTSD and triggers and counseling for the moment. It had been enough for one night. He needed time to process and he was still getting re-grounded. He was still shaky – she could tell. She just hoped that him starting a movie meant that he was now staying for the night and that he wouldn't be looking to head out the door at 11 p.m. or later.

She kept glancing at him occasionally – checking in. Eventually, he'd flopped back onto the couch – taking up the two far cushions while she sat in the corner. Slowly he seemed to decide that his knees up in the air and his toes just wedged under her legs wasn't comfortable – and without warning, he'd lifted his feet and stretched his legs out so they were resting across hers. She gave him another look. That was about the most physical closeness that Jack had ever sought out from her – so she wasn't about to say a thing about it. Instead she gave his shins a small tap and a little rub, before reaching for the blanket draped over the back of the couch and then tossed it up towards him. He wordlessly adjusted it around his chest, while she arranged it over his legs and feet for him and then went back to watching the movie.

As she kept checking in on Jack, she could tell he was fighting against sleep at that point. It was clear he was exhausted but every time he seemed to drift - his eyelids growing heavy until they shut - he would startle awake. She knew he was likely fearing that loss of control in those moments between wake and sleep – that he was afraid of what might creep into his mind or (un)consciousness in those minutes. He might be even more scared still of the nightmares that were waiting for him when he did finally let his eyes close. But slowly the sleep finally did win out and he seemed to still for the moment.

Olivia watched him again. She thought they'd taken some baby steps that night. But the whole situation pained her. Jack brought her a different kind of worry than Benji. Dealing with that worry – his issues, his challenges, the help he needed – was bigger than what her Little Fox needed in some ways and the progress was slow. What he gave to her came in bits and spurts and the steps they took to resolve anything were so incremental. Sometimes it felt like for each itty-bitty step she was taking with him something else would crop up and they'd ended up going two rather large leaps back.

She'd keep trying, though. Keep plugging away with him. That was something no one had done for him in a long, long time. So much had clearly slipped under the radar as people turned a blind eye to what was happening to him and in his home or reasons behind some of things that made him the way he was. She wasn't going to turn that blind eye though – nor was she going to let him keep pulling up blinders.

He stirred just slightly but then settled again without opening his eyes. She glanced at the clock and looked first towards where her own laptop had been left in the dining room and then off in the other direction to where her bed was waiting in her bedroom. But the let out a small sigh. She wouldn't be getting to either that night.

She didn't want Jack to startle awake and find himself alone and scared. He'd spent enough time like that in his life. So she adjusted the throw pillow behind her a bit, trying to get a bit more comfortable squished into the corner and under Jack's rather sleep-heavy legs and big, teenaged boy feet. Then she looked back to the movie – and waited. She'd be there for when he shuttered awake … when he needed her next.


	136. Chapter 136

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia tapped on the pita that Benji was supposed to be topping in their makeshift pizza dinner but had thus far been ignoring.

"OK, Benj," she interrupted him from his babbling at her that had been going on for quite a while. "What are we going to put on this pizza? Mommy's getting hungry and wants to put it in the oven."

He puckered at her questioningly but then finally got up onto his knees on his chair and examined the choices she had out on there for him: mushrooms, tomatoes, sliced peppers, olives and some diced up chicken breast. It wasn't really pizza toppings – but she wasn't telling him that. She'd actually just put out the salad toppings in separate bowls before dumping them all together in the actual salad that would be the majority of their quick-and-easy dinner. But it still created the illusion there were multiple choices for him – and that it was for something more exciting than salad.

Benji had been talking nearly non-stop since she'd gone and picked him up at Nick's, though. Getting him to even acknowledge there was food on the table – let alone getting him to shut-up long enough to eat it was proving to be a bit of a challenge.

Nick had taken Martin Luther King, Jr. Day off. She'd been scheduled to work. The reality was that she'd spent so many years basically actively volunteering to work any sort of holiday - since she usually didn't have anything better to do and some of the other guys did - it hadn't even clicked until the last minute that she probably could've wrangled herself a three-day weekend. What had made her realize the holiday was coming up, though, was Nick's ranting. Maria had again wanted their daughter for the long weekend.

Olivia didn't find it that shocking that Zara's mother would find it convenient to take the little girl on long weekends and holidays. That seemed to just make sense. But she could also understand Nick's upset that his wife always seemed to want the child on the days he could be getting extra time or special time with her too. That he put in the majority of the work raising the girl - he'd like to get some of the rewards from that too.

Some times Olivia was actually impressed that Nick would rather have the time with his daughter than have some private time or time to catch up on sleep and things around the house. She'd only been doing the single mother thing a few months. But she wasn't sure she'd turn down an afternoon of alone time to get a bit of privacy and to get some cleaning and tidying done in the apartment and some errands done without her Little Fox underfoot. So she wasn't entirely sure how much of Nick's talk was just talk versus his defense mechanisms in his custody battle, as he and Maria continued to try to settle things.

Either way, Olivia didn't clue in that MLK was coming up until Nick had already indicated he was going to talk to the captain about being off-roster that day. Maria wanted Zara and was using the 'excuse' (as Nick put it) that she was going to take the girl to try to see part of the inauguration from a vantage point somewhere in D.C.. Nick didn't feel that a five-year-old would take anything away from that (which Olivia also wasn't sure she entirely agreed with). So he was setting it up to have his own 'excuse' that he had the weekend off – and it was his turn to keep Zara.

It really did turn into the kind of conversation and rant that actually made Olivia almost glad she was going to be doing the single-mother thing. It meant she didn't have to deal with some of the pettiness - that just sounded sort of heartbreaking and destructive for everyone involved – that seemed to go along with divorce when children were in the equation.

She'd thought about touching base with Cragen anyways to see if maybe she could be on-call that day too. But a quick scan of the schedule already showed that Munch and Fin had managed to be the ones to get that day off along with Nick. She didn't think either of them would be very interested in switching shifts. She was sure that Munch had some sort of inauguration viewing party to go to that involved significant scanning of another Grassy Knoll or Second Gunman – or God Knows what. She doubted he was that interested in the actual speech, though (unless he saw indications that some sort of puppet master was at work.) Then he could rant about that too.). And, Fin was Fin. Some days it wasn't even worth asking with him.

So she'd just left it. Jack was still really worked up about getting his essay done and indicated he intended to spend the whole day working on it – in quiet and a way from Benji. Benji didn't know it was a holiday. Even though Olivia thought she might give the little boy a minor education in American history that night - via a book she'd picked up at the library the day before - she didn't particularly feel like she had to be home with him for it. And, with how much she was stewing about their court date the next day, she actually thought it'd be better if she had the actual distraction of a day of work rather than just the prattling of a four-year-old.

Really, the court date was just another reason she shouldn't be taking the day off. She'd had to book Tuesday off anyways to go in for their guardianship hearing before the Family Court. She didn't think the Cap would take kindly to her basically asking for a four-day weekend – even if one day wasn't really going to be a holiday. Mark had said she only needed the morning off likely. But she didn't want to risk it. She didn't like putting her squad in a potential lurch if they were unexpectedly down a body – and she didn't want that guilt and pressure on top of what they'd be dealing with in court that day. She figured just taking the afternoon off would give her padding for if things ran long or late. And, if they went as quickly and as smoothly as Mark seemed to think they would, she'd have the afternoon to celebrate a little bit with the boys about their new status. Maybe she could take them for lunch or some sort of treat. They could do something that a family would do. She wasn't sure what that might be – but she was sure she could figure it out.

So, she'd been grateful that Nick had still volunteered on his own accord to take Benji for her that day. She knew that she was asking a lot of Nick and his mom. She was almost surprised that either of them hadn't yet given off some hints that she was really over-stepping boundaries and taking advantage of their generosity. Or maybe Nick was just trying to be sympathetic to her situation. He had some idea of what it was like and he knew that she still hadn't managed to work out a new daycare option for her little boy yet. She hadn't heard back yet from the NYPD facility at the precinct either.

But she thought it was a little funny that he put forward the offer after making such a show about getting the day off so he could keep Zara and Maria didn't have an excuse for taking the girl. Nick clearly had a lot planned and on the go for him and Zara if he was willing to take on Benji too. Olivia felt he was pretty clearly just sticking the screws to his wife. Still, she'd held back comment on that and readily accepted the offer.

She'd been a little nervous that Benji spending a day alone with Nick and Zara might go a little differently than a day with Zara's grandma. But Benji was so set on getting to play with Zara when she dropped him off, she wasn't even sure he'd noticed it was just Nick there - and his mother nowhere in site. Apparently she was taking MLK off too. The woman definitely deserved it. She wonder if Nick realized how lucky he was to have a mother who cared about him and his daughter enough that he had nearly an on-call babysitting service – who was willing to help out his partner as well. Olivia didn't know how to thank Cesaria enough. She needed to think of something there too.

Still, even though Nick was on his own and her worries about that, Olivia had just left Benji – letting him play. But she'd sort of expected there to be a meltdown and a call from Nick when her Little Fox did realize that he'd been left alone with an adult male that he didn't know that well. The call had never come, though.

Nick had shrugged off there'd been a few tears when she had picked him up but didn't make it out to be any sort of disaster. She supposed, though, that an SVU detective should know how to talk down a slightly traumatized child and that an SVU detective who happened to be a father of a child near the same age as Benji would have some tricks on how to deal with any meltdown. Whatever he'd done, Benji had seemed to have decided that Nick maybe was almost as cool as Peedg. But by the time they'd gotten home, Olivia had decided Nick's main method of wrangling the kids had been pumping them full of sugar and hyping them up. Or at least that had been his method with the child he got to send home with her. Benji was talking about a million miles an hour. Taking his usual chatterbox nature to a whole new stratosphere.

"So then we play Little Pets but Little Pets boring," Benji informed her as he took a rather large handful of spinach out of the salad bowl she had sitting on the table and dropped it unceremoniously on top of the pita she'd smeared tomato sauce onto for him.

She quickly stilled his hand. "You want spinach on your pizza, sweetie?" she asked.

He puckered at her questioningly – clearly not really paying attention to what he was doing for even caring. But then he looked down at the pizza crust and examined the pile of greens he'd just put there and nodded enthusiastically. So she just shrugged.

"OK," she agreed but started to pick off some of the surplus of the heap he'd placed there. "I don't think we need quite that much, though."

Olivia wasn't really sure he'd like spinach on his pizza after it got taken out of the oven. She'd put the spinach on the table as the actual salad base. But she really didn't care if some of it was on the pizza or not. She'd eat it.

Benji didn't really seem to even realize she was working at getting a more reasonable amount on the little round. Or he didn't care. Or he had no concept of what a reasonable amount of toppings for a pizza that size was. It was likely a combination of all of the above. He was already near tossing mushrooms at the pile and had gone back to his babbling.

"So then I show Zara that Little Pets can ride Heatwave and Bull-der and Optimus. But Zara say Little Pets not allowed to ride. But why Little Pets not want to ride?" Benji demanded of her – almost with a touch of anger to his voice. He clearly hadn't been given an answer that he deemed acceptable from Zara – or Nick – earlier in the day and expected her to do better now.

Olivia just glanced at him, from where she was still trying to thin out his now overdrive pizza-topping efforts. But she shook her head and shrugged. "I don't know, Little Fox," she allowed.

She didn't pretend to understand preschoolers' logic. She imagined the reason Zara's toys didn't want to ride in Benji's toys was because Zara didn't want Benji playing with her toys. But she didn't want to get into a discussion about that at the moment.

She'd been having sharing pep-talks with Benji every day before leaving him at Nick's the past week. She talked to him about making friends, and playing nice and co-operating and sharing. It seemed like there'd been varying degrees of success in getting him to make friends and play nicely with Nick's little girl. Though, she had to admit with some of the stories not just told from Benji's perspective – but from Nick's and his mother's - it sort of sounded like Zara needed some practice in the sharing realm too. What child didn't, though?

"Becuz it be very cool to ride a Transformer, right Mommy?" Benji demanded more loudly, sitting further up on his knees in the intensity of his question. But apparently him extending himself to that purposeful height somehow made him more aware of the little dish of sliced black olives and he suddenly seemed far more interested in adding them to the pizza than any sort of answer she could give him.

"It would likely be very cool to ride a Transformer," she agreed anyway.

Olivia had learned that when it came to Transformers, the best route was usually to just to agree with whatever statement her Little Fox put out there. The right answers always were that Transformers were real, that they were exceedingly cool and that whatever they were looking at at a given time really might be a robot in disguise. If you disagreed with any of those primary sentiments you were just plain wrong. There weren't any ifs, ands, or buts about it.

"And Heatwave a fire truck and Little Pet a cat. Firemen rescue cats, right Mommy?" Benji rationalized.

She nodded again, as she reached to add some of the shredded cheese to the pizza so she could finally get it in the oven.

"Sometimes firemen do rescue cats," she agreed and placed a bowl in front of Benji as she lifted the tray containing their two little pizza with the other hand.

"OK, Little Fox, please put some of that spinach and veggies in the bowl to make yourself a salad," she told him, as she moved back into a kitchen for a moment to get the pizza going and to grab the salad dressing spritzer.

He was still babbling at her (though she'd sort of phased out about what exactly as she got the food in the oven) by the time she got back to the table and set the spritzer in front of him. Seeing it, Benji immediately grabbed for it and sprayed it twice quickly.

"Benj – on your salad," she instructed as she took her seat across from him.

Benji was pretty much obsessed with the salad spritzer. Though, he was generally far more interested in spraying it in her general direction – or at himself like it was some kind of perfume – than he was at putting it on his raw veggies. But she figured with some practice and coaching they might be able to master where the vinaigrette was supposed to be going.

She started to assemble her own bowl of salad while Benji worked at seeing how many sprays he needed to completely drench his vegetables. She usually stopped him around the point she'd heard him push down the button about 20 times. Sometimes he didn't even like the simple dressings she had in the thing. It was just about the sound and seeing the mist that seemed to fascinate him.

Even though the little boy had been diving into the veggie bowls hands first, she still was the adult and served herself with her fork – selecting what she wanted to go with her baby greens. She then started to eat, watching how Benji was now working on his salad like it was a finger food too. She didn't say anything. If he wanted to eat it with his hands – let him. At least it meant vegetables and dinner was getting into him. Besides, she'd realized quickly with a preschooler, if it could be eaten as a finger-food, whatever it was was suddenly about 100 times tastier.

"Then Zara say I can't play Little Pets anymore," Benji informed her as he held a piece of spinach above his mouth then chewed it in bite-by-bite. She couldn't help shake her head. Sometimes watching him eat was really a little gross. "So …"

"It's rude to talk with your mouth full, Little Fox," she interrupted him in a gentle reminder and then also reached across the table and nudged his fork closer to his bowl. "And you have a fork for your salad."

He gave her a look that made it pretty clear he was uninterested in the fork but he finished chewing his piece of spinach. She thought he was going to start his babbling again. She wasn't sure how much longer she could continue to be interested in the play dynamics of preschoolers when it came to Rescue Bots versus Littlest Pet Shop toys, even if it meant that her little boy was actually almost playing with another children. But she got another few seconds of relief from the chatter as he picked a mushroom out of the bowl with his fingers and started munching on it. That only lasted so long, though.

"So then Flame eat Vi-let," Benji informed her flatly and started rummaging through his bowl again. "Then Zara get mad and yell."

She looked at him at that and shook her head, swallowing her own mouthful before speaking. "Benji, we've talked about this," she said with some sternness. "You don't make Flame eat Zara's princesses. It upsets her."

Benji glanced at her. "Vi-let not a princess," he said and shoved a grape tomato into his mouth – effectively protecting himself from the continued conversation until he managed to chew and swallow the thing that was squirting and dripping down his chin. His little tongue came out chasing the seed and goop around – but unable to reach it in its slide down. It was making it hard for Olivia to keep up her stern Mommy Fox look.

"Who's Violet then?" she asked as he did swallow and before he could shove something else in his mouth.

"Teacup pig," Benji said and added the next leaf of baby spinach to his bit-by-bit meal. "Dragons eat pigs," told her amidst the growing mucky green mesh inside his pink mouth.

Olivia tried really hard not to smile at that 'well duh' statement he'd just given her. Sometimes Benji's perspective of reality and the justifications for how and why he did things were hard to argue with. It made it hard to be stern, tough love Mommy at times. It was hard enough when she wanted him and loved him so much already. Add in his cuteness and his ridiculous statements and she sometimes had to remind herself to be the parent and to parent him.

"OK – Benj," she finally managed to get out after taking a few beats to make sure she'd composed herself and wasn't going to laugh when she started having this conversation with him. "Flame cannot eat Teacup Piggies either. Just … don't let Flame eat any of Zara's toys. You need to learn how to train your dragon."

"Train dragon?" Benji gazed at her.

"To make him behave," she clarified for him and looked back to her salad. She still thought she might laugh with the way he was looking at her – like she was the one being ridiculous.

"He behave. He a dragon. Dragons eat pigs."

"Dragons you are responsible for are not allowed to eat other people's pigs," she tried to tell him sternly. As sternly as is possible for a statement like that.

"Zara get mad," Benji stated flatly.

Olivia gestured at him. "Because she doesn't want your toys eating her toys, Benji."

Benji puckered and considered that. "Nick let us watch Cars when Zara get mad," he added.

Olivia snorted. Great. Her partner basically rewarded her son for misbehaving. She suspected there were going to be more dragon attacks on Zara's toys.

"It not as good as our Cars. But they race," Benji stated.

"Cars race," she agreed with her own 'well duh' observation. "Was it a different Cars movie? A new one?"

This normally wouldn't be a topic she was interested in at all either. She was finding it a little strange how she was becoming better and better at pretending to be engaged in some of the nonsense that came out of her child's mouth. Listening to the nonsense would mean he'd tell her about the important things too – or so she hoped. And, really, having someone to talk to was nice – even if it was a four-year-old.

"It new," Benji said. "Mater funny. Zara say it a boy movie. But there Sally. Nick say Sally a girl and that Sally a Mustang and she very cool. So Zara say that she play Cars if she can be Sally. So Mommy we need to find Sally. Then we play Cars – not Little Pet or Teacup Pig. Because Little Pet and Teacup Pig very boring and Zara play wrong."

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow and thought about that. "Well – I think one of your Hot Wheels is a Mustang. So maybe you and Zara can play Cars with your Hot Wheels."

She actually didn't think any of his Hot Wheels were Mustangs. But she also doubted that a four-year-old boy or a five-year-old girl would know the difference.

"MOMMY FOX!" Benji protested, though. "Hot Wheels not Cars! They Hot Wheels. We need a real Sally. Then I take Light-ting and Mater and Sally and we play Cars. It be very funner then Little Pet and Teacup Pig."

She sighed and put down her fork. "OK – Benj, well maybe we can talk about getting Zara a Sally to play with later. But – you aren't going to be going to play with Zara tomorrow and maybe she won't want to play Cars on Wednesday."

"I play with Zara tomorrow," Benji said. "I not mad. It OK."

Olivia shook her head. "No, Benji. Remember we talked about this," she said, deciding to use the opportunity to have this conversation and pep-talk with him again. "Tomorrow we are going to see the judge to talk to her about you living with me and us getting to be Mommy Fox and Little Fox."

Benji glanced at her from his continued examination of his bowl. "Then I play with Zara," he said.

"Then you will play with Zara on Wednesday. Not tomorrow. Tomorrow you'll get to play with Alex," she said.

Benji squinted at that. "Alex wrong," he said firmly. Alex was always wrong. Even Alex wasn't capable of arguing she was right with Benji.

Olivia let out a small snort and shook her head. "Well, tomorrow you can tell Alex that she's wrong," she agreed, "because Alex is going to sit with you and keep you company while Mommy and Peedg talk to the judge."

"I sit with Mommy," Benji informed her.

She shook her head. "No, sweetheart. You'll sit right behind Mommy with Alex. You'll be able to see me and we'll be able to talk. But you are going to sit with Alex – and you need to try to be really, really quiet. OK?"

Benji puckered more at that. "Do Peedg get to sit wit' you?"

She let out a little sigh. "Yes – but Peedg gets to sit with me because he needs to talk to the judge too."

Her Little Fox seemed to process that for a moment. "I talk to jug too. I sit with Mommy."

She smiled. "Judge," she corrected in a slow and gentle pronunciation. "But you aren't going to have to talk to the judge, sweetheart. You just need to be there so she can see what a good boy you are and how much you, me and Peedg like being a family. And, it would really, really help me – if you can sit quietly with Aunt Alex while Mommy Fox and Peedg have to talk."

"Becuz we family?" Benji said and looked down at his bowl again. "Little Fox, Mommy Fox, Gow-ing Fox."

Olivia smiled a bit more at that. "Exactly. We need to show the judge what a good fox troop we are. So – tomorrow morning, we're going to get dressed up and go to the courthouse and be on our best behavior. Sit where we're supposed to and be as quiet as we can be. OK?"

Benji looked at her with a full on thoughtful pucker at that – like he really, really had to think about it – like maybe it was really setting in what she was saying. Though, she wasn't naïve enough to believe that.

Olivia had only told him just enough to prepare him for the fact that they'd be in a new location tomorrow. Just enough to try to keep him calm about unfamiliar surroundings and an unfamiliar situation. She knew that even that much would be difficult for a four-year-old to wrap his head around – and she didn't want to cause him any stress. She knew that the situation would likely cause some stress for him anyway. But that he likely wouldn't understand most of what was going on. So she just hoped she'd given him enough info – and would be able to provide him enough of her own support as well as the reinforcements that she was bringing in with Alex - that she'd manage to avoid any meltdowns or tantrums from her little boy while they were in Family Court.

Mark was still trying to make it out to be a rubber stamp situation. But he'd given her enough warnings about things that could potentially go a different way than planned – that she still didn't feel out of the woods yet.

She didn't need Mark's warnings anyway. She'd been in Family Court enough – watched all kinds of cases unfold – to know that things didn't always go as you might expect. It didn't matter how many times Mark explained the petition package he'd put together – or why he was doing it that way. She understood. She could see his points. She was onboard with the process and she was trusting him as her attorney. But until she had her paperwork in hand, she wasn't going to be comfortable about anything. She just hoped that by that time tomorrow – their paperwork would be in her hand, they'd be home and they'd be eating dinner as a real family in the eyes of the law.

"OK," Benji agreed eventually after his process. "I wear robot shirt."

She snorted at that and allowed a bit bigger smile. "I was thinking maybe one of your shirts with buttons, Benj," she suggested.

He looked at her – like he was thinking about that option now. But then he shook his head hard.

"Nooo," he said, like he had actually considered the alternative. "I wear robots. It good. Heatwave come too." And then he looked back to his bowl picking around it for a second before meeting her eyes again. "Pizza ready yet, Mommy?"

And she gave him a bigger smile again. Benji didn't need paperwork. He didn't care how law or society saw them. He knew what she was and he knew what she was good for – doing Mommy things … looking after him. He was comfortable and happy in that. He wasn't going anywhere. She could only hope everyone else would see it his way come morning.


	137. Chapter 137

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia was feeling slightly annoyed with Jack – and she was really trying not to be annoyed. But he'd rolled into the apartment around midnight the night before – he'd been loud enough that he'd woken Benji up and he'd been completely unapologetic. His later arrival and his insistence that he was going to stay up for a while and wind down before trying to sleep had likely contributed to his delayed rising in the morning too – which now meant they were running late due to him.

She was trying to be understanding. She'd sort of understood anxiety and nerves keeping him up. She'd definitely been a ball of nerves about the case the night before. Good or bad – she knew that whatever happened in the courtroom that morning, it was going to mark a very real change in all their lives. She just hoped it'd be a good change. She didn't know if she could handle bad.

For days she'd been replaying that moment of confusion in her head when Calvin had given her that piece of paper assigning his guardianship to her. But worse, she'd been having near flashbacks of getting that second piece of paper – the one that revoked her guardianship and sent him to his grandparents – and the terror, sadness, depression that hit her nearly like a train as the child protective services officer pulled the boy away from her embrace.

She didn't want to see any pieces of paperwork like that today – some rubberstamp that revoked her temporary guardianship of Benji, some ACS, child protective services or court officer coming for her little boy. She knew she was likely being overly dramatic. This all was a very different situation – and she had a lawyer and she had lots of her own paperwork and Jack wasn't revoking her guardianship, he was actually hoping to walk away with her guardianship too. But it had still had her tossing and turning all night. She wasn't sure she really slept at all and she'd startled awake more than she even wanted to think about. But she'd still been up in plenty of time to get ready for their rather important day. Jack had not.

She'd very nearly had to drag Jack out of bed – at the last minute – as usual. Jack very rarely seemed to leave the comfort of his cocoon of blankets until the last possible second. She suspected that was a defense mechanism from whatever his uncle had put him through too – stay hidden under the covers until he could jump up, pull on whatever was in sight and make a bolt for the door. But that just wasn't flying that morning. He'd fumbled around and stewed about his tie and wouldn't let her help until he'd managed to make a giant knotted and creased mess of the thing.

By the time he was dressed and ready he hadn't had enough time even for a coffee – let alone anything for breakfast and he'd turned up his nose at the apple, granola bar and piece of toast she offered him to take with him out the door. To Jack breakfast was a bowl of sugary cereal. Or since she didn't buy sugary cereal – a bowl of healthy cereal weighed down with spoonful upon spoonful upon spoonful of sugar that was meant for occasional use in coffee or baking. So as soon as he'd seen the coffee truck outside the courthouse when they were walking up to it, he'd made a beeline straight for it – without a word, as per Jack.

She sighed but had followed along with Benji. She actually thought Jack might be a bit more pleasant to deal with after he got some caffeine into his system. But the little old man managing the cart seemed to be going at about the pace of a snail and she just didn't have time for that either. She glanced at her watch again.

"Jack – we're running a late. Maybe you can come back out here and get this after we've found Mark and seen how we're doing for time inside," she tried to suggest diplomatically.

Jack just glanced at her over his shoulder and shrugged. "There's like two more people in front of us," he said flatly.

She sighed more annoyed at that. There'd only been three people in front of them when they got in the line and they'd been standing there several minutes. Not to mention being in line for a food truck had Benji convinced that he needed a muffin or a cookie – or pretty much anything to eat – despite having just had his breakfast less than an hour ago. That was annoying her too.

She was telling herself not to get annoyed with either of them. This was what being a parent was about – and this was what she was about to officially sign up for, so she better damn well get used to it. She needed to stop complaining about it – not get annoyed or frustrated by it. They were just boys being boys. The pros outweighed the cons in being their mom – or so she kept telling herself. Most days she believed it. It was what she wanted.

"OK. Well, I'm going to poke my head inside and see if I can see Mark or Alex – so they know we're here," she said and transferred Benji's hand from hers to Jack's.

"They'd be calling if they were worried," Jack told her bluntly. "We're like 10 minutes late. Big deal."

She gave him sterner eyes. "It is a big deal, Jack," she told him. "Today is a big deal. We need to make a good impression – and that includes being in front of the judge on time - and our lawyer not being agitated by us."

Jack gave her a small headshake and a slight roll of the eyes. It made her want to bark at him a bit more but she bit her tongue. It was not the day for them to be at each other. They were supposed to be celebrating each other and acting like a family – not bickering. Maybe, though, that was acting like a family. It wasn't like she had too many points of comparison in her life.

"Stay with Jack," she told Benji. "I'll be back in a few minutes."

"I get a muffin!..?" Benji declared – though it was almost like he was still asking permission rather than telling her. So she shook her head.

"Jack will buy you an orange juice or something," she said and moved her stern eyes to Jack. "You already had your breakfast. I have a snack for you in my purse for later."

"What snack?" Benji demanded to know.

"A chewy bar and grapes and a juice box," she said. He really didn't even need a juice from the cart but she knew Benji would likely lose it if Jack got something and he didn't.

"Get Mark and Alex a coffee too," she said and started to move back towards the entrance. Though she saw Jack gape at her at that order. He'd likely expected her to be paying for his coffee and breakfast. Now she'd left him with the responsibility of ordering for multiple people and hadn't given him any cash. Maybe if he was a bit more pleasant as the day went on, she'd pay him back later.

She'd heard someone say her name as she was starting up the steps but hadn't reacted. It wasn't a voice that sounded familiar to her – it definitely wasn't Mark or Alex calling out to her. She would've recognized them near immediately. And, as uncommon as her name was - it wasn't that uncommon. Besides, if it was someone she knew but only sort of knew – she really didn't feel like acknowledging them or dealing with them that morning while she was busy trying to get her personal and family life under control. It was private. So she'd just kept walking. But then she'd heard, "Detective Benson," called out a little louder and slowed a bit, weighing in her head if she should stop and turn around. She sighed and did, though. She hoped who ever it was – she'd be able to brush them off quickly.

She was almost wishing she'd just stayed with the boys. She thought it was less likely that anyone would've bothered her if they saw her with children – not unless it was something really important. But they definitely wouldn't likely just stop her for chitchat, she hoped – not on the steps of the courthouse.

She felt herself tense a bit as she did turn and realized who it was. She should've recognized the voice. Though, she didn't think the recognition would've made this awkward encounter any easier. David Haden was closing the last of about a 12-foot gap between them.

"Hey," he smiled at her broadly like he was genuinely happy to see her. "They got you back to the grind bright-and-early after the long weekend."

She shrugged and rubbed at her eyebrow – but then dropped it realizing that he'd likely recognize it as one of nervous reactions. "I worked yesterday – no long weekend for me," she stated flatly.

She didn't know how to deal with his presence in that particular moment. They hadn't spoken since early June – it'd been nearly eight months. She really wasn't sure when she'd ever have to see or have any interaction with him again when they'd gone their separate ways – finally and officially. Not with him having resigned his position.

She'd purposely avoided hearing where he ended up landing in the fall out from the escort scandal. She could've indulged in the whispers and the rumor mill along with everyone else – enough people had been on it that summer and fall. But she'd really been more concerned about the Captain and Nick – and how the fall-out impacted SVU. Nosing around into David Haden's business would've just drawn more attention to her and their undeclared relationship – that conflict of interest and questions of compromised integrity in a city and unit where the scandal had already brought so much into the glaring light. She hadn't needed that.

And, really – she'd been hurt. How their relationship had officially ended had been hard enough. For it to 'end' a second time in much more hurtful circumstances had meant she really just needed space. She had other things see needed to dwell on and think about at the time. Other pieces that needed to be picked up and a life to try to re-establish. She didn't want to be mourning a three-month trial relationship or a five-month mockery relationship. It wasn't good for her. It just made her even more depressed about where she'd let her life end up.

Even getting beyond that whole dynamic, she wasn't sure she liked the idea of Haden being there when her boys were just on the street corner. Not when she was supposed to be going inside to wrap up the guardianship applications for these two young men who'd become so much a part of her life so quickly. That was hers – theirs. It was private. She didn't want David standing there just as she was about to take that leap into her new reality.

"Oh well," he shrugged. "Weekends always have to end some time."

He gave her a bit of a coy smile like he was waiting for her to pick up on the reference. She had. He'd said near the same line on the first weekend they'd spent together. The first time she'd had him into her bed – until she'd been called away on to a case by her Captain. But she didn't want to give him the satisfaction of acknowledging she'd picked up on his innuendo.

She'd been so nervous then. So tense about whether she wanted to let her walls down and let him in a bit. It'd been so long since she'd actually been in a real relationship – or even with a man she was interested in enough to want more than a date or two or a couple nights together. To let off some steam. But she had been interested in David.

She had liked him. She thought maybe it could work. So letting her walls down and letting him actually see her – for it not to just be a date or just sex – had been a big step for her. And, she'd reluctantly taken it. She'd trusted him. It had been a big leap of faith for her. But they'd had a nice weekend. A kind of weekend in bed that she couldn't even pinpoint when had been the last time she had one. She'd been relaxed. She'd had fun. They'd laughed. She'd felt cared for and excited on so many different levels.

She'd left for work happy – really happy and really thinking that maybe she would finally get the opportunity to be happy in life. That maybe there was more than work. That she could have a life outside of work. That she could have people who carried about her. That she could let her walls down and be herself with someone – with a man. It hadn't really worked out that way. And now it felt like he was flaunting it in her face as some sort of shared secret or good memory. She wasn't sure she quite saw it the same way – not anymore.

"It's nice to see you," he continued when she hadn't responded. The smile hadn't completely faded from his face yet but it was softening as he picked up on her body language more and more it seemed.

"I've been thinking about you," he said. "It's been about a year …" he made a small gesture with his hand like that was some sort of mea culpa.

She allowed him a nearly indecipherable nod at that. It had been about a year. That was almost hard to believe. A year – probably a little more than it – since David Haden had walked into the Special Victims Unit squad room. The slightly arrogant demeanor of an overly educated and overly confident man. He'd rubbed her the wrong way. But he'd ended up having the skills to back up his self-confidence. He'd won her over. She supposed his handsomeness – that smile – and slightly dry sense of humor had helped too. The attire, the pay cheque and the sense of stability she got from him seemed attractive at the time as well. But that had been a year ago. It was a different time. A lot had changed since then.

She glanced over to where Jack and Benji were still standing in line. One more person was still in front of them. She wanted to be away from David by the time they came looking for her. She wasn't sure she wanted him to see them. Or maybe it was more she didn't want to see his questioning look or to feel like she had to offer him any sort of explanation. Because she didn't.

Even in their brief relationship, it hadn't been a secret that she hoped to have a family – still, some day. It had been put rather blatantly out on the table – that and some of her family secrets and dynamics that she wasn't quite sure she'd been ready to share that openly – as she tried to help Simon through his mess with his fiancé, daughter and step-son.

She'd also expressed some interest in getting to meet David's son and daughter. He'd even dangled it a couple times like it might possibly happen – a sign of his commitment to the relationship, she'd hoped. The possibility of joining an already built family had seemed appealing to her in so many ways – to have the opportunity to be a part of some little people's lives. To have a family of her own – even if she'd always just be their step-mother at most. But even the meeting hadn't ever happened and she conceded it was likely best that it hadn't. David's children didn't need to see a revolving door of their father's girlfriends. Though, the way things had ended she didn't get the impression that it was usually girlfriends or relationships that David had dabbled in that much – and that might've been one of a long list of reasons his marriage had ended.

Olivia sometimes she wondered about her ability to read people and judge character. She had to do it daily at work. But it seemed when it came to her personal life she sometimes put up too many blinders and let herself get hurt a little too often. Maybe that was partially the fault of her childhood and prattling to a mother who didn't want her that much – or at least didn't want the reminder of where she'd come from. So instead she'd spent much of her life seeking out love and affection from the wrong people and in the wrong places – always hoping for the best and ignoring the signs of what was potentially a little off. It was even worse with men. Like she was always laying herself out there a little too barely as a way to get the love of a father who'd never been there – an emptiness and hole she'd never be able to fill.

She wanted to believe that she could still have a normal life – that she could still find happiness and love and acceptance. That she'd be able to do that in a relationship with a man. That she could still make a home and family. But for the moment she was focusing on her being that home and family for other people – rather than trying to find someone to be that for her or to help her establish that.

Maybe she could establish what she'd never been able to do for herself for some little people who needed it now – who deserved it. She could pull them from that hole she'd fallen into before they sunk too deep that no one could reach them. Benji and Jack could still be saved – she thought, she hoped (she prayed she wasn't deluding herself with poor judgment – yet again).

But David didn't need to know any of that. He didn't need to see it – and he didn't need it explained to him. The door on what they could've had or could've been had closed – long ago now, as far as she was concerned.

A year … eight months … it could be as long or as short as you made it. It felt like forever ago and yesterday all at the same time. But it was her life – there was no part of it they were sharing anymore. She didn't owe him anything. She owed it to herself not to sit around waiting for a man or another relationship that might never materialize. And, she owed it to herself not to mourn a brief relationship for months or years on end – even if she had really felt it could've been something. If he'd felt the same way – they would've figured out a way to make it work. But they'd both acknowledged his career was more important to him than continuing to test the waters of a maybe-relationship.

She couldn't say she blamed him. She wasn't sure she would've potentially tossed away her career to continue to test the waters of her usually failed love life either.

"Mustn't be a good one, if you're at Family Court," he commented off-handedly when she still hadn't given him much of a response. Though he glanced behind his shoulder where her eyes had settled on the boys, clearly trying to make out what or who she was looking at. "The ones with kids …"

It was another vague reference to their previous conversations. She'd told him that the cases with children were always the hardest – and they were. They were only getting harder now that she had Benji to go home to and Jack to try to get through to. That hadn't changed – though it had…

Still she allowed him another small nod, but pulled her eyes away from the boys and met his. She didn't really want him to see who she was looking at and she also didn't want to be outright rude to him.

She wasn't really mad with him. She wasn't sure she'd been mad at all. She'd just gone through varying degrees of hurt in their first, and then subsequent, breakup. But that wasn't entirely his fault.

She'd been just as much a player in the relationship and each breakup and what had gone on between. She held some responsibility too. Though, she felt he'd managed to walk away from it all more emotionally unscathed than she had. He'd taken hits in other ways – but that was his own fault. It didn't have anything to do with her.

"I'm just here for a hearing," she allowed – knowing if she didn't give him something, she might never really get away from him. "I hadn't heard you'd been sent over to Family Court?"

She wasn't sure what David would've ended up doing that would have him at Family Court? How one went from Rackets to Special Victims to Public Integrity to … something to do with family law or children's services? She wasn't quite sure. But she supposed they had to figure out where and how to slot him somehow. They'd shown a lot of people the door – rightfully so. And, she knew that they'd shown Casey the door for less in previous years. David was likely lucky he still apparently had a job.

"Oh, this isn't work," he provided, though. "My ex …" he shrugged. "I have slightly more time available for my kids these days. But she's making them significantly less available to me. We haven't been able to work things out really. So we're just having a bit of a chat inside to revisit my visitation schedule … make some adjustments to how our custody agreement works hopefully."

Olivia eyed him at that. She was almost surprised he'd told her that. It felt like a little bit too much information – after not having spoken to him in nearly eight months, after the way things ended. It felt like it was this bit of information he was dangling out there that she wasn't quite sure how she was supposed to latch onto it.

He'd done it before. On that first drink with him when he'd up-front introduced that he did have children – like that was information she needed to know before they moved any farther. She'd taken the bait then. She didn't want to now.

Outside of that initial mention of his son and daughter, she really hadn't heard much about them. But she supposed that wasn't surprising. David was a decent enough guy but his job was his life. It was what drove him. It engulfed him. And, it was pretty clear everything else got put on the backburner to it. In a way, she understood. That's what her life looked like. The difference was she had never been married – and she didn't have two beautiful children at home. She didn't like to think that a spouse and kids would go on her backburner in a similar situation. Now she knew they wouldn't. The boys were her priority right now. But, she supposed that hadn't been how David structured his priorities. His marriage had ended up on the backburner. His relationship with his children appeared to be. And, their relationship clearly was too.

She hadn't even been sure how much time he spent with his kids – if ever – while she'd been seeing him. She certainly didn't think his children saw much of him the three months they were officially together. He'd been with her near every weekend and in the evenings he wasn't with her – he claimed he was working. She wasn't entirely sure what that 'working' always entailed now – as it came to light that his name had come up repeatedly in the wire taps and phone taps on the escort service scandal. But she didn't want to think about it too much. Any of it – that or the statement he'd just left hanging out there now.

What she was really thinking about was the fact he was going to be in the courthouse waiting for his own hearing too. She hoped they weren't on the docket of the same judge and would end up loitering in the same hallway waiting for their turn. She wasn't sure she could handle that. She wasn't sure she wanted to see him –or his ex-wife - or even potentially his children. Not now.

But she didn't have a chance to finish any sort of thought – or to respond. The distraction he'd provided her in that statement meant she'd missed seeing the boys finish at the coffee cart and headed towards her – that was until Benji smacked into the side of her leg and held up a muffin about the quarter the size of her head up to her.

"Mommy, open my muffin!" he demanded, gripping at her arm while she glanced down and took it from him.

She sighed a little. Not at the fact that she could feel David looking between her little boy and her – clearly confused and trying to register what was going on – but because Jack had ignored her instructions not to get his nephew a muffin. Not only had the teen decided to not listen to that – he'd also let Benji get chocolate chip. So, he was now going to not just going to have crumbs everywhere – he would undoubtedly have chocolate smeared all over his face, hands and everything else he touched – his clothes, the gallery, Alex. It was a mess she didn't really feel like dealing with.

"I'll open it for you when we get inside," she told him, though. The thing was wrapped in so much saran wrap she didn't even want to start trying to unwrap it there – or have to navigate him through security and the courthouse hallways while he was trying to eat it.

But Benji stomped his foot. "NO! NOW MOMMY!" he yelled and grabbed at her arm more.

"Hey," she said a bit more sternly and looked at him hard, stilling his grabby hands with her free hand. "You don't yell and you don't grab. What did we talk about? How are you supposed to be acting today?"

Benji squinted at her but she saw the glint of potential tears at her raised voice. It'd been sudden enough she'd startled him. She hoped she wouldn't be making him cry.

"Best behave-er. Good manners," he said quietly. She'd been near rehearsing it with him all weekend.

She nodded and reached out to stroked his head under his hat to calm him – so he knew she wasn't upset. She just wanted him to behave. "And, yelling at Mommy and grabbing is not best behavior or good manners," she told him more softly but still firmly. "I will open your muffin for you when we get inside – and you are able to sit down and enjoy it."

She looked at David gave a small shrug. His eyes were questioning – expecting some sort of explanation. Probably trying to fit all the pieces together on his own. Maybe think eight months was a long time but not long enough for this. But she didn't much feel like offering him any more information than what he was seeing. He could get on the rumor mill on his own, if he really cared to know more. It was really none of his business.

"Ah. Sorry … we're running a little late and ...", she did provide.

David had opened his mouth about to interrupt and say something right as Jack finally caught up and rapped a coffee cup against the man's shoulder.

"Got you a coffee, Mark. It's just black," Jack had mumbled and David had turned around and looked at him questioningly too. "Oh. You're not Mark …" Jack filled in hesitantly examining the man with nearly as much confusion as David was looking at him.

"I'm not Mark …" he agreed.

Olivia rubbed her eyebrow and then reached out for Jack and nudged him to keep going up the stairs towards the entrance. "So … we should get going. Good luck with your hearing, David," she offered and gave him a weak smile. "I hope it works out for your kids…"

She took Benji's hand and started following after Jack, who kept glancing over his shoulder at the attorney who was still standing there looking at them and hadn't even attempted to say good-bye to her. She didn't need to say good-bye to him, though - and she didn't need to hear it from him. They'd said all that needed to be said about any of it months ago.

"He looks confused," Jack stated flatly as she closed the gap.

She just shrugged. "He likely is," she admitted, as they reached the doors and she grabbed it to open it for the teen given his full hands.

"So who is he?" Jack asked, giving her a bit of a look like he probably had some ideas of his own.

But she just shook her head. "No one important," she said. "He's the past."

She gestured for the open door for the teen. David closed one door on her – but it made her ready and available for when Jack had opened another. She thought she liked what was through the door that was awaiting for them just as much – if not better. She didn't want the past. She had her future – their future – in front of her and by the hand. She was fine with that. More then fine – she was excited, and she was happy.


	138. Chapter 138

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Mr. Brunell, I'm going to stop you right there," the judge sighed and gave him a bit of a glare with her dismissive wave of her hand.

Mark had been prattling on for a bit trying to provide an explanation of what was now sounding like a rather convoluted petition package. It hadn't sounded that bad in their meetings, Olivia at thought. But now – it seemed like a different story. She thought though it was more the judge's body language while Mark was talking that was making her optimism sink. Each glance the judge gave the lawyer before looking down and paging through her own stack of files and paperwork she had in front of her seemed to indicate a distaste for what was being presented.

"Your honor … " Mark started again.

Judge Mosley just held up her hand – and again stopped him. "Let me see if I can sort out this mess of paperwork you've handed me out on my own," she snapped at him a little harshly and then looked at him over the top of her glasses. "You like making things more complicated than need be, don't you Mr. Brunell?"

Olivia glanced behind her at Alex at that and her friend gave her a bit of a face. It wasn't going well. Olivia kept waiting for some sort of statement that indicated they'd turned some sort of tide – that made things seem like it was going in their favor. But that wasn't coming. And, each time she looked at Alex didn't seem to be helping either. The attorney looked slightly annoyed as she took in the ongoings. Olivia couldn't decide if Alex was frustrated with Mark or the judge. But either way her facial expression seemed to suggest that the hearing was going just as badly as Olivia thought too.

Benji had been being quiet so far – just sitting next to Alex and playing with his firetruck Rescue Bot and a handful of little army men and plastic dinosaurs. There was some whispered chatter coming out of him and an occasional clatter. But the judged hadn't commented on it. She was likely used to children in the courtroom and Benji wasn't being disruptive. He was just being a little boy. He was being about as well behaved and as quiet as you could really expect out of a four-year-old. But she wasn't sure how much longer that would last.

It certainly wasn't looking like this was going to be a matter of getting the paperwork rubberstamped. Mark's assertion that it really shouldn't be a problem seemed to be dimming. And, Olivia's hopes about how the day was going to turn out was dimming each minute too.

It didn't help that the judge didn't seem to like Mark. Olivia had been concerned about potentially ending up with a judge who'd tried one of her cases in the past and held something against her or how SVU did its job. She didn't get the sense that she was the problem in Mosley's eyes but Mark certainly didn't seem to have a great rapport with the woman. Olivia wished that had been something he had mentioned when they ended up on that docket.

The judge was examining a piece of paper. "Mr. Lewis …" she finally said slowly and targeted her firm stare on Jack.

The teen sat up a little straighter. He'd been more than a little slumped at the table and had been giving Olivia some looks that made clear he wasn't sure he liked what was happening so far either. Now he certainly didn't look like he liked being addressed. Olivia could near feel his pulse rate and blood pressure rise from where she was sitting next to him. She saw the color simultaneously drain from his face and flush into his clammy looking hands that had left wet marks on the table that he'd be drawing in with his finger tips as he apparently tried to stay focused and calm. Olivia hoped neither the judge or Mark thought the slouch and the odd form of doodling was an indication that Jack wasn't interested or wasn't listening. She knew that wasn't the case. She knew that Jack and restless doodling was how he focused and listened and tried to absorb. It was a nervous tell but it was also a sign that he was actually hearing what was being said. He wasn't trying to be disrespectful. It was just how he coped.

"You are Benjamin Lewis' legal guardian?" Mosley asked.

"I Benji!" Benji called out from behind them and Alex shushed him a bit.

Olivia looked back over her shoulder and gave him a small smile. He'd jumped up onto his knees on the hard wooden bench at the mention of his name and was looking around excitedly. At least someone was excited about what was going on. Unfortunately, the little boy was probably excited for all the wrong reasons. Olivia put a finger to her lips too and made a quiet hushing sound.

"I talk to jug too," he informed her at something that resembled a bit more of a whisper. But not quite. Olivia was sure Mosley had heard, though she didn't comment.

"You can talk if the judge asks you a question," she told him quietly. "Otherwise …" she tapped her finger lightly against her lips.

"But I Benji," he told her.

Olivia just tapped her finger on her lips again, while Alex shuffled a bit closer to the boy again and picked up one of his dinosaurs and whispered something into his ear. Benji puckered at her and looked at the toy before grabbing it from her fingers.

"YOU WRONG!" he said loudly.

"Little Fox," Olivia said a bit more sternly and really tapped her finger against her lips that time and he shuffled closer to Alex like suddenly the woman seemed much more appealing and gave her the kind of glare that only a four-year-old could pull off.

"Mr. Lewis is the child's legal guardian but …" Mark started but the judge again held up her hand.

"I'm speaking to the young man," Mosley told Mark harshly.

"I'm the young man's lawyer," Mark shot back.

The judge eyed him for a moment and then turned back to Jack. She was clearly annoyed – with Jack or with Mark, Olivia couldn't quite tell. But it was just another moment in the hearing screaming that this wasn't going in their favor.

"Mr. Lewis – I would like to ask you a few questions," she said flatly. "I'm sure you're very capable of answering them on your own. But you can consult with your lawyer for any of them, if you like. You can speak through him – if you prefer."

Jack eyed the older woman and then glanced at Olivia – not Mark - who just gave him a small nod to just answer the judge's questions. At that point, she felt that was likely easier – and best. Maybe hearing directly from them would earn them points over the agitation that the lawyer seemed to be causing in the courtroom.

"You are Benjamin's legal guardian?" she asked again a bit more sternly than the first time the question had been posed.

"Yes, ma'am," Jack said quietly.

"You can speak up," the judge said. "And that guardianship was assigned in …" she looked down to her paperwork again "… July?"

"Yeah," Jack said softly and Olivia gave him a small nudge of his elbow. She needed him to be as respectful as possible. "Yes," he corrected.

The judge eyed him. "Now how did that come to be?"

"My sister died," he allowed.

The judge nodded again and made a small note of that on a legal pad in front of her. "How old are you Mr. Lewis?"

"Nineteen," he said softly again.

"I need you to speak up," the judge told him again – this time more sternly still. She flipped through some of the paperwork again. "You were eighteen when these petitions were filed? Eighteen, when you were given custody of your nephew?"

Jack looked so scared, Olivia thought. She didn't really blame him. She didn't really know if he would've had to be in court alone when he got custody of Benji or if in that case it really had pretty much been a matter of rubberstamping. Either way, the courtroom would've been much smaller in the village court up in Horseheads. He probably knew the judge and any other officials or lawyers he had to deal with from around down. They likely knew him and the family and some of the situation. Though, Olivia would've hoped if that was really true some of the situation would've never really came to be. But sometimes too many people turn a blind-eye for too long. And sometimes that seemed to be especially true in small communities where everyone knew everyone and had their fingers in everyone's pots and everyone's business.

This would be scary for Jack. She knew how scared he'd been in those early days of their developing relationship that someone would take Benji away from him – put him in foster care and the care of the State. Or worse – return him to Horseheads and his uncle. She knew that anyone with authority scared Jack a little bit. He seemed to cower from them. And, it was worse when it was a woman in an authority position. She could see how much Jack struggled with authority of women, versus the respect of women that she assumed either his dad or grandma had taught him but how it clashed with the anger and distrust he had of some women.

The teen was clearly uncomfortable with the entire situation. Mark had prepared him for it all just to be rubber stamped too. They'd rehearsed a few answers to some questions but what Mark had been anticipating and had coached them on versus what was actually coming up where very different things.

"Yes," he allowed.

"And now you've signed the paperwork to release your parental rights to the child?" the judge put bluntly.

Jack glanced at Mark at that – likely because it felt almost like an accusation. He thought his lawyer should be protecting him and defending him. He was likely right.

"He is releasing the parental rights of the child so Ms. Benson can move forward with her petition for the permanent guardianship of the infant," Mark interjected.

The judge made a sound that seemed to barely acknowledge Mark had spoken, though she jotted something down again.

"You've assigned temporary guardianship to Ms. Benson, Jean-Paul?" she asked a bit more levelly.

"Yes," the teen allowed. Though, Olivia saw the slight shutter in him – likely at the judge using his legal name, which was probably the only name she'd seen in her scanning of the paperwork.

Mosley flipped through her piles of paper. "You don't seem to have submitted a copy of the parental designation, Mr. Brunell," she said and again looked at the man with a bit of disgust.

Mark began to go through his own pile of paperwork and pulled out a copy of the letter and held it out for the court clerk to retrieve and take to the judge. Mosley examined it in silence for a moment.

"You signed this agreement with Ms. Benson in November, Mr. Lewis?" she asked and again looked over her glasses at him.

Jack shrugged. "I guess," he said quietly. "If that's what it says." The judge looked at him harder and more disapprovingly. "It was just after Thanksgiving. I don't remember the date."

She allowed a small nod and looked back at the paper again. "Now what is it that happened between July and the end of November that you decided you were unable to care for your nephew?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know."

Olivia's head snapped over to him a bit more at that. She knew he had a better a better answer than that. That was one thing that Mark had rehearsed with Jack. It was one answer that he should've been prepared to give. She knew that Jack likely didn't want to admit that he'd been struggling, that he needed help, that he didn't know how to care for a four-year-old, that he couldn't afford to care for a four-year-old, that he wanted to be able to continuing his schooling. But it was the kind of answer the judge needed to hear. It was the sort of statement needed to legitimize what they were trying to accomplish. The teen stuttering on it now wasn't going to help them in a hearing that was clearly getting away from them.

"Your Honor – I can assure you that the child was well cared for," Mark interjected again. "It was just a matter of Mr. Lewis being a young man with other commitments and responsibilities that made it challenging to keep up with providing a four-year-old proper attention. He felt it was in the best interests of the child to be placed with an adult in a better position to meet his needs."

"And Mr. Lewis did not feel that way in July when the court in Horseheads was considering this matter?"

"Mr. Lewis was the child's natural guardian," Mark stated plainly.

The judge shifted her eyes back to Jack. "How'd you end up in New York, young man?"

"I go to school here," he said quietly and almost shyly.

He wasn't making eye contact now and had gone back to doodling in the clammy marks his hands were leaving on the table. Olivia pushed the pad of paper Mark had given her to him instead and plopped a pen on top of it. She thought that would be better than what he was doing. His movements on the table were distracting to everyone and she was concerned about the judge's perception of them.

"Answer the judge's questions openly and honestly," she whispered at him as she handed him the tools to try to calm him. She would've hoped that Mark would've advised him the same but he wasn't. It was clear that Mark would prefer that neither of them were having to speak at all.

"Mr. Lewis is a very responsible young man and a prime example of a good citizen," Mark interjected again. "He is a …"

"Mr. Brunell, please …" Mosley said and shook her head in near disgust at him. Mark quieted again. She looked at Jack again. "You're seeking guardianship from Ms. Benson as well, Mr. Lewis?"

Jack looked up a bit more at that from the series of lines he'd started jotting abstractly on the pad. "Yes," he agreed quietly.

"Where are your parents?"

"Your honor, you'll find the information related to that in the filings," Mark said again.

"Mr. BRUNELL," she said even more sharply.

Olivia felt Benji jump in the seat behind her at that and she again looked over her shoulder and gave him a small smile, trying to sooth him and reaching out to grip at his little shoulder. He scuttled a bit closer to Alex at the raised voice.

"It's OK, Little Fox," she mouthed quietly.

She wasn't sure how much Benji was understanding about what was going on. She didn't think much. But she knew that her little boy was very attuned to moods in a room. He reacted to that. He would know there was tension there. He knew her and Jack were stressed. He could hear the annoyance and the sternness in the judge's voice.

Olivia wanted to reach out and assure her little boy so much. She wanted to lift him over the railing and settle him into her lap and cuddle him. To give him assurances it was going to be alright – maybe because she was needing that almost just as much at that point. She wasn't sure it was going to be alright.

"My Dad's dead," Jack said flatly.

"Your birth certificate lists a mother – and Mr. Brunell, you haven't included any sort of documentation to indicate that the mother was contacted to release her child's custody."

"His mother is a foreign national and we haven't been able to locate her," Mark stated flatly. "Beyond that, Jack was 18 at the time of the filing of the petition. He is able to put forward his request for guardianship assignment."

"How do you know Ms. Benson, Mr. Lewis?" the judge asked, almost like she hadn't even acknowledged or absorbed that Mark had spoken.

Jack glanced at Olivia that time and she just gave him another small nod to go ahead. She'd told him to speak openly and honestly. She meant it. They'd known this would likely come up too. It was another area where they'd rehearsed some responses.

"Ah … she dated my Dad, I guess," he said quietly and slightly embarrassed.

"You guess?" the judge put back to him.

"I was involved with his father before he was born," Olivia put forward on his behalf. Mosley eyed her at that but at least didn't tell her to shut up.

"So how do you know Ms. Benson, Mr. Lewis?" she put out there again.

Jack's mouth kind of hung agape at that like he wasn't sure at all how to answer and he glanced back-and-forth between her and Mark.

"Jack knew I lived in the city and sought me out when he decided he needed some help caring for Benji," Olivia said as his silence seemed to become awkward and possibly more damaging to their case than the whole conversation already seemed. "I first met Jack in September. I met Benji about a month later. We didn't know each other before then."

The judge considered her. "So you've known these boys … about five months … and you want to take on their care?"

There was a considerable amount of scrutiny to Mosley's tone. Olivia got the sense there was some disbelief or speculation about alternative motives laying underneath the seeming innocent statement.

"Yes, your honor," she just stated as flatly as possible.

She wanted to keep any emotion out of her returned tone. But the truth was she didn't really like how this hearing was going. It was pretty clear at that point that things were not going entirely as planned and were not likely going to be wrapped up quite as neatly as Mark had lead her to believe. She was really starting to suspect she wouldn't be walking out of there as the boys' guardian. She was at the point she was starting to hope that she would at least be walking out of there with the boys. She didn't know what she'd do if she didn't. She'd likely start with firing Mark – after she tore him a new one. He seemed like a disaster at the moment. He wasn't directing this the way she would've hoped or expected – not for all his talk.

Olivia was seriously contemplating asking for a recess herself and getting Alex to represent her for the remainder of the hearing. Alex may not be well versed in family law, but she thought she might be defending her and the boys a bit more readily.

"Hmm," the judge allowed and flipped through the paperwork a bit more.

"Your honor," Mark decided to pipe up again. "I'd like to point out that in permanent guardianship of an infant …"

The judge held up her hand again. "I know where you're going with this, Mr. Brunell. Neither Mr. Lewis nor the child are infants – and Ms. Benson is not a family member with natural guardianship rights."

"If Ms. Benson was adopting the children the amount of time she'd known the child wouldn't even be taken into consideration," Mark added instead.

"That's true," Mosley said bluntly. "But Ms. Benson is not filing for adoption. I have an application for permanent guardianship for the child and an application for extended guardianship of Mr. Lewis. AND – if Ms. Benson were filling for adoption, she first would've been approved as an adoptive parent. I don't have any of that paperwork in front of me. Has that happened, Mr. Brunell?"

Mark sputtered for a moment. "Well, we are filing for guardianship not …"

"Exactly," the judge spat out at him. "So I will be considering the amount of time Ms. Benson has known these young men – since she is NOT a natural guardian in line for them – nor has she been designated by either of these children's natural parents as their guardian."

"She has been designated by Mr. Lewis as the parent of Benjamin," Mark put out there, shuffling through his own pile of papers again, like he had some other piece of paperwork that might drive that point farther home. Olivia didn't know what else he could want to show the judge besides the letter of designation that he hadn't previously submitted until Mosley specifically asked. She thought she might be as unimpressed as the judge.

"Yes, Mr. Brunell – and I see the little paperwork maneuvering you're trying to play with Mr. Lewis signing that designation for six months, and then releasing his rights to the child and asking for extended guardianship," the judge said a little harshly – making it even clearer she was unimpressed with the tactics and the package that had been put in front of her.

"It's not a game," Jack said quietly.

The judge's eyes snapped to him. "Do you have something to say, Mr. Lewis?"

But Mark glared at him and he looked down at the table and picked up his pen again doodling more feverishly. Olivia reached out and rubbed his back a bit. She could tell he was very much aware that things didn't seem to be going their way. The tension in his back was evident. He was scared.

"Were the children residing with you prior to the signing of the parental designation?" the judge asked Olivia instead, saving Jack from any tongue thrashing for him interrupting the court.

Olivia dropped her hand from Jack and rubbed at her eyebrow for a moment, sitting up a bit straighter. "Benji started living with me about a month before Jack and I reached an agreement on that paperwork. Jack has his own residence. He lives in the dorms at City right now. He comes and goes from my apartment as he pleases. He usually stays over on the weekends."

The judge gave another small nod, made a note and sat back in her chair a bit before letting out a small sigh and shaking her head a bit.

"It's still not a very long time, Ms. Benson," Mosley said almost sympathetically. "As far as previous precedents set in terms of timeframes for assigning permanent guardianship, you haven't met it."

"Your honor," Mark interjected again, "surely Ms. Benson's background and experience with children …"

Mosley held up her hand and glared at Mark. "Mr. Brunell – I am well aware of who Ms. Benson is …"

"If you are well aware of who Ms. Benson is then perhaps you should be reclosing yourself from the case," Mark put on there with his own harshness.

Mosley sat up. "That statement is unfounded," she said and Olivia felt herself almost shutter. If they weren't on shaky enough ground already, she didn't think that comment out of Mark would be helping them at all. It seemed like it was just setting them up for a bigger disaster. "But would you like to adjourn to have that ridiculous suggestion explored through proper channels, Mr. Brunell?"

Mark looked at Olivia – like he was hoping that she would somehow pull out of her ass that Mosley had something against her. That she'd worked some case where she, or SVU, had rubbed the judge the wrong way. That she felt the judge was prejudice to her or to the boys or to SVU or … something. But that's not what Olivia felt. She'd never gotten that vibe from Mosley at all. The only vibe that she'd ever gotten from the judge was that she was a stickler and a by-the-book official. Normally, she probably wouldn't think that was a bad thing to have in a judge. Though, she wasn't sure it was going to end up ruling in her and the boys favor. She sensed, though, that that was Mark's fault - and the convoluted package of multiple petitions that had caused the problem. Gamesmanship rather than actual substance.

Olivia was a little upset. It did feel like he'd let her take a gamble on their lives and they were nearing losing the hand. She couldn't decide if she was angry at him for how he was representing her – or if she was angry at herself for being talked into this tactic. Maybe she should've researched lawyers more and not just taken Mark on Elliot's recommendation. Maybe she should've gone for adoption, which had always been Mark's preferred route – an area he had more experience in negotiating through the court system. Maybe she should've just played out the full parental designation and not filed any paperwork until it had concluded. But maybe Mark should've been more convincing to her and more convincing to the judge – and put together a better legal package to get them through this hearing unscathed and home as a family.

"No, your honor," Mark conceded quietly as Olivia shook her head at him that she didn't want to get involved in some other type of maneuvering game. She just wanted to play this out and then figure out where to go from there.

"Then are you suggesting Mr. Brunell – that the law should be applied differently to Ms. Benson because of her position with the NYPD?"

"I just think it should be noted that Ms. Benson is a stable, reputed member of our community who has dedicated years of service to men, women and children in this city – who are often in times of significant need. Surely that should designate her as an ideal candidate to care for these young men. Surely it makes them lucky that she's stepped forward to take up their care," Mark put out there.

"I'm sure it does," Mosley allowed. "But it doesn't change how the law is considered or applied. The fact of the matter is permanent guardianship is permanent. It is not something to be assigned only to have people filling petitions a few months later to have those obligations dissolved," she said and gave Jack a firm look. "Or at least that's not how this court applies guardianship. Assigning it is a serious matter – and assigning it to an individual who has no real connection to the children or family, who has only known the children for a short period of time, who has not had the children in her care for at least six months, and who does not have paperwork indicating that she is an approved adoptive parent – or even that her home is approved to house a foster child … legally, it does not make sense.

"I don't even want to consider these applications at this time, Mr. Brunell. You should've known better. What I'd like to do is hold over my decision until after Ms. Benson has had the child in her care for six months. And, I would highly recommend that in that time, she complete a home study. And you have that paperwork available for me when we see each other again."

Mark jumped to his feet before the judge could move to adjourn their case and shuffle them out of the room.

"Your honor, before you put the case over – I'd like to ask to have a few minutes to discuss these developments with my client," he spat out quickly.

Mosley looked at him and then glanced at her watch and again sighed. "We'll adjourn for lunch. I'll give you 10 minutes when we return, Mr. Brunell. But I have other cases on my docket this afternoon – and I think you need more time to prepare your case. Don't waste my time – or your clients'."


	139. Chapter 139

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"OK Jack, you need to calm down," Olivia said sternly and met his eyes.

The teen had been in a near fit of rage since Mark had found a meeting room for them to have lunch in and to regroup before getting their final 10 minutes with the judge. Olivia wasn't entirely sure why they needed 10 more minutes. It seemed clear to her what the ruling was – come back later. And, she really didn't think that there was anything that Mark could say or do at that point to fix it. She was just trying to accept that they'd have to be patient and trying not to let her fears and anxieties take over about the suggested home study – and her memories of how things had gone the last time she'd had to go through that process.

Jack, though, hadn't seen fit to sit down and to try to calmly deal with what they'd been dealt. Instead he'd been pacing around the room – ignoring the crappy cafeteria sandwiches and salads that Mark had picked up for them all as some sort of peace offering. To make it worse, he was muttering and cursing – his face red and his fists clenched. Olivia really couldn't tell if he was about to start crying or thinking about hitting Mark. But whatever he was verging on, it was upsetting her, it was upsetting Benji and it really wasn't accomplishing anything. It certainly wasn't winning Jack points with Mark – not that she really cared at that point. Mark hadn't won any points with her either.

"He's fucking it up!" Jack near yelled at her.

She kept her eyes fixed onto his in daggers. "You don't use that language in front of Benji," she said sternly again, "and you don't yell at me."

He clenched his fists harder at that and beat them a little against the air where they were hanging at his sides. It was clear that emotion was pulsing through him and he was having trouble containing it and figuring out where to direct it.

Mark had been sitting near silently at the table – focusing on eating his sandwich and flipping through his files while she tried to calm and feed the boys. She thought that was likely smart. If he said anything at that particular moment – it might not just be Jack who would be jumping down his throat. She would and she certainly got the impression from where Alex was sitting and glaring at him, that the attorney had more than a few thoughts that she was just waiting for the opportunity to share. Alex biting her tongue was quite the feat.

But for the moment, she just sighed. "Jack, please just come sit down and have some lunch," she tried again, a little more gently.

He slammed himself into the chair closest to him but batted the roast beef sandwich that had been put at that end of the table away.

"I don't want his crappy food," Jack spat out. "Like that makes this any better."

Olivia sighed again and looked up at him from where she was working at picking the ham off Benji's sandwich. The luncheon meat had been deemed slimy – and he was sort of right. She didn't exactly blame either of the boys for not being too interested in the meal offerings. They didn't look very appetizing – and if their stomachs were turning as much as hers was from the stress of the morning, they likely didn't want to eat.

"We don't have time to leave the courthouse, Jack," she told him. "So, if you want something to eat – these are your options. Do you want some of this salad?"

Jack hit the table with his fists at that. "I want him to fix this fucking mess and not fucking sit there like he didn't just royally screw us."

Mark looked up at that – almost like he was surprised Jack was talking to him and glanced around a bit, before his eyes settled on the teen.

"I haven't royally screwed anything," Mark said evenly.

Jack gestured at the door. "What the fuck do you think just happened out there?"

Mark shrugged. "The judge reviewed the petitions and is reserving judgment until the six-month mark."

"THAT'S NOT WHAT YOU SAID WOULD HAPPEN!" Jack yelled again.

Olivia was starting to think one of the security officers or court clerks might be checking in on them soon if the yelling kept up. The yelling was also causing Benji to huddle and near tremble against her – and she just really didn't need that either. The day was confusing and stressful enough for the little boy. He didn't need his uncle screaming.

She turned to Alex. "Can you take him into the hall and see if he'll eat any of this sandwich?"

Alex nodded, though Olivia saw the reluctance there. She knew her friend wanted to hear how Mark was going to try to spin this and to put forward her own legal advice on the matter. In a way, Olivia would like to hear it. But she also knew she needed to hear what Mark had to say, have Jack hear what Mark had to say and get the teen calm enough that they could all go back into the courtroom stable and on the same page. With how things were going at the moment – she didn't think she was going to be able to accomplish that with Benji sitting there cowering and Jack screaming.

She rubbed at Benji's hair and placed a kiss against his temple. "OK, Little Fox, you and Auntie Alex are going to go eat lunch in the hallway. Maybe go for a little run and a pee," she said and glanced at Alex, hoping that was OK too. "And, I'll be out to play in a few minutes."

"I stay Mommy," Benji whined quietly against her.

But she shook her head and rubbed against his bicep a bit more. "Nope. Mommy needs to talk to Jack and Mark alone. So you need to go into the hall with Alex for a few minutes so we can have some privacy."

Benji looked at her with big sad eyes but Alex rose and stuck out her hand. "Com'on Ben," she encouraged. "I know a secret hallway that has a treat machine. I bet we can find something tastier than these sandwiches to hold us over until after you guys talk to the judge again. Maybe we can pick something out for Mommy and Jack too?"

Olivia gave Alex a small smile for her efforts and nodded at Benji. "That sounds like a good idea. I'd really like a chocolate bar. Maybe they'll have M&Ms for you? What about you Jack? Is there something you'd like?"

Jack glanced from where he was glaring at his clenched fists and shrugged. "A Coke, I guess," he said quietly.

"What do you think, Benj?" she put back to the little boy. "You want to go on a special mission to get us some treats? I'd really like that."

He puckered in thought at that but then gave a small nod and Olivia smiled.

"Thank you, Benji," she told him kindly as Alex took his hand. But Olivia tapped her arm before they got too far. "He likes Doritos," she said quietly with a nod in Jack's direction. Alex acknowledged the comment with her own little head movement then directed the little boy out of the room.

The room was quiet for a moment after the door closed behind them. Olivia examined the teen and she could see Mark examining him too.

"He said this would work," Jack finally said at a near whisper and then looked up at her – his eyes with the smallest glint in them. "You said this would work."

She nodded. "I know I did," she agreed.

She knew Jack's head was going to worse case scenario. This wasn't going how they'd planned – or how they'd hoped – so he was seeing Benji being taken away again. She didn't blame him. She had similar thoughts and images running through her own head. She didn't want to wait months more – months more of getting close to the little boy, of him getting closer to her, of bonding – for the judge to deny their petitions and for this to all fall apart. What would happen then? Where would Benji go? To the state? To foster care? Back to his Uncle Greg? All the options seemed traumatizing for everyone involved.

She looked at Mark. "What happened in there?" she asked bluntly.

He shrugged again. She didn't like that. It was far to dismissive when she was watching the family she'd been working at building start to crumble – when she'd been paying him to make sure that didn't happen.

"We always knew it might go this way …" Mark started but Jack again hit the table with his fists.

"No," he said loudly. "You said that she'd get permanent guardianship of 'Jamin and he'd be able to live with her and that I'd still get to see him. That was the deal."

"Well, you'll like still get all those things," Mark said flatly. "Just not today."

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow. "You seemed fairly confident that we'd be able to get our petitions through when we filled out the letter of designation with the six months and had Jack requesting he be released from his responsibilities to Benji. That I'd get guardianship of both the boys," she said flatly but with a sternness to her voice. She was feeling pretty screwed over too but didn't think yelling was going to get any of this resolved before they had to go back in there.

"I was," Mark agreed. "But – like you've said before Mosley is a stickler. So she's sticking with the six-month minimum care. Basically she's making Jack prove abandonment of the child and your commitment to the parental designation before she approves the permanent guardianship."

"I AM NOT ABANDONING HIM!" Jack yelled at that and then the tears did start. "I fucking found her FOR HIM!"

Olivia sighed and stood moving her chair over to his and sat down next to him, rubbing at his back that was shaking, though his forehead was now sitting on top of his clenched fists on the table.

"You didn't do anything wrong, sweetheart," she tried to assure him. "You've been taking all the right steps and doing the right things. You've been looking for your Benji all this time."

"Then why isn't it working?" he sputtered.

She shook her head and looked at Mark at that. She didn't know how to answer. She didn't know why it wasn't working either. She didn't understand why they were in the courtroom if he hadn't honestly believed that this could work out in their favor.

"It's still going to work," he said again. "We just have to … wait until you hit the six-month mark. We'll come back in May. I think I can probably still ask her to sign off on Jack's extended guardianship today. The onus on that is different since it's a placement at Jack's request."

"I don't want it," Jack spat. "I don't want it until I know my nephew gets to be with her. He is not going to grow up in some home or get sent back to the farm. He is going to live with Olivia."

Olivia was almost startled at the firmness of the statement from the teen. The commitment behind it that that was what he wanted for his nephew. She'd known it seemed to be what he wanted – there were the signs and the steps. But he hadn't verbalized it to her. He'd actually avoided talking about it as much as possible.

Mark shrugged, though. "OK. If you want to wait – that's fine."

Olivia just glared at the lawyer at that. She knew he didn't really like Jack. That he just saw Jack as some pawn in the little legal game that he was currently losing at. But that is not how she saw the teen at all. Maybe she'd still been struggling with how she viewed the teen and exactly how she saw him fitting into a life and family she'd establish with Benji when she first sought out Mark's legal advice. But that's not how she saw Jack anymore. He was one of her boys and he was a member of the family – and he deserved to be treated that way. Making this work for him was just as important as making it work for her Little Fox.

She rubbed at Jack's back some more. He wasn't shaking as much but he hadn't lifted his head from the table yet.

"It going through today … that wouldn't complicate things with the permanent guardianship petition for Benji?" she directed at Mark.

The lawyer shrugged and flipped through his files. "Hmm. We'll break things apart so it's not going through as a package anymore – since Mosley doesn't seem to like that. So I don't think it should."

She glared at him harder at that. "You don't THINK it should? What do you KNOW, Mark?"

His eyes hardened a bit at that. "I shouldn't be a problem – but you saw how the judge is."

Olivia looked at him hard as she weighed that. It wasn't an answer that made her comfortable. She didn't want to end up in a deeper hole. But she also didn't like there being too many loose threads hanging when they left at the end of the day. If they could get some of this tied up now – she thought she likely favored that option.

"I think maybe we should see if the judge will grant your petition, Jack," she said softly. "We could get you onto my benefits. We could start establishing some stability for our family."

"We might not even be a family now," Jack mumbled.

She sighed. "We don't need a piece of paper to keep living the way we've been living, Jack. It's going to be fine."

"Until he fucks it up more and they come and take Benji away," the teen said a bit more harshly.

"Mark's not going to fuck it up more," she said and looked directly at the lawyer. She wanted to believe that too. That her Little Fox wasn't going anywhere. That Jack wasn't going anywhere. That her family was fine. "He's going to explain to us right now what's going to happen over the next few months."

"Not a lot has to happen," Mark said. "You basically just need to wait out the six-month period. Mosley said she'd prefer to see a home study – so it's likely a good idea to do it, even though it's not technically necessary for a permanent guardianship."

Olivia looked down at that and rubbed at her eyebrow. The home study terrified her. She really didn't want to hear again that a single woman, without a support network or extended family, working the hours she did, in the job she did was not a suitable parent. She couldn't hear that now. Not when she'd been caring for and bonding with Little Fox. Not when she'd promised both the boys that she was going to be there for them. Not when she wanted to be their mom so badly. Not when she had already fallen in love with both of them. Not when she was craving the family time she got to spend with them. Not when she was looking forward to all the mundane trials and tribulations of parenthood as she worked to guide Benji into adulthood. She couldn't be rejected as a parent in a home study again.

"What even is a fucking home study?" Jack demanded, his head finally snapping up.

Mark looked at him. Olivia could see some of his own anger and frustration there. She wasn't sure he had the right to be giving them those looks. And, she was even less sure she liked him directing it at her boy.

"It's a report that's written up about the home and Olivia in determining if her home is suitable for a child and what kind of parent she'd be," Mark said flatly though evenly.

"So it's a test to see if she knows how to be a mom?" Jack interjected harshly again.

Mark shrugged. "I guess that's another way to put it."

"Well that's completely retarded," Jack near yelled again and gestured at her. "She knows how to be a fucking mom. She buys us stuff. She gets us clothes. She feeds us. She talks to us about all kinds of things. She does shit with us – even me. She hugs us. She's teaching 'Jamin things. She fucking gets us."

Olivia was surprised to hear Jack say it. The acknowledgement that she had been doing things for them – for both of them. That she had been doing her best to take care of them – to be a good parent to them. He hadn't expressed it overly articulately. He hadn't really given concrete examples. But he clearly knew it was happening – that it was something he wanted and needed – and something he knew Benji needed and deserved. It was a sign of appreciation – that she knew Jack had – but that he rarely expressed to her. It was an acknowledgement that they were a family – she was their mom. At least in the eyes of both of her boys.

But Mark just snorted at the teen's little outburst. "I can't go in there and say she feeds you breakfast," the lawyer said dripping with sarcasm and a complete lack of appreciation of what Jack had just tried to express.

"That's not what I meant," Jack said and looked at Olivia near helplessly like he hoped that she understood and would be able to defend him and defend herself.

"OK – well – those are things she's supposed to be doing," Mark added with a shrug.

"But it's not what all moms do," Jack spat back. "Do you think me and Benji would be here dealing with this BULLSHIT if either of our moms acted like a mom?!"

Mark sighed a bit at that and looked at the teen a bit more sympathetically. But then he just shrugged. "The home study will document that she is a good parent and a good mother," he finally said – like it was his only line of defense.

"That's such bullshit," Jack said shaking his head like he was beyond confused. "She didn't pop us out so she has to do some fucking test. Then wack-jobs like my sister can fuck whoever and do whatever they want and still get called a mom. My mom can fucking just leave and never talk to us ever again and she didn't have to do any sort of fucking test. And her mom sounds like a real winner too," he continued gesturing at Oliva now. "I bet she didn't have to do some sort of home study crap."

Mark examined him for a moment after Jack finally seemed to settle from his spew of words. "The system is supposed to be designed to ensure that children end up in safe, nurturing homes," he said flatly.

"Yeah – well why do they care? They don't care when you aren't born into one. So why fuck with us when we try to find our own?"

Mark just looked at them again and didn't say anything. There really wasn't anything that could justly be said. Sometimes the system wasn't fair. Sometimes it failed people – often the most vulnerable. Olivia had seen that time-and-time again. She'd spent years growing more and more frustrated with it. She was part of a system that didn't work but she had to encourage women, children, men to trust that they'd end up on the right side of it – if they were just patient with it. Sometimes she felt like she was lying to them.

"You know my feelings about home studies," Olivia finally put forward quietly.

The whole reason she'd pursued permanent guardianship was to avoid a home study. To hopefully avoid any sort of situation where she was denied the opportunity to be Benji's mom. To not have to go through that heartbreak all over again. Mark knew that.

Mark shrugged again, though. "It's a gamble to not do it when the judge has specifically recommended it. It could jade her opinion of you – make it seem like you have something to hide. It's almost in contempt of court – or at least contempt of her to ignore the recommendation. I'd strongly recommend you go ahead with the home study – and by the time it's done, you'll likely be at the six-month mark anyways."

Olivia sighed and examined the table at that. She could feel Mark and Jack both watching her – and then heard Mark's telltale pen bouncing on the top of his legal pad.

"If you're going to do the home study – we could always ask that the permanent guardianship petition be redacted and go for adoption instead. Since you'll be doing the home study anyways …"

Olivia glanced at Jack at that. He'd been so vehemently opposed to that before. She wasn't sure if he felt quite the same way now. Some of their dynamic had changed. They'd settled more into a family unit and a routine. But she could still see how he might see that as her robbing Benji from him in some way. If she had to do the home study, though … maybe it did make more sense to just adopt Little Fox. Some how that seemed unfair to Jack too, though. Like he'd always be on the outskirts of the family.

She sighed. "I don't know. What about Jack?"

Mark looked at Jack. "Well, you'll have the extended guardianship of him."

"Until he's 21," she said flatly.

Mark just shrugged. "I'm sure you'll continue to have a relationship after that."

Olivia sighed again and rubbed at her eyebrow and looked at Jack. He still looked so hurt and confused.

"What do you think, sweetheart?" she asked.

She really did want to know. Jack's opinion held weight. He was a big piece in their family puzzle too. She wasn't going to let him become a missing piece. She knew her and Benji couldn't be complete without the other boy in their lives as well.


	140. Chapter 140

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"OK, Mr. Brunell, let's keep this short," the judge said as she took her seat again and shot stern eyes at the attorney.

"Yes, your Honor," Mark said. "I've spoken with my clients and we'd like to divide the petition package – so part of it can be considered today."

Mosley sighed but nodded. "OK, let's hear it," she said with a touch of annoyance.

Since coming back into the courtroom, Olivia could nearly feel her heart pounding out of her chest. She wasn't used to being this nervous in a courtroom. Occasionally she felt nervous while awaiting the verdict for the sake of one of her victims – but nothing like this. She really felt like she might be sick – and she just hoped that her nerves weren't visible to the judge. Or maybe more importantly that neither of the boys could sense how afraid she was that this could still all go south on them. She really wasn't sure what they'd be walking out of the courthouse with anymore. She was placing a lot of trust into Mark to navigate this legal maze – but her trust in him had been severely compromised in the morning.

"Your Honor, we'd like to redact the petition for the permanent guardianship of Benjamin Lewis. Instead, Mr. Jack Lewis is prepared to testify to the court that he is releasing the child for adoption and Ms. Benson is prepared to begin the application for his adoption. However, we'd like to ask that you still consider today the petition for the extended guardianship of Mr. Jack Lewis."

Mosley sighed again and shook her head – which just made Olivia's stomach flip-flop even more. She glanced at Jack. His whole body language was closing in on itself. He was beyond scared too. She could see the slight tremble in him but this time she knew it was because he was near tears. She also knew he'd be mortified if he let any of them fall in the courtroom.

She looked over her shoulder at Alex and her Little Fox. Benji seemed completely oblivious to the ongoings at the moment. He had one of his dinosaurs riding in Heatwave and was almost whispering preschooler chatter at the toys as he rolled them along the bench. Olivia was almost happy that he hadn't picked up on his name being stated again or what that could mean for their futures.

Alex, though, looked nearly as uncomfortable as Olivia felt. She thought if the attorney didn't have her court-face on that she likely wasn't doing a very good job at it either. Alex had already expressed some misgivings at Mark's new approach. She said it reeked too much of 'a little of Column A and a little of Column B' when his original plan hadn't worked. She thought the judge would just automatically frown on that. You can't have it both ways in the courtroom. Beyond that, Alex wasn't sure the approach made sense to her. She felt there were other options that made more sense – that maybe waiting it out made the most sense. But she'd acknowledged that she wasn't familiar enough with family law to know for sure if Mark's approach was flawed or not. She'd need time reading over the legislation and the case law to give a solid opinion. Still, something about it just didn't ring right to her.

She'd again asked where Olivia had gotten wind of Mark's alleged skills. Olivia still didn't want to admit that he'd come on Elliot's recommendation and that she was really wishing that she'd taken the time to do her own research in picking an attorney. Mark might be experienced dealing with police families. But she was getting the impression that was mostly in situations were the job had pulled apart families and the custody battles were slightly different. They weren't about guardianship and adoption – they were about visitation schedules and legal and financial rights and responsibilities to a child. This seemed more convoluted and complicated than two quarreling parents and Olivia's optimism that he understood the intricacies of the laws around it all was fading as they interacted with the judge.

Mark had seemed to think that filling out some paperwork and submitting a package was enough. The judge seemed to want more supporting documentation and testimony than that in awarding the custody of either of the boys. Olivia was beginning to curse herself for not knowing better. She'd seen adoption, guardianship and custody battles turn incredibly complicated in court. She'd known they could be finicky based on her short temporary guardianship of Calvin and the paperwork that had been thrown at her in placing and then removing the boy. She'd watched how the court could assign guardianship and rule against the parents quickly and easily while trying to help her brother and his then finance with her niece and nephew.

She really wished she'd covered her bases better. She should've known better after the heartbreak with Calvin. Seeing Mark should've just been a fact finding mission – not a commitment to use his services. She should've taken the whole process more seriously. But hindsight is twenty-twenty and at the time – she'd trusted Elliot's judgment and she'd trusted Mark's words and promises. She'd hedged her bets and now she was just going to have to see how the cards fell that day. She knew they were too far into the process for her to completely pull out now without consequences. The legal system's eyes were on her now. A hasty or false step could lead to just as adverse outcome as letting it play out.

"Let's deal with the extended guardianship first," the judge sighed again but shuffled through her own paperwork until she found the appropriate file. She sat examining it for a moment.

"Mr. Lewis – you don't have any documented mental, physical or developmental disability?" she asked, still looking at the papers in front of her.

"No," Jack said quietly, looking up a bit from his examination of the table.

The judge met his eyes. "You're going to need to speak up, Mr. Lewis," she told him again – just as she had in the morning.

"No," Jack said a bit louder.

"Do you believe yourself to have any mental, physical or developmental disability?"

The teen gave her a questioning look almost like he was offended by the question. Olivia didn't exactly blame him. It had likely taken him off-guard and when he'd perpetuated his escape from the farm and his uncle on his smarts – the suggestion that there might be something wrong with him was likely hurtful. When he'd grown up with a mental ill sister and a mentally incapacitated grandmother – he didn't want it even suggested that he might have some disabilities of his own. It was part of the challenge in convincing him to access aid to begin with. Having the judge hang it out there would rattle him.

"No," he clarified again with a tone to his voice that made the judge briefly meet his eyes. But after a shared glared that seemed to last several long beats she nodded and looked back to the file in front of her.

"You're nineteen?" she confirmed again.

"Yes," Jack nodded.

She made some sort of note. "How old were you when your father died?"

"Fifteen," Jack said a bit more quietly and glanced at Olivia and she reached and put her hand against his back again.

He struggled talking about his father. She thought Jack had somehow deluded himself that they'd get through this hearing without having to discuss him in any capacity. But you can't exactly talk about guardianship without first discussing where the parents of the ward are. Still, she could almost feel his heart pounding in his spine. The tension there was palpable.

"Who was assigned as your guardian when your father died?" the judge asked and looked at him again.

Jack shrugged. "My uncle, I guess."

"You guess?" the judge asked a little harshly.

"I don't know. No one really told me," Jack said quietly.

The judge gazed at him and looked back down at the paperwork. "Who signed legal documentation and contracts for you until you were eighteen?"

"My uncle, I guess," Jack said again, a bit more quietly now.

The judge sighed and put her eyes back to Mark. "Do you have any documentation about his guardianship?"

"He's over eighteen," Mark said flatly.

"And part of the onus of establishing a case for extended guardianship is proving that the ward was previously under guardianship or in foster care prior to their eighteenth birthday," Mosley put to the lawyer sternly. Mark said nothing and the judge made an even more annoyed noise and looked at the paperwork again. "Gregory Lewis is listed here as your previous guardian. That's your uncle?"

"Yes," Jack agreed.

"But Mr. Brunell didn't see fit to collect any documentation confirming that," she spat and glared at Mark. "Did Mr. Gregory Lewis get informed of this request for extended guardianship and given the opportunity to contest it?"

"Jack is over 18 and within his rights to request the assignment of his own guardian," Mark put back.

"And if Mr. Gregory Lewis is, in fact, Mr. Lewis' guardian, he is within his rights to be informed. And – I believe we already established you didn't contact his mother for release either?"

"As I stated previously, Mr. Lewis' mother is a foreign national and we haven't yet been able to locate her," Mark said firmly. "Beyond that – her abandonment of Mr. Lewis is well-established."

The judge looked back at Jack with that. "When's the last time you had contact with your mother, Jean-Paul?"

"When I was like two," the teen said quietly.

"And you have no idea where she currently is?"

Jack shrugged. "My sister said she went back to Canada. Maybe Montreal."

"Did your sister have contact with her?"

Jack shook his head. "No. That's just what she said."

The judge let out another sigh. "OK. We'll treat that as abandonment. Is there any documentation of neglect or abuse – or is this request based purely on his father's demise?"

Olivia leaned over to Mark at that but Jack sat back in his chair, blocking her movement and glared at her.

"No," Jack whispered at a level that was fiercely strong.

"Jack – if it helps …"

"NO," he spat out again.

She sighed and sat back in her chair and made a gesture for Mark to answer the judge's question.

"We don't have documentation of neglect or abuse," Mark said. "But – I would like to point out that this whole situation has arisen because a teenaged girl had a child and then died and it created a circumstance where the village court in Horseheads deemed an eighteen-year-old to be the best suited in the family to care for the child. So I think we can draw our own conclusions."

"This court works on facts and evidence, Mr. Brunell – not speculation," Mosley said purposely at him and then looked at Jack. "Mr. Lewis – if Mr. Brunell did his job and contacted the police or social services in your home community – would I have documentation of abuse or neglect in front of me?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know."

Mosley flared her nostrils at that and looked at him sternly. "Mr. Lewis did police ever attend your home?"

Jack looked at Olivia again. His eyes looked scared.

"Just answer her questions honestly," she urged him quietly.

"Yes," Jack said quietly and started to examine the table.

The answer didn't surprise Olivia – but it still concerned her. She wasn't sure she wanted the judge to press him for more information. She wasn't sure how the Jack would handle any of that coming out there. She thought it might break him. This wasn't something Mark had prepped them for at all. The teen wouldn't have been expecting to have to discuss it – and it was seeming like the package he'd given the judge for Jack's petition had been grossly lacking as well.

"Why were the police at your home?" the judge asked.

Jack shrugged. "Sometimes my sister called them. Sometimes my uncle called them."

"For domestic disputes?"

"I guess," he said quietly.

Olivia knew there was likely far more too it than that. But she also was praying that the judge didn't press too hard for more information. Not when it wasn't something the boy had been prepared for. Not when it wasn't something they'd talked about at all. This wasn't how Jack needed his first disclosure of any of the abuse or violence that had occurred in his home to come out. But maybe it would be the impetuous to actually get him talking to her – so they could really start dealing with it.

"Did anyone ever get arrested?" Mosley asked.

"I guess they went to the station sometimes," Jack said even more quietly and looked farther down like he wanted to sink into the table and disappear.

"Where there any charges?"

Jack shook his head. "No," he said at a near whisper.

Olivia's horror about what the teen and her little boy had gone through was growing. People in the community had clearly known that things weren't alright on the farm. They weren't functioning as a normal family. They'd seen. They'd been called in. Yet, no one had truly stepped in. No one had helped these children. They'd been allowed to fall through the cracks. The system had failed them – badly.

"Did anyone from any sort of social services come to your home?" the judge inquired.

Jack nodded. "Yes."

"To check on you and your sister?"

He shook his head. "No. It was more they were checking 'Jamin, I think."

The judge examined him at that. "'Jamin? Benjamin?" Jack nodded. "Was the child ever removed from the home?"

Jack shook his head. "No."

Mosley sighed and made a note elsewhere on her legal pad – away from the file that was in front of her, that clearly had to do with Jack's case specifically.

"You're attending school?"

Jack gave a small nod. "Yeah. City. Urban design."

"You're a full-time student?"

"Yes," he allowed.

"And, Mr. Brunell didn't see it appropriate to attach documentation of that either," Mosley said bluntly and shot him daggers. "Do you work, Jean-Paul?"

Jack nodded. "Yes. Funky's. It's a skateboard shop."

"Less than 80 hours a month?"

He shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe."

Mosley looked at him. "You understand to be eligible for the various subsidies and benefits that come along with extended guardianship – you have to be a full-time student and be working less than 80 hours a month?"

Jack shrugged again. "I guess."

"Mr. Brunell explained that to you?"

Jack glanced at Olivia again. "Not really," he said but caught daggers from Mark. Olivia sent her own daggers at Mark, though. He hadn't broached on any of that with them. Not that the subsidies and benefits were the main goal for them – but that would've been nice to know.

The judge examined him more at that while giving Mark a rather disgusted look. "I would assume that your request for extended guardianship is based on wanting to access the subsidies and assistance programs until you're 21? To help you transition into independent living?"

Jack shrugged. "I don't know. Not really."

Mosley snorted and shook her head. "Can you explain to me, in your own words then, Mr. Lewis, why we are examining an extended guardianship petition for you today?"

Jack looked at her. He looked terrified. "I don't know," he said.

"'I don't know' is not going to get this approved," Mosley told him bluntly.

"Jack – just tell her what you want out of this," Olivia explained to him quietly since Mark seemed to be no help.

"Ahhhh …" Jack stammered. "I just … want to make sure that I'm still near 'Jamin and I just … Olivia said I could be on her health benefits while I was in school and that sounded good. And … I just don't want my uncle to do something to the money my dad left me. I don't want to have to go back to the farm. I don't know."

"Your father left you money in his will?" Mosley clarified – leaving the rest of his statement.

Jack nodded. "In trust until I'm 21."

Mosley shook her head more and glared at Mark. "Mr. Brunell – the pathetic amount of information you've included with this petition makes it incredibly difficult for me to just approve. Ticking off the boxes and including a statement from Ms. Benson really isn't enough."

"Your Honor …" Mark tried to protest again.

"Save it," Mosley snapped. "The way, in which, you've submitted all these applications is a complete disservice to your clients. I don't know what you were thinking."

Olivia felt her heart sink a bit more with that statement while her self-deprecation continued. She was hating the fact she'd placed her trust – not to mention fees – into Mark. This was a disaster.

But Mosley met her eyes and she had to again try to hold back all the thoughts that were streaming through her head.

"Ms. Benson – I'm going to give you a 90-day temporary guardianship of Jean-Paul. That should provide you – or your lawyer - with adequate time to collect appropriate documentation that goes beyond his birth certificate, in proving that he meets the criteria to be placed under extended guardianship."

Olivia nodded but looked to Jack, giving him a small smile and rubbing at his back a bit more. He didn't look happy, though. The stress was still radiating off of him and he looked confused. She didn't entirely blame him – for any of it. He would've been uncomfortable with the entire line of questioning. Even though he likely grasped what was happening – he probably had questions about what it all meant and how it would play out. What it would mean for their family? What it would mean for him? What it would mean for Benji? She was already working out in her head who they needed to call to get some of the paperwork that the judge had touched on in her line of questioning to Jack.

"Thank you, your Honor," was all she said though. She did appreciate the leeway. She was going to need it to clean up Mark's mess. Or to order him to clean it up on his own. Now she knew better about what was needed – what he hadn't done for them and should've been doing.

Mosley was working on signing something in front of her but glanced up at Olivia. "Beyond your statement on this application – can you explain to me why you're seeking the extended guardianship of the young man?"

Olivia nodded again and sat up a bit straighter. "I wanted to ensure that Jack feels included in the family, should you place Benji in my custody as well. Also, Jack lacked stability in his home life in his teens and has expressed to me that he'd like some additional support while he completes his academics. I'm willing to provide that. He does have some concerns about his financial situation as well and how to navigate that – which is another area I hoped I could help guide him in."

The judge nodded. "Is there a specific reason he's citing your health benefits as a reason for this petition?"

Olivia snorted and looked down. That likely wasn't the brightest statement for Jack to make. It made it sound like they had alternative motives. She rubbed at her eyebrow before looking up.

"He's been complaining about his wisdom teeth," she allowed. "We'd like to get them checked and extracted if necessary. But we'd also like for him to be able to access various counseling services that fall under my plan. He's been through a lot the past few years."

Mosley examined her for a moment and then looked down to jot another note. "He should still be able to temporarily access your benefits while under the 90-day guardianship. You'll have to check into it. As for counseling services – if his extended guardianship gets approved, he'd be eligible for subsidies there as well."

Olivia nodded. "Thank you, your Honor," she allowed again. She'd done some research on the benefits, assistance and subsidies available to children granted extended guardianship. She'd been familiar with some of them anyways. She'd referred victims that walked through the squad room to the various services they technically had access to enough to have a general idea of what was available. But she wasn't sure Jack would ever agree to access any of them. Still, it was good to know they were there.

"Do you intend to apply for caregiver subsidies should your receive extended guardianship of the young man?" the judge asked.

Olivia sighed and weighed that. She'd researched the availability of those options too – both in relation to taking guardianship of Jack and custody of Benji. She knew she had services and subsidies available to her. She might access some of the services at certain points in their progression to becoming a well family. But she wasn't sure she felt right taking subsidies. She was in a financial position that it wasn't likely necessary for her. Though, she would likely take some of the tax breaks in relation to Benji's adoption, should it go through.

"Not likely your Honor," she eventually admitted after several seconds. "I'll leave it up to Jack to claim what's available to him, if he so chooses."

Mosley nodded and jotted down another note before handing a piece of paper to the court clerk.

"You have 90 days to get your paperwork in order," she said – running daggers across all three of them and then flipping over the next folder. "Now for the rest of Mr. Brunell's new approach …"

Olivia's heart skipped again. The extended guardianship application hadn't exactly gone smoothly and she got the sense that this was going to go even less so. She adjusted herself in her chair. It was feeling hard and uncomfortable – just adding to the entire discomfort of being in the room and that position.

She glanced over her shoulder again at her Little Fox. He seemed to be paying a bit more attention at that moment – sitting up and leaning a bit against Alex, like she really was his auntie and he was comfortable invading her space. But it was also like he sensed they were about to discuss him somehow - and his little eyes met hers. There seemed to be a concern and sadness in them. She told herself that he was just reflecting back to her what he was seeing in her and Jack. He was just reacting to the tension and atmosphere of the room – the stress of the entire day. Still, there was another part of her that feared he was scared and confused about what was going to happen. That he was suddenly expecting the worse. She knew he couldn't be. Worse-case scenarios hadn't been presented to him. As far as he knew they were just there talking about him being Little Fox and her being Mommy Fox and living together in their den forever. He didn't need to know that there was possibility that all that might be taken from them. He didn't need to know the complexities of it.

"Mr. Lewis is not going to give his statement releasing the child for adoption today," Mosley said sternly and looked directly at Mark. "Since Ms. Benson is not approved as a foster parent or an adoptive parent – should Mr. Lewis release the child, he'd be placed in the care of the state. I don't think that's what anyone wants today is it? Ms. Benson – you would like to continue your parental designation and take the child home with you today?"

Olivia's head snapped at Mark and she gaped angrily at him. The mere prospect that he'd near placed them in a situation where her little boy would not be leaving the courtroom with her horrified her. Jack's head had spun all the way around and he was gazing at Benji to the point that the little boy let out a small shriek and reached out for his uncle. Jack reached over into the visitor's gallery and pulled Benji to him – his shins and feet knocking against the railing that separated them loudly.

"He's not going anywhere," Jack said, holding Benji tight. The intensity of the grip and Jack's statement seemed to startle the little boy a bit and he looked to Olivia his eyes glassing.

"Mommmmmmy?" he near whimpered.

"Mr. Lewis, please," the judge sighed and shook her head. "We'll have order in this courtroom."

Olivia reached out and stroked the back of his head. "Shh, shh," she soothed rubbing at his cheek with her one hand while moving the other up to ruffle Jack's hair trying to calm him too. Both of her boys were terrified now – and that was Mark's fault.

She looked to Mosley. "Yes, your Honor," she nodded. "I'd like to complete my parental designation and would like to take Benji home with me."

Mosley nodded. "And, Mr. Lewis, you aren't revoking the parental designation from Ms. Benson today? You're leaving it instated as is?" She glanced at the paperwork again. "It currently provides Ms. Benson with parental rights to the child until the end of May."

Jack nodded and held Benji even tighter. "He's going home," he said firmly.

"With Ms. Benson?" Mosley clarified. "Under this letter of parental designation, which provides her with rights until the end of May?"

"Yes," Jack said and Olivia stroked at his head more, still trying to give Benji as reassuring look as possible and a small smile.

In reality, she felt like she'd taken a hit to the gut. The tightness in her chest was squeezing so firmly that she almost felt like she wanted to take a deep breath to try to gulp at the air in an effort to calm herself. But she didn't think she'd be able to get enough air even then.

She could feel Alex gazing at her. When the attorney's eyes shifted, she could tell they were drilling holes in the back of Mark's head. Olivia knew that as soon as they got out of there she'd be instructing her to dump Mark. The real question would be if Alex would wait until Mark was out of earshot or if she'd be tearing a strip off of him. Olivia wasn't sure she had it in her at the moment to fire the man on the spot. But she sure didn't feel like she could keep him. Not after this. This was emotionally upsetting enough for her. She didn't want to think about the damage it was doing to her fragile boys.

Mosley looked to Olivia. "Ms. Benson – this is my advice – on how to approach this. I will redact your petition for permanent guardianship, if that's what you want?" Olivia nodded. "OK. But you will now take the necessary steps to be approved as an adoptive parent. After you have received that approval – Mr. Lewis will then release the child for adoption – on paper, which will give you 45 days to enter into a private adoption of Benjamin. At that point – you'll return to court to have it finalized. Is that understood?"

Olivia nodded. "Yes," she agreed firmly. It seemed awful that she had to be told how to approach the case by the judge. But at the same time, she was glad someone was saying it – because Mark certainly wasn't.

Mosley nodded. "And, I'll see you and Mr. Lewis again in about 90 days to review your progress on making a case for his extended guardianship. However, I'm unclear on what you may have discussed with your attorney to prompt you to pursue guardianship of the one boy while adopting the other. But, I'd like to remind you – that adult adoption does exist and is not just for cases where the ward needs lifelong care anymore. Based on what you're describing in your hopes for this family unit – that may be a better option for you and Mr. Lewis. You'll have to look into any complications related to that since his father's estate hasn't yet been settled and Mr. Lewis still has money awaiting him in trust. Perhaps it does make sense to do an extended guardianship until his 21st birthday. Since Mr. Brunell didn't include any documentation about the young man's familial situation beyond his birth certificate it's impossible for me to speculate."

"I didn't see how Mr. Lewis' financial situation was relevant to the guardianship application," Mark protested with a clear distaste.

Mosley glared at him. "Ms. Benson is requesting extend guardianship of a young man. That would give her legal guardianship of his person and of his property until his 21st birthday – as well as make her liable for him, his actions and his property. You did not believe that disclosing that the ward has assets to his name – that Ms. Benson would hold some responsibility in managing for the next few years – was prudent, Mr. Brunell?"

Mark offered no reply to that and the judge shook her head.

"Between now and your next appearance, Mr. Brunell, I'd suggest you brush up on the legalities in these matters. Otherwise, I'd like to suggest perhaps, you should contain your focus to divorce law."

Mark gaped at that and looked like he was about to say something. But Mosley already knocked the gavel.

"We'll take a 15 minute recess before dealing with the next matter before this court," she said, as she gathered her files and headed for her chambers.

Olivia let out a sigh and Benji reached for her at the sound of the gravel.

"Moommmmmy Fox," he whined again and Jack seemed to reluctantly release his grip and let the little boy transfer to her arms.

She held him tight to her – likely just as tight as Jack had been holding him, though the teen was still keeping a grip on his one hand that was clinging around her neck. She could feel the little boy's heart pounding against her chest. She couldn't tell if he was just reacting to them or if the ongoings had truly scared him as much as it had shaken her. He'd likely felt Jack's heart pounding while being held by his uncle.

"Shhh, it's OK, Little Fox," she assured him and released one of her hands from gripping the little boy to take Jack's free hand. He needed the reassurance too. He was just as rattled.

"It's all going to be alright," she said. She didn't know if she was reassuring herself, Benji or Jack – or all three of them. But she felt like she needed to say it. It still would all be alright. Eventually.

"We real foxes now?" Benji near whimpered.

She bounced him a bit against her and met Jack's sad eyes and tried to offer him a small smile before rubbing firmly at Benji's back.

"Not quite yet, Little Fox. But almost. Soon."


	141. Chapter 141

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia snapped her head around from where she was fumbling with trying to get Benji's little hand into his mitten.

"No, it's not fine, Mark," she snapped at him.

Jack had again sworn at the man and stormed out of the courtroom in the minutes after the judge adjourned their case. At that point, Olivia didn't blame him. But she'd been left standing there trying to decide if she should pick up Benji and take after him or if she need to stay and talk to the attorney who had so badly flubbed their case.

She hadn't had to make the decision, though. Alex had stepped in – standing from the bench in the visitor's gallery and gathering her coat.

"I'll go talk to him," she assured. "Explained to him what just happened. What it means."

Olivia gave her a grateful look and nodded. Someone needed to do that for the teen. And, it certainly wasn't going to be Mark. Jack wouldn't hear a word he said – and at that point Olivia didn't think she could trust a word he said. She'd rather have the ADA's fragmented knowledge of family law advising the teen on what had happened than Mark's complete incompetency. She thought that Alex had interacted with Jack enough too that she'd understand some of the intricacies in dealing with him. Or at least she had the steely stare to return to him should he give her the misplaced lip and attitude that he'd undoubtedly be spewing. Alex could take it. Alex understood some of where Jack was coming from and the status he'd established in her life.

So it had left Olivia to ready the little boy to get the hell out of that courtroom while Mark attempted to defend and justify what had happened with their case. To defend himself. To argue that the judge was bias and her accusations against his preparedness were unjustified. He just kept saying that it was going to be fine and that things really hadn't gone that badly. She was sick of hearing it.

Olivia sighed after snapping at the lawyer and seeing his startled face. He clearly hadn't been expecting her to raise her voice at him. She wasn't sure why. He'd just mangled things so badly. She had the right to be angry.

"Look, Mark," she said, holding up a hand like a stop signing – trying to get him to shut up and to start taking some steps away from her and her Little Fox. "I just need some time to process what happened today. I just want to get my children HOME – where they belong. I'll call you in a couple days."

"Because we really should schedule some meetings to start working on getting the necessary paperwork in order," Mark said. "To pick an agency to do your home study."

Olivia's mind screamed that she wouldn't be having any more meetings with Mark. That she wouldn't trust him to get the appropriate paperwork in order. That there was no way on Earth she could trust him in his recommendation for a police-friendly agency that would provide her with a positive report at the end of the home study.

Mark Brunell just wasn't an option for her family anymore. He'd fucked up. Fucking up her life was one thing – screwing over her case. But it wasn't just about her. It was about two boys who'd been screwed over enough by the system. She wasn't going to let Mark do that to them again. She wasn't going to participate in that. She'd be just as responsible for their neglect and abuse if she continued down the current path as their perpetrators were.

But she couldn't bring herself to say it to him there. She didn't think he was going to take 'no' or 'you're fired' as the final answer – and she refused to have that discussion with him in front of her child. And, she thought it would be better to give him the news when her emotions were more in check. She didn't need him going and reporting her having a tantrum at him to Elliot. Though, she was thinking about having a tantrum at Elliot too. He was part of the reason she had gotten herself into this mess.

"I'll call you," she said sternly.

"OK – but I'll be in touch if I haven't heard from you by the end of the week because …"

She held up her hand again and shot him daggers. "I'LL CALL YOU," she said even more firmly.

Mark watched her for a moment but then let out a sigh. She suspected he'd got the message. They'd be talking – but that was going to be it. There wasn't going to be any more meetings. He'd lost a client.

"OK," he said quietly. "I'll talk to you later then."

He gathered his files and briefcase from the attorney's table and headed for the door. She watched until the door swung shut and then turned back to Benji and jiggled his mitten on more.

"Com'on, put your hat on Little Fox," she ordered softly, as she bent to pick up a stray dinosaur that had found its way to the ground.

By the time they got outside the courthouse, Jack seemed a lot calmer and was standing with Alex just off to the left of the main entrance. She was still talking to him in hushed tones and he was nodding a little while he examined the ground.

She gave the teen's shoulder a small squeeze as her and Benji joined them. Alex flashed her a thin smile.

"You OK?" she asked of Jack.

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess," he allowed.

She gave his shoulder a little rub before dropping her hand. "I know it was pretty upsetting," she conceded. "It rattled me a bit too. I'm mad at Mark too. But I think it really just means it's all going to take a bit longer than we hoped."

Jack nodded. "Yeah … Alex said as much … I guess … "

Olivia gave a small nod and looked at the attorney who seemed to be watching her carefully.

"Mark left," Alex stated flatly though there was a question to her tone.

"He didn't talk to us," Jack interjected.

Olivia felt herself nod again at that. She was glad he didn't. "That's likely best," she said. "Did you talk to him?"

The question had more been directed at Alex but it was Jack who first shook his head. Alex continued to just give her those steely eyes. Olivia knew she wanted a moment. The attorney managed to restrain herself from ripping into Mark but she definitely wanted the opportunity to give her two-cents worth then and there.

"Hey," Olivia said and knocked Jack's shoulder a bit again until he glanced at her. "Why don't you take Benji down the stairs a bit. Pretend skateboard. Get some of his sillies out before we have to get on the subway."

"Pretend skateboard!" Benji jumped at that idea.

But Jack just looked at her hesitantly. "I just want to talk to Alex for a minute," she told him quietly. "Just go stretch your legs a bit. We were cooped up in there a long time."

She could tell Jack didn't really want to miss out on the opportunity to participate in the conversation – or maybe more so that he didn't want to babysit his nephew while he was being ridiculous on the stairs of a public place. But having planted the idea of pretend skateboarding into Benji's head already, the teen wasn't being given much choice in the matter. The little boy was already grabbing at his hand.

"Peedg! I show you my new tricks. I be prac-kissing lots!" Benji near screeched at him – tugging on his arm.

Jack sighed and shot her a bit of an unimpressed look but did let the little boy lead him away from the building and down closer to the sidewalk. Benji began to jump and kick his feet and hop and skip and do just about anything that completely didn't resemble any sort of real skateboarding that Olivia had ever seen before. It did, however, look like a pretty fantastic pretend skateboarding session – at least compared to the ones she had to witness near daily on their walks to and from the subway.

She watched them for a moment and smiled a little as Jack actually took a stance like he was on a skateboard. He said something to Benji and then the little boy mirrored him, trying to jump and kick matching what looked like a meticulous foot motion that the teen demonstrated. Apparently Jack could pretend skateboard too. Or maybe more do a real skateboarding lesson with a pretend skateboard.

"So did you get rid of him?" Alex asked, though, pulling her attention away from the boys.

Olivia let out a bit of a sigh and shrugged. "Not yet."

"Olivia … ," Alex said in such a chastising tone that she almost felt like she was being treated like a child or a perp.

So she held her hand up to stop it. She knew where her friend stood. But she wasn't ready to be talked to that way – even if it was coming from a helpful and concerned place.

"I know," she maintained. "And I will. I just … want to have my bases covered before I pull him off the case. Retain another attorney."

Alex shook her head at her. "You don't need to keep him until you find another attorney. There's hundreds of attorneys in this city. We'll find one for you. One that makes more sense than a divorce lawyer. You need to get someone who deals with adoption – private adoption - as their main focus."

Olivia nodded. "I will," she said firmly but moved her eyes back to the boys. She wasn't up to being told off. She knew what she needed to do.

"So do it now," Alex said. "It's not like you to delay on this sort of thing. I've heard you tell even the parents of kids mixed up with the law – you get the best lawyer you can afford. Why aren't you following your own advice? You can do better than Mark Brunell. Who the hell even is Mark Brunell?"

She just shrugged. "A lawyer who works with cop families. It's supposed to be his speciality," she mumbled but she was watching the boys. They were starting to wander away from the steps. "Where the hell are they going?" she muttered and gestured.

Alex looked. "Probably just back to the food truck. They're fine. Olivia … listen to me …"

"That kid is always starving," she muttered more and then looked back at Alex frustrated. "I was going to get them some lunch or supper or whatever the hell it is now on the way home – and instead, he has to go and pump them full of more sugar."

She felt like all the boys had eaten all day was junk. They didn't need more. They – or at least Jack – was going to be going through enough of an emotional crash that evening. They didn't need to add to the pending sugar crash even more. Sometimes the teen frustrated her so much. It didn't feel like he thought about 70 per cent of the time for a kid who seemed relatively smart.

Alex gave her a small smile. "Calm down, Mom," she teased gently. "Or with comments like that – you still flip-flopping on if this is what you really want? Is that why you still have some guy who can't do his homework as your attorney?"

Olivia sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow before tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear. "It's not that," she said. It wasn't – not at all. She knew how badly she wanted the boys in her life. She knew she couldn't just let them go at that point. She knew how that separation would damage not just them – but her. "I just … want to make sure I'm covered before dropping him."

"Liv, you know so many attorneys. You're covered. I could do better than Brunell and I'm not even that familiar with family law. But I'd sure as hell file your paperwork correctly – with supporting documentation. That was just ridiculous."

She shook her head and looked down. "I don't need you on my case."

Alex shrugged. "Good. We both know I can't be on your case …"

Olivia snorted. "I meant I DON'T NEED YOU ON MY CASE," she said with a bit of a tone, even though she knew the other woman was sort of joking and had known what she meant. Step off.

Alex gave her a small smile. "I know. At least let me help you find someone …"

Olivia sighed. She still had so much trouble accepting help from people. Maybe she'd spent too long trying to do it all on her own – living on her own, looking out for herself, taking care of her own needs and interests. She knew Alex's offer was coming from the right place – and she knew she could trust her friend. But at the same time – at the moment, she didn't trust anyone on this. She wanted to do it on her own. She needed to figure out how to approach this on her own. She'd trusted Elliot and look where it had gotten her. She should've depended on herself in sorting out something this important.

"Just give me a day or two to think about how I want to deal with this," she said.

"In a day or two, I can have a list of names for you," Alex put back at her.

She sighed again but didn't have a chance to get her next response for come out. Benji came tromping back up the stairs towards them – proudly holding out a bouquet of multi-colored roses and lilies. A smile tugged at the corners of her mouth as he finished his stomps up the stairs – Jack trailing several steps behind him. She glanced at Alex who was clearly taken by the little deliveryman too.

"Mommy Fox," Benji declared as he got up to her and held out the offering. "We get you flowers. They smelly."

She smiled some more and took the bouquet from the little boy and gave them a whiff – because she'd clearly been indirectly instructed too.

"They're beautiful, Little Fox," she said and shot Jack a look, since he was clearly the instrument behind the purchase. "And they do smell so pretty."

She couldn't even think of the last time she'd received flowers. She tried to think if David had ever bought her flowers. She was sure he must've. He could be a cheesy romantic. Though, he seemed to prefer to keep most of his cheese to little teasing comments and most of his romanizing came as nice wine and good food. Still, there must've been flowers in there somewhere – they just weren't jumping out at her. But somehow she thought that no flowers – past or future – would likely stand out as much as those ones from Benji (and Jack).

She knew it was only a $5 bouquet - at most. But it was the thought behind it. Or maybe it was more the meaning and the motive – or lack thereof. It was just her boys trying to do something nice. It was Jack trying to reach out to her and her little boy excited to get to give her something. It was Benji's happy face and Jack's embarrassed look. It was the little moment. A family moment. A moment that she thought moms of boys were likely supposed to get but that maybe she hadn't much considered that she'd get before. Flowers from the other men in her life? Or right now – the only men, besides the guys at work. And they definitely wouldn't ever buy her flowers. She'd likely hit them if they did.

"Thank you, Jack," she said as he reached the top of the stairs.

He shrugged. "Yeah. I figured if I was a girl and felt like I do right now after that bullshit – I'd want someone to do something nice."

She snorted at that comment and nearly rolled her eyes. She heard Alex audibly choke back her own smirk at the lack of eloquence in most things that came out of the teen's mouth. But she just smiled.

"That was really thoughtful, Jack," she allowed – restraining herself from chastising him on his language choice, caressing the side of Benji's head instead. He seemed oblivious to the swearing – but he often did. She could only hope that it wasn't setting in subconsciously as appropriate word choice. For the moment, though he was busy grabbing for the bouquet again.

"They smelly good, right, 'Livia?" he asked pulling her arm down.

She lowered them for him to plant his nose amongst them.

"They smell wonderful, Benj," she assured him. "It's always nice to get to smell the roses amongst the manure," she added giving Jack a thin smile.


	142. Chapter 142

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Benji had gone tearing out of the elevator as it got to their floor. He was convinced he needed to get in there and back to the rest of his toys right that instant. He'd decided on their way home that he could build a 'val-can-o mow-tin' for his dinosaurs out of the Duplo and that Flame would be their guard and that him breathing fire would make the volcano erupt but that he could 'save the dinos from the liva' and that Heatwave and his transforming firetruck command center could help too. He'd become increasingly excited about the little idea that had popped into his head and he was just revving to go and get at it by the time they'd arrived back at their building.

Olivia was really just glad that Benji didn't seem too worse for the wear after the day in court. He'd asked a few questions and expressed some confusion – and he'd cuddled at both her and Jack, crawling all over them on the subway, likely picking up on their tense body language and muted emotions that were continuing. She suspected the elaborate story he'd created for them about Flame being a guard dragon for a volcano was mostly as a form of distraction for himself. But he'd distracted her a bit too and brought some smiles to her face. That small smile, though, faded quickly as she stepped off the elevator with Jack trailing behind her.

Benji was several yards ahead of them in one of his skipping trots. Normally she wouldn't have minded him making a tear for the door from the elevator. The new floor was so quiet she hadn't even noticed any of the neighbors yet - and they'd been up there nearly a month. She wasn't concerned about the little boy ramming into someone and he really had nowhere to go to get lost. He only had to walk from one end of the hall to the other before he'd wait for her restlessly at the door, usually shaking at the doorknob like he was checking to make sure it was locked – or more likely expressing his distaste that she had the tenacity to lock him out, or at least not have it open for him the moment he put his hand on the knob.

This time, though, they weren't alone in the hall and she felt her heart skip a beat as she saw the woman in the hallway. She didn't look like a resident of the building. She clearly looked like someone who wasn't supposed to be there. She looked tired and slightly flustered. Her clothes didn't fit quite properly – and looked like she was trying to dress nicely – but practically – within her budget. But that the budget didn't allow much leeway. Worse she had an attaché case in her one hand and what looked like rather official paperwork in her hand – and she was barely two doors away from their apartment, clearly walking towards the elevator but having not just exited another suite.

"Benji, come here," Olivia said firmly while still trying to keep her voice even enough that it wouldn't scare him. Still she needed to be harsh enough that he'd listen – and she needed him to listen. She wasn't sure yet what this was, but she didn't like the looks of it. Benji's trot spotted and he glanced at her but he didn't immediately return. So she held out her hand. "Little Fox …" she said again, keeping her eyes on the woman who was clearly measuring them now.

The little boy gave her a look that was bordering on scared but he returned to her and she grabbed his hand – gripping it tightly and pulling him a little bit closer to her. Olivia could feel Jack stop in his tracks behind her too – likely reacting to her more so than the presence of the stranger. Though, she knew the teen would quickly determine for himself why she'd stopped moving down the hallway and come to his own conclusion about who the woman was standing just feet from their door.

"I'm Dorothy Orditz. I'm with a social worker with ACS. I'm looking for the legal guardian of Benjamin Lewis," the woman said, starting to close the gap between, clearly having realized who they were.

Olivia, though, didn't want her to move any closer to her boys. She couldn't believe this was happening. They'd gotten out of the courthouse. She thought if anything was going to happen – it was going to happen there. Not that they'd arrive home to having to deal with the hoops, loops and bureaucracy of dealing with the Administration for Children's Services – child protective services at her doorstep.

"I Benji," her little boy declared again but then buried his face against her leg – like he realized he shouldn't have said anything and that this woman walking towards them looked more like the wicked witch than the good fairy.

Olivia gently hushed him and shuttled him carefully to Jack who had a look of all out terror dancing through his eyes – glazing them and sending glints of tears and anger all at the same time. But the teen immediately stooped and pulled the little boy up to his hip and wrapped his arms around him, while Benji rubbed his face there before glancing back at her like he still knew this was bad.

"Stay here," she told Jack quietly but sternly. "Not a word."

Olivia rubbed Benji's back, trying to reassure him that it would be fine. She was sure it would be. The woman was alone. Olivia knew the process – and she knew her rights. The real question would be how quickly she could shut this down. She stepped away from her boys somewhat reluctantly, though. She could almost feel the slight tremble in them that she could tell Jack was trying to hide and Benji was trying to convince himself that he wasn't scared when he had Mommy Fox and Growling Fox right there. But she could tell there was a fear from him.

She moved towards the woman, though – not wanting her to get any closer to her boys. She wanted as much space between them as possible. She wanted her body between her and them – a barrier between her seeing them or speaking to them.

"I'm Benjamin's parental designate right now," Olivia said firmly. "Jack's his legal guardian," she added with a gesture to the boys where the teen was still clutching at the little boy who kept glancing over his shoulder trying to determine what was going on. "But you can speak with me."

The woman examined her for a moment and looked at the paperwork she had in her hand. "Olivia Benson?" she asked.

"Yes," she agreed. "And I'm going to need to see some identification from you too."

Orditz didn't seem to take offense to that comment and casually pulled an identification wallet out of her coat's pocket, retrieving a business card from one of the compartments and holding up the ID for Olivia to see while she handed over the card. Olivia looked at it for a moment.

"We received a report concerning Benjamin," Orditz said. "I was hoping we could go inside and discuss it."

Olivia nodded but said, "What kind of report?"

"I can discuss the full details of that with you after I've had a chance to speak with Benjamin," Orditz stated flatly.

Olivia allowed a thin smile at that. She knew that kind of response. She hated to admit that she'd likely used similar statements in the past in an attempt to direct suspects or witnesses to where she needed them to go when she was trying to collect information for a case. It was all predicated on the assumption that the individual likely didn't have a full understanding of their rights nor of police and government official's obligations on these kinds of matters. Orditz clearly hadn't been given a note on her piece of paper indicating who and what Olivia was.

"I actually have a right to know what allegations were brought against us," she replied, and flipped over the woman's card, while starting to rummage through her purse for a pen.

The truth was that even though she was trying to present and err of confidence – she could feel her heart pounding in her chest. She did know how the system worked. That meant that she knew how to operate within it – but it also meant she knew the way it could go. This could be a stepping stone leading to Benji's removal from her home – and she couldn't let that happen. She mind was already churning about what her next steps needed to be. First she had to get rid of Orditz. But there was going to be more to it than that.

"Neglect," Orditz put back to her with a bit more of a tone to her voice.

Olivia looked up from her search and snorted at that. It seemed beyond ridiculous to her that now there would anyone who would bring allegations of neglect against her – or Jack maybe. That her boys had gone through years of very clear neglect and abandonment – very likely multiple levels and kinds of abuse – but the state hadn't seen fit to conduct an investigation then or to remove them from the farm. But now that they were in a good, safe home – a stable, caring environment – that someone had brought forward such an allegation?

In her mind she was trying to decide who would've submitted that kind of report. She had initially jumped immediately to the judge. But she'd gotten the sense that Mosley had been on her side. Besides – she didn't get the impression that Orditz had the kind of paperwork with her that would've indicated that the visit had come at the order of the court. Part of her considered Mark – which she knew was likely unjustified but she couldn't help it, not after the kind of day they'd had. The reality, though, was it could've been anyone. Benji's daycare, one of the doctors she'd had him into for his arm and head, the rehabilitation therapist they'd paid a visit to the previous week in starting to work on the physical therapy on his wrist, someone at work who had something against her or her current situation. There was no way of really knowing. She might not ever know. But the timing felt far to convenient.

Orditz though clearly hadn't liked the disbelieving smirk – the complete distaste that painted across her face – that Olivia had given her.

"That's not very specific," Olivia stated, trying to fish a little bit more. If the woman provided a reply it would likely give an indication of how much information she even had – if the call or report they'd received had been specific or completely anonymous and without merit.

"I think this would be easier if we all went inside," Orditz pushed again, "and I can discuss the details with you there."

Olivia had found her pen and pulled it out, giving the woman a small nod. "OK. Do you have a court order to gain entrance into my home or to speak to the child I'm currently responsible for?"

Orditz examined her – clearly unimpressed that she was dealing with an informed parent (aka a difficult parent).

"Ms. Benson – I'm sure we can resolve this matter today, if we sit down and talk for a few minutes. But, if you're going to be uncooperative, I will return with a court order and when I come back I'll have police officers with me. You will have made this much harder on yourself."

"She is a cop," Jack called somewhat angrily from where he was standing and listening several yards away.

Olivia glanced at him and gave a stern look, trying to relay that it would be best for everyone involved if he just kept his mouth shut for the moment. The less they said to this woman – the better. Ideally, Olivia would've preferred that they'd encountered each other in a situation where the boys weren't visible to Orditz. But depending on the severity of the allegations, seeing the boys – seeing Benji – may be enough to confirm that everything was fine and they could just shut their investigation and move on. Though, she wasn't expecting to actually be that lucky.

"You're a police officer?" Orditz asked as she turned back in her direction.

Olivia nodded and tapped her pen on the back of the business card. "I am. I'm a detective with the Special Victims Unit. So I'm quite familiar with how this works," she stressed – carefully and clearly with a firm glare. "And, I'm going to need the name and telephone number of your supervisor."

Orditz looked at her with a real recognition in her face that that piece of information had been left out by whoever had filed the report – and she hadn't unearthed it for herself before appearing on their doorstep. It was a rather large oversight, Olivia thought. It likely put the social worker at a disadvantage now in the balance of power. But Olivia didn't much mind that. Despite her unsure look, the woman did rattle off a name and phone number that Olivia jotted onto the back of the card.

"My lawyer will be in touch with your office," Olivia said firmly as she finished writing and met the woman with hard eyes. "If necessary, a meeting will be arranged. But you aren't getting into my home – or speaking to my child – without a court order."

"You realize that we have 72 hours to mount our case," Orditz said with some disgust, "and if I come back with a court order, Benjamin will be being removed from your home."

Olivia felt her heart pound even harder at that – and really hoped it hadn't been said loudly enough that Jack or Benji had heard. Though, she knew she was likely kidding herself on that. They would've been privy to the entire conversation – and she could only imagine what was going through their heads and what sort of larger damage control she was going to have to do now when they got inside the door. Jack would be freaking out and if phrases like being 'taken away' or 'left' or 'removed' kept getting thrown around near Benji, the little boy would have a meltdown that would leave him traumatized. If he actually was removed it would likely cause irreparable damage for her boys – for her Benji – and for her relationship with them. It just couldn't happen.

"Seventy-two hours," she agreed with a small nod. "The rest of it … we'll see. I don't think that will be happening."

Orditz eyed her again but returned the piece of paper she had in her hand to her case and started moving towards the elevator. Olivia turned and followed the movement with her eyes, gesturing for Jack to get out of the way and come towards her and the apartment. The teen did, near huddling against the small with his nephew turned inward, trying to stay as far away from the woman as the confined space allowed. He eyed her though – sending daggers and anger at her. But Olivia just nudged his shoulder, pushing him on as he reached her. Putting her body between the boys and the woman again, as she walked them the rest of the way to the apartment door – glancing over her shoulder to watch Orditz watching them while she waited for the elevator.

"What …" Jack started, but Olivia just hushed him while Benji quietly whimpered and handed him the keys to the door from her purse. She didn't want any of them to say a word until Orditz was on that elevator and out of earshot.

While Jack fumbled with the keys, she reached into her coat pocket and continued to eye the social worker as she retrieved her phone. Without even looking at the screen, she managed to type in the number and put the phone up to her ear.

"Alex," she said, just as Jack got the door open. "Something just happened …"


	143. Chapter 143

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"I'm sorry," Alex apologized as soon as Olivia had opened the door for her.

"It's OK," Olivia said and just gestured for her to come in.

She wasn't really sure it was. Though, it certainly wasn't Alex's responsibility to be coddling her. She'd gotten herself into her own situation. She was a grown-up - an NYPD detective. She could handle things on her own. Still, she supposed she had wanted an immediate fix from the attorney.

That hadn't happened, though. Alex had been heading into a meeting at work when Olivia had called. And, though, her friend had taken the time to listen to what had happened – the woman from ACS in her hallway – she hadn't been able to drop what she was doing and come to the rescue.

Instead, she'd basically just told Olivia to hang tight. That nothing was going to happen. That it was clearly an unsubstantiated report if they weren't showing up at the door with a court order. That really no more action was likely needed – and even if there was, they had 72 hours to deal with it. So just focus on the kids, Alex had said. She'd said she'd been there as soon as possible too. But that had been hours ago and now it was pushing 11 p.m. at night.

It was probably best that Alex hadn't been able to come over immediately, though. She was right – the boys did need her attention, and it had taken a lot of the evening to calm them both down. It had been emotionally draining in so many ways.

Jack was angry and scared. He wanted to know what was happening and what the plan was – when she hadn't yet had the chance to have some time to herself to regroup, to think, to make some calls and to develop that plan in its entirety. Benji was reacting to the tension in the apartment – but he was also very confused about the bits of conversation he'd picked up at the courthouse, in the hallway and between her and Jack. He'd been clingy and teary. He was scared and he wasn't even sure about what. But the what he'd seemed to be able to express was that 'Un-call Grag not coming, right?' and 'I stay here, Mommy Fox?' and 'Don't leave!'.

It'd been even more heartbreaking for her – further emphasizing just how much she needed to fix this, to make it work. But what it had really meant in that given moment was that it had taken ages to get Benji to lay down. She'd actually thought that he wouldn't be going down for the night – or if he did, it'd be in her bed and up with nightmares. With a lot of persistence, though (and many, many bedtime stories, hugs and reassurances that her and him would both still be there in the morning), her Little Fox had eventually passed out in his own bedroom. She really thought that had a lot more to do with pure exhaustion than anything else. She was fully expecting him to be up at some point during the night, though so far he'd been out for the count.

With Benji asleep she'd turned her attention to trying to get Jack to realize that life had to go on despite the new obstacles. He only had a couple more days of his winter-term classes – one of which was supposed to be a major review day – before his exam. He needed to be back up at City – getting his ass into class, finishing up his assignments and studying for his exam. That's where his focus and priorities needed to be for the rest of the week.

Jack didn't completely agree – and she understood where he was coming from. But she didn't think him hanging around the apartment until everything got sorted out – and who knew when that would be – would do any of them any good. Still, he'd been reluctant to go.

She wasn't sure he entirely believed her when she said she wouldn't be letting anyone take Benji from her home. He didn't seem to believe she had the power or the resources to stop it. That the system would do what it pleased. That it was out to get them. On some level – he was likely right. She knew that. Still, she knew she'd be pulling out all the stops to ensure that neither of her boys would be one of those sad stories. Their story was already sad enough.

She'd eventually managed to convince him that nothing was going to happen for 72 hours (which wasn't entirely true – ACS could reappear as soon as they had enough evidence to put in for a court order to enter her home and to a search and interview with Benji. But she didn't need to provide him with fodder.). He could use that time to focus on his schoolwork and then he'd be back for the weekend for if something did go down. Though, she repeatedly assured him that by the end of the next work-day she would've made enough calls to have it sorted out. Benji wasn't going anywhere. They weren't going to be charging her with anything and telling Jack that Benji couldn't be staying with her. And, they wouldn't be charging Jack with anything – he hadn't done anything wrong, he'd been doing everything right as best he knew how.

The social worker had just been using scare tactic, she told him. Tactics that might work with uninformed families or families that really did have something to hide or fear. That wasn't them. Benji wasn't being neglected. He wasn't being abused. He was being well cared for – and everything was going to be fine. It was a mantra she was repeating to him – but was almost saying over and over for her own benefit too. As much as she wanted to believe it would be – there was still that fear it wouldn't be.

Jack, though, had slowly seemed to believe her. Or he'd at least gotten sick of hearing her say it over and over again. He'd packed up his stuff and left – and then she'd been left alone in the all too quiet apartment. That had been a bad idea – maybe she should've let Jack stay. Because as she sat at the computer – going through her list of contacts and trawling through sites listing off adoption attorneys in the city, as she flipped through various guides and paperwork she had kicking around about ACS and their investigative process – her agitation about the whole situation grew

As much as she had told Jack it was going to be alright, there was a very real part of her that just wasn't sure. Another part of her had wanted to call Alex back again and demand to know where she was and when she'd be arriving and was she bringing a list of her own contacts and suggestions? But she didn't want to be that clingy. She hated depending on people. This was her own mess. She could clean it up on her own – and that had eventually morphed into actual cleaning.

She'd thought if her arm did get twisted – if ACS did show up at her door with a court order allowing entrance, if a lawyer recommended she let them in even without it just to get the matter resolved – she wanted to make sure the place was spotless. And, it wasn't really that she'd called her apartment dirty. Compared to her previous standards, she'd likely call it a disaster zone. But her standards had changed somewhat significantly since Benji had been on the scene.

She was growing used to stepping on Hot Wheels, Bot Shots and Tech Decks. She hardly flinched at Duplo and Trio blocks all over the floor and plastic dinosaurs and army men set up along every flat surface in the place. She'd routinely pull Bumblebee, Barricade and Mega Tron out from between the couch cushions before she sat down after finally getting Benji to bed.

There were sticky marks, dirty fingerprints and spills that constantly needed to be wiped up on places that she wasn't even sure how Benji managed to get to. She was more likely to find Play-Doh left in a sink or on her bedside table than she was to find it put away in its canisters. Extra bits of Jack's critical architecture and drafting homework project supplies and Benji's arts, crafts and coloring materials took up more space on her little desk – and hence their supposed dining area – than any of her belongings did anymore. There were dishes in the sink and towels in the boys bathroom were more likely to end up on the floor than any rack. Her litter foyer was a constant tornado of coats being pulled off, shoes kicked off, backpacks tossed wherever there was floor space and skateboards cluttering up the little remaining space available.

She admitted messes that just didn't get cleaned up immediately because by the time she did get some free time in the evening the last thing she wanted to do was clean, scrub and tidy. She was usually more interested in just decompressing with a book or the television. Or more likely, she had work she needed to catch up on and would move to try to find a clear space at the dining room table with her laptop and file folder. And – this was without her being completely unpacked yet too.

There were still a couple boxes sitting in the living room waiting to be put away (though at that point she wasn't even entirely sure they needed to be put away if they'd done without anything in them for nearly a month). And then there were boxes that Benji hadn't let her get rid of yet. Instead he'd turned them into forts and crafts – scribbling all over them with his crayons and markers in creating vehicles and rockets and dragons and dinosaurs and robots while he hide in others or used them as tunnels, or just generally treated them as something to destroy. Little boys seemed to like things they could pull apart and wreck and put back together and generally be destructive with.

Still she wasn't sure she'd call the apartment messy or unclean. She'd just call it lived in. She wasn't sure she'd really lived in an apartment before despite having lived in one her entire adult life. But she certainly did now. It felt more like a home – and it felt like it was a home that had a four-year-old in it and a teenaged boy visiting regularly. There were areas that needed improvement. She knew she could do better. But doing so would likely mean sacrificing time with the boys – or becoming even more lax about work. So she'd probably let things slip a little bit.

But she also knew that if ACS got in there so much as a few dishes in the sink could suddenly become a house in disorder or unkempt and unclean. She didn't want to risk it. So what had started with picking up Benji's toys and throwing them into the binned toy organizer (that she'd clearly put no effort into having her little boy use that night) had then moved to washing up the dishes Jack left in the sink and wiping down the counters to finally putting away the clean clothes and linen that had been sitting in a basket in her bedroom since the weekend. That had only morphed into a larger effort – partially out of fear of an actual home visit and what they might hold against her and partially as a distraction for her churning mind – of scrubbing, cleaning, dusting and disinfecting every room.

She was sure she looked like a complete mess to Alex. She'd long ago changed into housework-grub-around clothes. Her hair was pulled back into a messy ponytail. She was wearing yellow rubber gloves - and, she was certain she smelled like cleaner and disinfectant when she opened the door. Either that or sweat from how strenuously she was putting in some of the efforts. She kind of opted for that Mr(s). Clean smell given the option. She hadn't stayed at the door long enough for Alex to comment, though. Leaving her to hang up her own coat and let herself in instead.

"Sorry," Alex apologized again when she eventually followed after her into the living room. "Barba is on a tear with that case with your vics at the gay bars …" she'd started but then stopped as she took in the scene in the living room.

The room itself was tidier than Alex had probably seen in her past several visits but Olivia had her cleaning caddy on the coffee table and had already returned to the mop that she'd been using to just start with scrubbing down the hardwood floors in the area.

"Liv … what are you doing?"

Olivia just glanced at her. "Just catching up on some cleaning around here."

Alex looked at her seriously. "It's 11 p.m., Olivia. Can't that wait until morning … or the weekend?"

She shrugged. "I'd gotten behind on it. Benji's asleep. I've got the time and the space to do it now."

Alex sighed and crossed her arms, examining her with some distaste but likely she was really waiting for more – or at least for Olivia to admit to the falsity of that previous statement.

"Does this have anything to do with the ACS visit?" Alex finally said after several beats had passed and the detective hadn't offered further reaction.

Olivia shrugged again. "I just want to get this place as clean as possible. I just don't want them to have any extra reasons."

"Olivia," Alex said with some sternness. "They aren't even going to be in here. There is no way they will be able to get a court order. What evidence could they possibly have of neglect? Where are they going to get evidence of neglect in 72 hours?"

She let out a slow deep breath. "They obviously felt like they had something to show up here this afternoon."

"What they had was an anonymous caller and a report they were obligated to follow-up on. That's it," Alex nearly spat at her.

She wasn't doing a very good job at calming her down. But Olivia could appreciate the other woman was likely frustrated with her and frustrated with the entire situation after sitting through the ordeal in the courthouse earlier in the day.

"She sure made it sound like more than that," Olivia said flatly, even though she knew that what Alex was saying was likely exactly right.

"And you know that's what they do. She tried to manipulate you and presented you with a veiled threat when she realized that you weren't going to co-operate in the manner she wanted. When she realized you knew your rights. But you have a right to know the charges, you have a right to talk to an attorney, you have the right to deny them entrance into your home unless they have a court order, and you have a right to prevent them from talking to a child in your care until they have a court order too. You know all this. You did everything right and now they have to go back and really do their jobs – and they'll see it was an anonymous call without merit, they won't be able to collect any evidence against you and the investigation will be closed."

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow. "What about Jack? Can they build a case against Jack? He's technically Benji's legal guardian."

Alex sighed hard at that and crossed her arms tighter and then looked at the ceiling before shrugging. "Maybe. I don't know. But the reality is that he signed Benji over to you – until May. So even if they could prove previous negligent behavior – right now, that little boy is safe and cared for. They aren't going to find anything to indicate otherwise and you have the paperwork indicating he's legally been placed in your care by his legal guardian."

"So abandonment," Olivia said flatly. "That's neglect."

"Legal abandonment," Alex said sharply. "And, we both know that abandonment isn't abandonment until six months have passed and the guardian hasn't had any contact with the child. So that's not Jack either, is it?"

"I wish I'd pushed her for more specific charges," Olivia sighed. "Neglect? What's that even mean? I work in SVU – and that can mean … lots of things. I want to know who's saying it even."

"When you talk to her supervisor tomorrow – ask for the specific charges. They have to tell you. Maybe neglect is all they got, though, because what they received Olivia was an anonymous call. They won't tell you who placed the report – but really, I don't think they know."

"You don't know that. I've had Benji had doctor's in the past week. The physiotherapist."

"Olivia," Alex near barked again. "If any of his doctors were going to report concerns to ACS – it would've happened when he broke his arm and had a concussion. Not when you're taking him in for booster shots and to get him rehabilitative therapy on his wrist. Don't be ridiculous. Those are things you're supposed to be doing. That's not being negligent."

"They could've classified it as signs of abuse – not having his shots yet, the injury."

Alex sighed again. "OK – not being up to-date on his shots, maybe that could be neglect. But I thought you didn't legally need to have them until he was in school? He's not in public school yet. And if it was abuse – the social worker would've been obligated to tell you there were charges of abuse. And that's not the wording her used, is it?"

Olivia let out a breath but didn't respond.

"Com'on, Olivia," Alex said a little more calmly and gently. "You know how this works. And you know right now people are just doing their jobs. You've just got to ride it out."

Olivia shook her head. "I feel like there's more to it than that. My gut is saying … that there's something malicious behind it."

Alex looked at the ground and let out a slow breath. "Liv, you're only feeling that way because of the timing. Because of that circus your supposed lawyer created in court today. If anything – someone there likely saw that and called in."

"I think Mark called it in," Olivia said flatly. "He pushed me to use the system the entire time. He was trying to mount tactics to screw over Jack. To get Benji and I both leveraging the system. Foster care. I didn't want to do that – and I didn't want to hurt Jack in the process. I wanted to sort this out in the courts – between Jack and I. Not get the city and the state and all this … fucking bureaucracy involved. He's trying to force my hand."

Alex examined her and weighed that some in her head for what felt like a long time. "If you really think that Mark called it in," Alex finally said slowly, "then I hope that you called him tonight and fired his ass and you have started your research on securing another attorney."

Olivia allowed a small nod but didn't say anything. She hadn't called Mark – and she'd probably spent more time cleaning than she had looking for a lawyer. She hadn't been able to focus on the computer screen. She didn't see any names in her contacts that jumped out as good bets for this type of situation.

She'd considered calling Simone Bryce. But that seemed like a lot of explaining to do and she dealt more with criminal law and children's rights than family law and adoption anyways. There were a couple other names that she'd starred off to think about – people she'd usually cringe when they showed up in the precinct for a case involving a child suspect or perp. She wasn't sure, though, they were the best bets either. She was likely really going to be depending on whatever recommendations Alex had been able to round up – if she had been able to yet that night.

"OK. Then in the interim know that they were likely just checking to make sure Benji was in a safe environment. They're obligated to do that when they receive a complaint. You didn't let them into your apartment – that's fine and probably smart. She did get to see Ben in the hall. She could see he was fine. So there's a very real probability that she went back to her office – ticked off the appropriate boxes and handed a report into her supervisor already saying case closed. You'll get a call in a couple days from them saying just as much. It's going to be fine."

"It wasn't fine with Calvin," Olivia threw out there. "They came and they took him away."

Alex made an exasperated noise. "Olivia - you know this is a completely different situation," she said firmly again. "No one is coming to take Ben away. Not Jack. Not ACS. No one. Everyone is just going through the motions they need to go through. Getting their paperwork done. And that's what you're going to do too. You're going to get a new lawyer. You're going to refile whatever paperwork needs to be put in for however you decide to move forward with these custody proceedings. You're going to find an agency and get the home study the judge wants done. And in a few more months - this will all be cleared up. It's going to be fine."

Olivia knew it was true. She knew what had happened with Calvin was different. She near constantly had to remind herself of that. That whole situation had been so incredibly different than the arrangement she had with Jack and Benji. And she knew what she had to do now to keep the family she was working at establishing.

If she was in a bit more stable frame of mind – rationally, she'd know all that. Rationally she did. It was the sort of thing she'd be telling people she dealt with day-in and day-out. Somehow it didn't feel quite as comforting hearing it herself. It made her doubt that anyone found much comfort hearing it out of her mouth either.

"I'm not losing him," she managed to get out quietly with a cracking voice and tears stinging at the back of her eyes.

She felt like she might cry but she refused to do that in front of Alex. Neither of them were criers. She'd done it once before – when Alex left to go into witness protection and she'd thought she'd had lost one of the only people she'd considered a close friend at that point in her life. It had been awkward then and it would be even more awkward now.

She wasn't sure Alex could completely understand – feel – where she was coming from in all this. If the other woman could even fathom how close she'd become to both the boys. How much she loved Benji. How she already considered Benji hers. How she looked at Jack and saw pieces of herself. How she felt so accepted and loved and needed in a way she'd never felt before in her life. How much more she smiled and how much more relaxed she generally felt. How nice it was to have a real life and a real family and real things – people – to come home to and to be working for. How unwilling she was to give any of that up. She couldn't. She knew it would hurt the boys and she didn't want that. But she also knew it would destroy her. She wasn't sure if she'd be able to regroup if she lost them. If her Little Fox was pulled from her arms by ACS just like they'd done with Calvin.

"Olivia, they have to have reason to take him. They don't have reason to take him. They aren't going to find a reason. And even if they did get access to your home – which they won't - there's nothing here that would give them reason either."

"The place is a disaster," she offered.

"It'd have to be pretty bad for that to be why they removed a child. Your place is fine," Alex said but then offered her a small smile and added a little more lightly, "Maybe it sorta smells like pee. But I don't think that's enough of a reason."

The joke didn't go over, though, and Olivia gaped at her. "It doesn't?" she mouthed and then stuttered. "It's just … Benji … he …" she shook her head. "It's just … almost impossible to keep that bathroom consistently clean … and Jack was here last night …"

Alex held up her hand. "I was joking," she said with some clear regret in her voice. She hadn't meant to make the situation worse. She thought her friend would appreciate the levity – that they needed a moment of it. But apparently she wasn't ready for it.

Alex sighed and shook her head. "OK. Where's another pair of those rubber gloves? You want the place clean – just in case. We'll get it clean. And, I'll even go into that bathroom for you and wipe up boy pee off the floor. That's how much I've got your back in this. But you owe me," she said with a pointed finger, and finally earned at least a small, sad smile.


	144. Chapter 144

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"I like your new kitchen," Alex commented as she handed Olivia a tea.

It felt a little strange having someone else poke around her kitchen – or being served her tea. But she was tired and ready to sit down. So when it was pushing 1 a.m. and Alex said she was going to put on the kettle, Olivia hadn't made any comment and had just accepted the offered mug when it was handed to her a few minutes later.

"I don't like that wall," Olivia said absent-mindedly with a slight nod in the right direction, as she brought the tea up to her mouth – feeling the steam against her face and the warmth of the hot liquid in her hands.

She was feeling a little spacey at that point. She was happy with how clean the apartment appeared – how clean and tidy it felt. It never seemed to feel that way anymore – not with Benji and Jack in the house. She wouldn't trade the boys but sometimes it was just so calming to have things neat and organized. Though, she knew that by the time she got Benji out the door in the morning, it'd look like another tornado had gone through the place.

Her and Alex hadn't talked while they worked on the scrub down. The only words they'd exchanged had been when Alex had asked where she kept something or clarified if something had already been cleaned or what she'd like done next. Olivia actually had preferred it that way. She needed the time alone with her thoughts – but she did appreciate having the help and the company there. It was keeping her focused on what she needed to do rather than panicking about the what-ifs and reflecting on previous disasters that she shouldn't be comparing against the present one.

Alex gave her a questioning look at the wall comment, though – clearly not understanding what the wall in the living room had to do with the kitchen at all. It was more likely that she was maybe thinking that Olivia was more tired and scattered than she was really letting on at that point.

"You've got more counter space than before," she offered. "That's nice."

Olivia nodded a little. "I just don't like that I can't see Benji from in there," she clarified a bit more. "Not unless he's with me – underfoot. Or … over there…" she said and waved her hand a bit towards the little alcove in the living space that they'd been using as a dining area and desk space.

It had another entrance to the back area of the kitchen. So sometimes she could set Benji up there with his coloring books, watercolors or Play-Doh if she thought she needed to keep an eye on him while she was cooking. It was usually best not to leave him unattended for too long. Not that Benji dealt well with them being out of each other's line of sight when they were in the same space anyways.

"Your dining room," Alex offered.

Olivia snorted. "Is that what that is?"

Alex gave her a small smile. She'd dealt with cleaning and tidying in that area and had likely picked up on it was more of a collection space for her, Benji's and Jack's work-, school-, and craft-related supplies. It just happened to be where they ended up eating – since she'd lost her island and stools to the move too.

Olivia thought she kind of missed having that as well. Sitting at the counter seemed less formal than having to come together at the table. She liked sitting with the boys for meals sometimes – especially dinner and on the weekends. But just plopping both of them on the stools at the counter for breakfast and snack was easier.

She sort of liked too when Jack would sit there and oversee her Sunday dinner efforts. He'd usually end up helping – a bit. Mostly he'd watch, though. But he usually chatted. It was one of the few moments where he let his guard down a bit and would have more normal chit-chat conversations about work and school and the week ahead. Sometimes he'd give her a little commentary on how his Nan or dad did something on the meal she'd been asked to make. Or he'd say it was one of Jay's favorites. Tiny glimpses into the teen's past life and little reflections on the man she'd known a lifetime ago. But it was how she gathered her intelligence about him. He didn't come and gaze at her working in the kitchen as much now that it was a distinctly separate space from the living area. She missed having that chatting time with him.

"Hobby space?"Alex tried.

"I was thinking more junk room," Olivia conceded.

Alex gave her another small smile at that. "You just need to get a bookshelf and some bins. Set up some sort of storage system in there. You don't really have anywhere to put things in there right now besides the table and desk – which appears to only have one drawer," Alex said and got a small snort out of Olivia.

She wasn't even sure she'd call it as desk. It was more of an old-style secretary's desk. It was her mother's. It was one of the things she'd kept when she'd dealt with cleaning out Serena's space after her death. It was among the few things from growing up that she had some childhood memories and sentimental value attached to. But she admitted it wasn't exactly the best or most useful desk. Even for just her needs – she'd found it sort of impractical. With the boys both using it now too it was even more apparent that it was flawed for the modern world.

Olivia just nodded but then shrugged. "This apartment is more space than I've ever had. I'm lacking the furniture to fill it properly."

"It looks like Ben and Jack are working on filling it for you," Alex said. "You just need to get some things to organize it all a bit better. Maybe to make it look a bit more like a family lives here and less like a forty-year-old woman."

Olivia snorted and made a bit of a face at that. But she knew there was some truth to it. A lot of her furniture definitely hadn't been selected with children in mind at all – and her décor definitely was feminine. Girly was how Jack had put it. But she usually ignored his commentary. She wasn't sure she'd be able to ignore Alex's as much. If she had boys living with her – if she was making a home for them – she should start transitioning the space to reflect that more. If not for the ACS visit than likely for this damn home study that the judge wanted her to do.

She wasn't sure Alex's comment helped ease her mind about the status of the apartment, though. It looked tidier than before. But likely only as tidy as possible given the resources available – only as family-oriented as she'd let it be. She'd been selective with the expenses and the purchases she'd made so far. Maybe it was time to start being less stringent on that too.

"Yeah," Olivia allowed quietly.

"The place looks good, though, Liv," Alex assured her, likely sensing the slight increase in agitation down the couch from her. "It's a good space. It will be a good space for Ben to grow up in."

Olivia offered her another thin smile at that effort but just kept sipping at her tea without comment.

"You should put some of their artwork up on your walls," Alex added, like she was trying to coax her on more. "Put out some photos of Ben and Jack. I only saw the one in your bedroom. Put some out here. Make it look more like they aren't going anywhere – they're established here in a fixed family unit. For if ACS does have to come in…"

Olivia glanced at her at that, though. She didn't really like the mention of ACS. But she knew ACS was the original reason why Alex had come over – why she'd even asked Alex to come over. They'd just spent hours sidetracked on her cleaning frenzy. Now they were both likely going to be exhausted when they dragged themselves into work in the morning.

"So, I got you some preliminary names of adoption attorneys and firms," Alex said, breaking the slightly angry eye contact and leaning to where she'd left her case on the floor of the living room.

"I had to ask around a bit," she admitted as she pulled a piece of paper and handed it to Olivia. "You should've seen some of the looks I was getting. Single woman, now 40, asking about adoption attorneys. I could see some people frothing at the mouth just waiting to put in dibs on my office."

Olivia snorted as she took the sheet and examined it. "You could've just said it was for me," she allowed quietly.

Alex snorted. "And get people talking more than they already are. … I emailed it to you too. But I don't get the impression you've been checking tonight."

Olivia shook her head but allowed her a small glance at the 'talking' comment. She supposed she was really giving people something to talk about. It wasn't exactly secret at this point. People were seeing her with the boys. Other people knew exactly what she was doing with them. Her name was on the promotion testing list. It was all enough to get people's tongues wagging.

She knew that was just the way things went. For as large as the NYPD and the District Attorney's office could be – it really was a small community and the gossip mill could really take hold between people looking to climb the ladder and people just looking for things to talk about in-transit or sitting for hours on a stakeout. It often ended up being about their colleagues. She'd admit she wasn't immune to it. No one really was. But it still bothered her on some level.

Sometimes she felt like her personal life – and her professional one – ended up as talk-about fodder far too often. Sometimes she just wished her business could be her business. It was private. Her feelings on that matter seemed to be becoming even more acute now that any chatter involved two other little people who had no business being a topic of discussion by anyone in the NYPD or ADAs.

"Kathy Foley recommended Gleason," Alex said and tapped on one of the seven names on the list. "Worked out for them. Different circumstances, though. She and her husband adopted a baby girl privately a few years ago."

Olivia nodded. "Yeah. I remember that," she said and rubbed at her eyebrow as she stared at the list.

None of the names were really jumping out at her. Some of the firms she'd heard of – or at least seen advertising for. But none of the lawyers' names were jumping out as really big names. Maybe Gleason – but she likely just recognized that name from chatter when Foley did adopt her baby.

"I think Katz would be a safe bet too," Alex offered. "He's a name. Seems like a big fish in private adoptions."

Olivia nodded again but still didn't offer an immediate response. She was still scoping out the list. The reality was she'd have to wait until Alex left and start typing the names and the firms into a search engine and seeing what she could find. It wasn't that she didn't trust Alex and her contacts – her recommendations. It was just that she needed to see for herself too.

"Liv – to regroup, for your own sanity – you need to get a new lawyer," Alex said in the lack of reply. "You need to pull out all the stops. Get a name. Get someone competent and experienced in this. Get the best agency in the city that co-ordinates these home studies. Pay what it takes. You can afford it. Think of it as a long-term investment."

Olivia snorted but gave her a smile. "I know. It's not that. These names just … don't mean anything to me. I need to do some of my own research too."

"OK, Olivia – Katz's name means something to me. And, Gleason meant something to Foley. Kathy wouldn't have just randomly picked someone out of the phonebook. I can guarantee you that lots of thought, research and networking went into her picking him. So if she says he's good – he's likely a safe bet too."

Olivia nodded again but again didn't say anything.

"You want someone you know?" Alex stated flatly after another few beats. It came out as a question but there was more of a certainness to it.

Olivia shrugged. "I took Mark – someone I didn't know – on a recommendation, and look where it got me."

Alex sighed. "OK. Well, I've been thinking about that too. What about Bayard Ellis? Didn't he help your brother with some custody issues?"

Olivia snorted and gave her a glance – though her mind started to churn that suggestion a bit. She hadn't thought of Ellis. It wasn't really his area. He dealt more with civil rights in a lot of ways. She wasn't sure he was the right fit. And beyond that, they weren't exactly chummy at the moment.

"That worked out really well for Simon," Olivia muttered. "He ended up in jail and with just supervised visits for years."

"That had nothing to do with Ellis' defense," Alex put back at her. "That was your brother's own fault. You know that too."

Olivia glanced at her again. She did know it was true. She sighed. "Ellis and I … aren't really on speaking terms right now," she admitted.

Alex gave her a funny look. "Why?"

Olivia snorted and looked at her again with a headshake. She didn't really want to get into it. She'd never really talked to Alex about her relationship with David Haden. She hadn't really talked to anyone about it – likely because she knew it was a conflict of interest and deep down she probably knew because of that it wasn't ever going to really work out. There was no way she would've dropped her walls fast enough – been willing enough to make it public, to disclose their involvement – for the relationship to ever been saved. He could blame her for that – and she knew he did in a way. She blamed herself for that in a way too. But it was the past and she was moving forward. She had other things to focus on now.

Though, Alex had still gotten some wind of her involvement with the Executive ADA in the fall-out of the entire NYPD and District Attorney's office. But there were lots of rumors and dirt and blemishes flying around about everyone then. Sometimes it was hard to tell what was real and what was just nuclear fall-out from the entire shit storm. Still, Alex had tried to casually broach the subject with her – that her name was flying around amid other rumors about various shuffles and firings, demotions and promotions. As far as Olivia was concerned, she'd had nothing to do with David deciding to resign his position. That was his own decision brought on by his own doings – his own oversights.

She initially had offered very little comment to Alex dropping that tidbit on her. She knew that part of the reason that Alex had even brought it up was likely because she was again a little hurt that Olivia hadn't disclosed that bit of information to her during the relationship. But she really couldn't have – even if she had wanted to, which she hadn't. Alex would've disapproved – and probably justly so. And, it would've placed the attorney in her own awkward position and conflict of interest. She didn't need to involve more people in that than her and David. The lack of comment, though, had provided Alex with all the information she really needed. Her only reaction – in typical Alex bluntness – was best summarized by 'That wasn't very smart of you, was it?'

Olivia knew that sometimes she wasn't the best with her choice of words either. But there were times that Alex really rubbed her the wrong way. It wasn't like Alex shared the details of all of her just starting-out and soon-failed relationships with her. And, Olivia could think of a few poor choices – not to mention potential conflicts of interest – that Alex had made herself. Still, sometimes it bothered her. Even though she knew part of the comments were coming from a place of hurt. Sometimes it seemed like they leaned on each other when crappy things cropped up but when good things – or just plain old girl talk opportunities emerged - they tended to shut the other out. It was likely something they both needed to work on.

"He was a factor in David and I ending it," she stated flatly and just left it at that. She let the attorney absorb that for a minute and interpret it however she wanted and then added, "I don't think adoption is really his area. He focuses on minorities … underprivileged."

Alex snorted at that. "What do you think Ben and Jack are?" she asked and looked at Olivia. "He's a shark. He's one of the highest profile defense attorneys in the city. You know him. I know he knows how to conduct himself in court. I'm sure he'd have everything together appropriately even if it wasn't an area he usually worked in. And, I can think of several reasons why Ben's … and Jack's case, your case … could be interesting to work on."

Alex could tell Olivia wasn't listening to her at that point, though. She'd shifted her head and seemed to be almost listening to the wall. Alex caught her eyes and gave her a funny look.

Olivia gave her a thin smile. "Sorry. Benji's up."

Alex gave her a funnier look and glanced over her shoulder towards the little hallway that ran from the boys' bedroom to the living space. She expected to see him behind her but no one was there. She looked back at the detective.

'How do you know?"

"I can hear him," Olivia shrugged.

Alex gazed at her and sat in the silence for a moment trying to discern what she was hearing.

"I don't her anything," she said.

Olivia smiled a bit more at that. "Super sensitive hearing and eyes in the back of your head seem to be some sort of ingrained instinct that kicks in after you add kids to the equation – or maybe it's just almost two decades of being on the force," she said and raised her eyebrow a bit and nodded her head behind Alex, who turned to look behind her again.

Benji was standing there in bright orange pjs that had racecars zipping through letters spelling out 'Go to Sleep!' (It had seemed like an appropriate choice that night when Olivia had pulled a pair out of the drawer to change him into.) He was rubbing at his eyes sleepily as they adjusted to the light and he adjusted to being awake. His little faux-hawk was in a bed-head mess, pointing in every-which direction in a style that he'd likely declare 'that right and per-fick' if he saw himself in the mirror and would then have Mommy Fox attempting to recreate it for him in the morning in a manner that would be suitable for him to be seen in public. But Alex hadn't even heard him enter the room - let alone any of the little noises that her friend had heard through the wall to indicate he was stirring.

Benji examined Alex for a moment and then moved towards her and awkwardly crawled into her lap. He still seemed half-asleep – and Alex looked a little confused about him approaching her but still accommodated him ramming his pointy little knees into her thighs and then his hands slapping against her face as he moved it around looking at her with heavy, blinking eyelids.

"Hi Ben," she allowed but tried to move her head out of his reach.

"You not Peedg," Benji mumbled and blinked at her some more.

Olivia let out a little snort. "Benj – don't do that to Auntie Alex. She doesn't like it. Come here."

Benji turned at the sound of her voice and gazed at her a little confused but then flopped himself off Alex and pawed his way over the middle cushion to her and leaned against her chest. She wrapped her arms around him and rubbed his back.

"You're very tired," she told him. "Do you need to pee? Because I think, if not, you need some more sleep, sweetheart."

"Where Peedg?" Benji asked and looked up at her with bigger – though still sleepy -eyes. "Did lady come and take him?"

Olivia leaned down at that comment and put a kiss against the middle of his forehead before taking his little face in her hands. "No, Little Fox. Peedg has big boy school in the morning so he went to go sleep in his bed at the dorms tonight."

"Does Grag come?"

"No," she shook her head firmly and then pulled him against her and into her lap, hugging him tightly. "Your Uncle Greg did not come. You and Jack are staying right here – in New York, with me. Jack just had to go back to school. But he'll call and talk tomorrow, Little Fox."

"We call now?"

She rubbed his little head. "No, sweetie. It's very, very, very late. Peedg is sleeping. Just like you should be."

"You not sleeping," he informed her.

She smiled into the top of his head and glanced at Alex who was watching them carefully. "I'm not. But Mommy is going to bed really, really soon. She's tired too."

"I not tired," Benji told her.

"No? I don't know. You seem pretty tired to me."

Benji shook his head against her, but snuggled into her more, draping himself over her – getting into almost a kangaroo hold position, that she'd really started to think with a preschooler was more like a baby monkey position. She really felt like she was the mama orangutan with her baby hanging off of her sometimes with the way her Little Fox clung to her – especially when he was sleepy or craving cuddles. Most of the time she didn't really mind, though. She probably craved it just as much – if not more.

"Mommy, I 'tinking," Benji mumbled against her.

She rubbed his back a bit more. "What are you thinking, Benj?"

"You say I can't wear fox hat while talking to jug. But maybe I wear fox hat and maybe you ask Buy-in's mommy to make fox hat for you and Peedg and then jug know we real foxes and let us stay in den foreva."

Olivia smiled into his hair again at the comment and heard Alex hold back a quiet laugh, casting her a look. But she just kept rubbing at her little boy's back.

"That might be a really good idea, Little Fox," she told him and Benji just nodded against her. Snuggling more and more into her – she could feel him settling and almost feel him starting to drift back to sleep again now that he'd gotten his big thought of the night out.

"See," Alex said smiling and gestured at the little boy and how molded he was to her body. "You can't lose that. Call Ellis."


	145. Chapter 145

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"You look like you didn't sleep last night," Nick commented as they walked from his front door back to the unmarked cruiser.

She'd signed out the car for them and driven Benji up to his place and his mom's babysitting. Normally she wouldn't do that. She technically wasn't supposed to have Benji in the car. But she also technically wasn't on duty yet (she'd signed in but her shift hadn't started). So she was taking a chance and stretching the rules a bit. She knew that might be risky business and shaky ground given she didn't know if it had been someone around the precinct who was nosing into her business and who had called ACS. But she was tired (she wasn't sure she really slept at all – even after Alex left and she lay down), she was running late and she didn't have time to get Benji to Nick's and then to get all the way back to the 1-6 to collect a cruiser just for them to head back out again. They already knew where they were going that morning. They might as well just go.

"Good," she said and tossed the keys at him. "I guess that means you're volunteering to drive."

She hated navigating around the city in the morning rush. He could have that pleasure since he seemed fairly bright-eyed and bushy-tailed – at least as far as Nick went.

He snorted at her but caught the keys and opened the doors for them. He glanced at her putting her seatbelt on after he'd settled and started adjusting the mirrors and seat to his liking.

"So … ?" he said.

It could've been a 'so…' anything. Nick's useless attempts at in-transit small-talk usually consisted of about that: 'so …'. But that was usually when they didn't have a case to discuss and that morning – they did. Still, she knew that his 'so …' wasn't just any 'so …'.

He'd known why she'd taken the previous day off. He was likely hoping for the news. Though, based on her tired appearance and body language, she was fairly certain he'd already picked up that it wasn't good. She just really didn't feel like talking about it with him.

She talked to him about Benji. About some of the challenges of a preschooler and being a single parent on the job. She even asked him for bits of advice. She liked sharing some little Benji anecdotes with him and getting little Zara anecdotes in return. It was nice to have someone to vent at too when Benji had been up-and-down all night or had spilled juice or milk all over himself and the kitchen multiple times before they got out of the door. Or when he decided he wasn't going to get out of the door at all. Or he was going to bring every toy he owned with him if he did and stomp his foot and screech at her when she said no. Or when he argued with her about what he was going to wear that day (Jack had brainwashed him into thinking that tshirts were appropriate in all occasions and in all kinds of weather – no matter how cold it was outside. And then of course it had to be specific tshirts too – even after she'd talked him into putting a sweater or hoodie or button-down over it. There was definitely a hierarchy of rightness and wrongness to tshirts. It seemed to have very little to do with color co-ordination or cleanliness. She'd already decided that when she likely ended up buying him another set of new clothes in the spring or early summer she wouldn't be getting anything with graphics or characters on it – solid colors and patterns would be where it was at [but she wasn't sure how much that would hold up after she actually got in the store – especially if he was with her. Some of the little boy's clothes were just way too cute and Benji had strong opinions on what he wanted. Benji had strong opinions on most things – at least with her. But he was comfortable with her.]).

Still, as much as she liked having Nick around to talk to and as much as she appreciated what her suddenly having a child in her life had done for her and Nick's partnership – she hadn't really been discussing the nitty-gritty details of the situation with him. She hadn't felt the need to explain how she was approaching things legally or the status of the whole legal situation around either of the boys. It was her personal business – and it really wasn't any of his business. But she understood why he was asking. She'd opened the door enough – cracked it enough – in talking to him and asking for help and accepting his offers of aid from him and his mother, he thought he had a right to know at least something. Maybe he had a point.

"It didn't work out," she offered flatly. "I'm regrouping."

Nick glanced at her again from the road that he'd started down in their trek to a crime scene discovered that morning in Morningside Heights. "What's that mean?" he asked.

Olivia shrugged. "That it's going to be a few more months before it's all sorted out."

"But Ben's staying with you during that?"

She shook her head again and looked out her window for a moment, rubbing her eyebrow and then digging for her phone from her pocket – something to distract her to and to look busy with. "Yeah. For now."

"For now?"

"For now," she said and gave him a stern look that clearly put an end to the conversation.

Nick nodded and looked back to his driving. They sat quietly for a few moments and she pretended to be absorbed in her phone. She kind of was, though – working through all the email that had come in the previous day that she hadn't had the chance to get to the night before. It was amazing what kind of backlog even a day – a night – away could create. It was all just never-ending.

"Maybe this will cheer you up a bit," Nick offered after several minutes of silence and she glanced over to see him digging in his jacket's chest pocket while they were at a light.

She allowed him a small smile as he handed her a pink envelope. "It's a little early to be giving me my Valentine, Amaro," she teased as she took it.

He gave her an unimpressed 'ha-ha' look as she started peeling the letter open. "It's Zara's birthday in February," he offered. "We were hoping you and Ben would come."

She smiled a bit more at that as she looked at the little girl's birthday invitation. She was almost surprised at the amount of effort Nick had apparently put into it. She wasn't sure if he'd piddled around creating it on his computer at home or if he'd ordered it from a print shop. Either way, it looked like some time, thought and money had gone into it. The little card had a little girl in a pink and purple princess dress standing in front of a castle with a knight and dragon off in the background.

"Hear ye, hear ye," Liv read aloud a little jokingly to Nick. "Princess Zara requests the presence of all princesses, princes and knights at a royal tea and banquet celebrating her sixth birthday." She stopped for a moment and shot him a smile. The card was cute. "Is there really a difference between princes and knights?" she asked.

Nick glanced at her from the road. "Zara wanted to invite all the fairies too. But considering why we're inviting princes and not just knights – I didn't think inviting the fairies would be politically correct."

Olivia snorted. "Have to deal with those sexual politics in kindergarten?" she raised her eyebrow.

Nick shrugged. "We're inviting some kids from her dance class and Sunday school too. There's some characters. But there's this one little boy in her kindergarten class who has very happily pranced out of the closet as far as I can tell and would probably prefer to be a princess at her party. But I don't think his parents are quite ready for that," he allowed. "So we're inviting princes too and will make fairy wings available for all."

"When did birthdays get so complicated?" Olivia muttered, while she scanned the rest of the card, taking in the date and the location. It looked like Nick was doing it in his church's hall. She wondered about the political correctness of that too – but supposed it was likely a relatively large space for four- through six-year-olds to run around like crazy people for a few hours and probably came at a reasonably affordable price.

He snorted. "Don't ask me. We didn't do birthdays. Mom usually made us a cake. A card. Maybe we'd get some new clothes or a new pair of shoes we needed. Nothing like this."

Liv nodded. "Yeah. We didn't do birthdays either."

She didn't want to admit that she didn't even get a cake or a card on her birthday. She didn't imagine it was exactly a day her mother wanted to remember or think about much. She got the sense it was more one she regretted a lot of the time – and tried to forget. As she got older she realized that her birthday was usually one of her mother's 'bad days' – where she'd drink until she passed out or at least tried to pick a fight or be exceptionally mean. Happy Birthday to her.

"I went to a few parties," Olivia said, pulling her mind away from it and trying to change the topic. "Back in medieval times."

Nick shot her a smile at that. "They've probably changed a bit since then – despite the setting the invite might suggest."

"No kidding," she agreed, flipping the invite over but it was just one-sided, all the information on the front. "Jack took Benji to a combined Christmas and birthday party just before the holidays. It sounded like quite the affair. How many kids do you have coming to this?"

Nick groaned a bit at that. "Hmm. Depends on how many replies we get but we put out about 35 invites and that's not including any family that comes out."

"Thirty-five?" Olivia asked in some disbelief. She couldn't imagine having to wrangle that many kids. She'd started giving some passing though to Benji's birthday even though it was still an eternity away and God knew what their situation would be come the end of September. Most of her thoughts had been around the fact she had no idea how to organize a party for a preschooler. She had sort of wondered how many kids you were supposed to invite to the thing. She figured inviting the child's class was likely the politically correct thing that was most socially acceptable to do. But she couldn't even imagine having to handle that many kids – let alone 35. "That sounds brave."

Nick sighed. "I think it's separated parent insanity," he said flatly. "Maria didn't think I could handle organizing Zara's party. I fought to get this one. Trying to make it a good one for her. Hopefully memorable for the right reasons. Doesn't blow up in my face."

Olivia examined him for a moment. He was selective when he said things about his wife or his separation. Usually when they came out he was particularly angry or frustrated about something. He didn't seem that way this morning. He was just stating it as thought it was fact – that it was what it was.

"Will Maria be coming into the city for it?" she asked, rubbing her eyebrow for a moment. She wasn't sure if she should be asking. She didn't like when he pressed with personal questions. But it felt like they were doing a bit of give-and-take that morning.

Nick shrugged. "I sort of hope not. I understand it would be … hard for her to miss Zara's birthday. But she's missed lots of other birthdays. So it's not new. I've handled it on my own before. I don't think it needs to be different just because she happens to be in the country this time and wants to stir the pot. If she comes – it will be to oversee my efforts and provide a running commentary. I don't know I can tell her not to come, though."

"You could tell her not to," Olivia provided with a bit of sterness. She thought it would be pretty immature of a grown woman – a mother – to try to ruin her child's special day just because she was upset or frustrated with Zara's father. But sometimes grown-ups didn't act very grown-up – it didn't matter if kids were involved.

Nick just made a small noise like he didn't entirely agree and tapped at the steering wheel. "So do you think you and Ben will come?" he asked. "I sort of wanted to put you at the knight table to supervise the kids there."

She let out a small laugh at that. "Oh – I'm cheap labor and party entertainment, is that it?"

Nick gave her an innocent shrug. "Thought I'd been paying you in babysitting service."

She let out another small snort at that and rolled her eyes. But knew he had a point. "We're going to play that game?"

"Whatever it takes."

She shook her head and looked at the card. "We'll come," she agreed. "A princess tea party might be a tough sell to Benji, though."

"Oh come on," Nick teased a bit. "I think he's starting to like playing princess. I saw him with a tiara on the other day."

Olivia snorted and looked at him with complete seriousness. "He wasn't playing princess. He thought it made him look like Optimus Prime," she told him directly and then gestured at her head. "Metallic robot head spikes. He wants a tiara of his own so he can dress up as a Transformer."

Nick let out a real laugh and glanced at her from the road again. "Seriously?"

She nodded and looked back to her phone. "Everything comes back to Transformers, Nick. Everything."

Nick snorted a bit at that and shook his head as he looked back to the road. They were almost to the police barricade on the street in front of the apartment building they were headed for. Nick flicked the lights on the car – getting people to clear a way for them and to capture the attention of the unis manning the blue wooden barricades in the street. Hopefully they'd move them before they reached it – so they wouldn't have to sit there with loiters and media gawking at them and snapping photos or video for the news or social media of the Special Victims detectives arriving on scene. A telltale sign of what had happened in the building.

"Oh thank God," she mumbled as she looked at her phone – ignoring the people around the car and keeping her eyes and face downcast and out of direct view of the window.

She'd seen some of the journalists loitering already. She was even more conscious of trying to avoid engaging with them – or her image being captured by them – in any way now that the boys were a part of her life. Jack seemed very aware of when he saw glimpses of her in the evening news or the background of photos in the newspapers. He'd get worried and asked questions. He didn't need more worry in his life – especially at the moment.

Nick glanced at her again from where he'd stuck his shield out the window and identified himself to the unis who were finally moving the barricade to let them in.

"What's up?" he asked.

She glanced at him from tapping in a response to the email she'd just been reading. "Ah, the daycare upstairs is giving me the vacant spot for Benji. I guess you won't be paying me in babysitting for much longer."

Nick allowed her a thin smile at that, as he finished pulling the car over and getting it parked. "See … things are starting to look up today," he commented flatly, as he moved to unbuckle himself.

She snorted at that, as she finished replying to the message – saying she absolutely still wanted the spot and would be up later in the day to finish up anymore of the necessary paperwork. She shoved the phone back into her pocket and reached for her own buckle – preparing herself to head in, putting on her work face and game face, getting into the right frame of mind. Chit-chat about family and cute little stories about the kids had to be put to the back of her mind for the moment. Even worrying about dealing with ACS and the phone calls to lawyers she needed to make that day needed to be set aside until she got a break at the scene or they headed back to the squad room and she could grab a few minutes of personal time.

"Let me know if you still feel that way after we get upstairs," she commented dryly as they both got out of the car.


	146. Chapter 146

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Benji had his little face scrunched it deep concentration as he hung off the monkey bars, the majority of his weight supported against her chest, where she arm was wrapped around him and holding him tight.

"Com'on, Little Fox," she encouraged. "You can do it."

He had so wanted to do the monkey bars at the playground. But with his cast he hadn't been able to and by the time it and the brace finally came off – winter had set in and spending as much time on the playground – especially on the ice, cold, slippery monkey bars - hadn't been as much of an option. With the melt having started now, though, and temperatures slowly rising – they'd started his training in earnest.

She thought she might've coddled him a little too much, though. His initial enthusiasm for the high-hanging endeavor had been replaced with some trepidation. Not that she could entirely blame him – it was still a little high for the little boy and the gaps between the bars were still a little much for his short arms. It was only compounded by the fact that she was still making him wear mittens as he attempted to navigate the course in the temperatures that were just above freezing.

Benji thought about it a bit more but then slowly released his one hand and stretched his arm, shoulder and body all the way forward until he could reach the next bar and grabbed it. She could almost feel the excitement at that accomplishment radiate through him and then his other hand slapped into place joining its partner.

"I did it, Mommy!" he declared and cast a happy look down in her direction.

"You did it," she agreed with a slight bounce. "My brave, strong boy. Now the next one."

She waited, continuing to hold him, as Benji prepared himself. He seemed more confident this time and only had to consider it a few moments before he stretched and swung just slightly supported against her, before his hands again slapped into place.

"Good boy," she encouraged again, as he now was hanging in the middle of the course – away from either edge and with nothing to support him but her. Nothing to save him from a fall.

She stood again and waited for his next movement – glancing around the park. It seemed eerily quiet for just the late afternoon. They had it to themselves. She couldn't think of the last time that had happened. Maybe with the twilight of the shorter winter days already tugging at the sky and the dinner hours already settled into, parents had shuttled their children home and to indoor play. But it seemed too quiet on the street too. She couldn't even hear the traffic moving into the tunnel entrance or along 1st. She couldn't even hear that always restless buzz of movement along the FDR. It felt strange – too dead for a weekday rush hour and dinner hour, even if she had managed to get out of the office a little early and wasn't used to what the city sounded like in her part of town at this time of day.

She finally saw some movement out of the corner of her one eye and turned her head to see a man walking towards them. Something about him seemed familiar but she couldn't quite place it. He didn't have a child with him, though, and he seemed to be making a beeline for them. She gripped at Benji a bit tighter, as the realization that it could be someone else from ACS come to check on them – or worse take her little boy away – set in.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" the man demanded as he closed the gap.

"Excuse me?" Olivia put back at him just as bluntly and gripped Benji's knees and butt against her shoulder even more firmly. "I'm spending time with my son at the park. I already told your supervisor that if you want talk to him – you'll have to get a court order or schedule a time through my attorney."

"Your son?" the man barked. "He's not your son."

He stepped forward. Olivia suddenly felt slightly more uncomfortable with being the only people in the park and the apparent lack of nearby traffic. His movement towards them caused her to step back, Benji's weight coming more against her and the movement causing his hands to slip from the bars.

"Mommy!" Benji shrieked at her startled by the sudden movement.

It seemed to only be that fall into her chest that broke his focused concentration on the monkey bars, though, forced him to notice the man glaring at him. "GRAG!" he then screamed and scrambled against her even more – his feet kicking at her until they found their way around her waist and gripped at her tightly, his arms clinging hard to her neck in a near strangle hold. She could feel his heart pounding against her – even through her thick winter coat.

Olivia gaped at the man as the realization of whom he was set in. As the features she remembered from Jay began to stand out – small familial traits she'd been seeing in Jack and Benji in the grown-man's face seemed to then grow out of his being. As she aged that shadowy mental picture she had of the one-time meeting of the man nearly a quarter-decade ago.

"Put the boy down," Greg told her loudly and firmly and pointed at the ground with an accusing finger.

She wrapped her arms around Benji tighter, taking another step back, giving them more space. She shook her head. "No," she said. "He's in my custody right now. If you want to see him – you'll have to have your attorney contact mine."

Greg snorted. "Your custody? Who told you that? J.P.? That little fuck? He doesn't have any say with the boy."

"What are you talking about?"

"The boy's mine. Put him down!"

"I have all the paperwork. You'll have to contact my attorney," she spat and moved to walk away.

"Paperwork?!" Greg near yelled and his big hand, grabbed her elbow, gripping it so tightly that it ached in a way she knew there'd be bruising showing the place of each of his fingers.

"Don't fucking touch me," she told him sternly and yanked harshly away.

Greg just laughed. "I'll show you paperwork," he said and nodded off over his shoulder.

Olivia's eyes followed in that direction and suddenly two uniformed officers and another man in a suit had materialized and where walking towards them at a near jog.

"Detective Benson, hand the child to Mr. Lewis," demanded one of the officers.

She held Benji even more tightly. He was whimpering in the chaos, his heart pounding, his breathing shaking, his whole little body trembling. His face buried in her neck and the heels of his boots digging holes into her sides – likely bruising her ribs too, if he hadn't cracked one with how strongly he was clinging to her. His were arms near choking her throat too.

"I don't understand," Olivia sputtered as the officials grew closer. "I'm his temporary guardian. His parental designate. I have custody."

"Not anymore you don't," said the suit, holding out a sheet of paper.

Even from where she was standing, she could see the writing of the blank ink like it was singed into her mind: "This letter terminates your rights and responsibilities of temporary guardian and parental designate of Benjamin Lewis immediately."

"There must be some mistake," she managed to get out as she gaped at it. Her heart beating faster and her breathing starting to feel labored as her own panic set in – her vision starting to blur as tears threatened to spill over. "Jack wouldn't do that. Jack wants us to be a family."

"J.P. Lewis never had any authority over the child," the suit said and nodded at the officers, who stepped forward. One shoved his arms under Benji's armpits while the other held onto her shoulder and arm. Benji started screaming as they began to pull at him – working to extract their grips from each other.

"It's OK, Benji," she tried to sooth, burying her face against his, her own tears starting to stream from eyes. "It's OK, Little Fox."

"Let go of the boy, Detective Benson," the one officer said, "or we're going to have to charge you."

"Mommmmmmmmmmmmmmmiiiiiiiiiii iiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeee," Benji wailed and shrieked and kept adjusting his little arms and legs with each effort by the officer to pull him away.

"Please, please," Olivia pleaded. "There's been a mistake. Just please don't take him. You can't."

"You can file your claim in court," the suit said flatly again, as the officers finally managed to rip Benji's flailing and crying body from her own shaking one.

"Please," she begged and looked at Greg who seemed to have an overly satisfied smirk on his face. "Please don't do this. I'm giving him a good home. He's happy here."

But the man just roughly grabbed Benji's proffered hand from the officer and started dragging him away. "Move it, Benjamin," he barked at the wailing little boy who kept looking at her and reaching for her and screaming – crying out – for her.

She moved to try to follow after them but suddenly felt a heavy hand land on her shoulder again. She looked behind her and in her vision blurred by tears, she was sure it was Elliot who was standing there and holding her in place.

"You always knew it was temporary," he told her.

The statement made her choke out a sob that shuttered through her body – as she gaped at him and the all too familiar words and statement. It was him. It'd been him all along. He'd called ACS? He'd found Greg Lewis? And, now it was Calvin all over again. Her worst nightmare. But she only had a moment to be rocked by it before there was a gut wrenching shriek from Benji behind her.

She turned back around. The suit and the officers had disappeared into the ether. Instead it was now just Greg and Benji standing several strides out of her reach. Benji's face was flushed bright red from his screaming and crying. The tears streaking down his little cheeks and salvia thick and stringy in his mouth hanging open with his sobs and wails. Greg was standing over him – holding the boy's just healed arm harshly in the opposite direction and yelling at him.

"WOULD YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP YOU LITTLE BASTARD," the man bellowed, "OR I'LL REALLY GIVE YOU SOMETHING TO CRY ABOUT."

And his opposite arm came up into the air with an open hand as he glared at the wailing little boy who was looking at her with glassy, terrified eyes and still trying to reach out to her. But then in a split second she watched as Greg's hand started to make its way down – on a collision course with her little boy's face.

"NOOOOOOOOO!" she screamed and bolted upright in her bed.

She sat there for a moment, looking around the dark quiet room. Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest she could hear it echoing in the space. Her breathing was labored and her face had hot tears running down it. She skin felt like it was on fire but she was covered in a cold sweat and the combination was drawing gooseflesh up all over her body.

"Fuck," she managed to choke out, shaking her head, before burying her hands against her eyes and trying to wipe some of sadness away but it just overflowed again. "Fuck," she muttered again, kicking the tangled sheets down the rest of her body and pulling her knees closer to her chest, trying to compose herself - to calm her breathing and her trembling body. It was only a dream. Or at least she thought it was.

The sudden realization that maybe it hadn't been a dream suddenly seemed to take hold of her and her body shuttered again. She bolted out of the bed and near ran across the apartment to the open door of Benji's room. In the glow of his moon-shaped nightlight – she could see his little body still settled under the covers, having not even stirred in her crying out in her sleep. Her little boy could sleep through anything after she managed to get him to drift off.

She sighed and rubbed at her face some more, trying to continue to calm. To feel her feet on the floor and to check herself back into reality. It was just a dream. It'd always been a dream. Her little boy was right there – asleep in his own bed, in his home. Safe. They were both safe and together. It wasn't real. It was just a dream.

"You're here. It's fine," she whispered to herself from his doorway.

She watched him for a moment – trying to decide what she was supposed to do now. She knew it wouldn't be sleeping. She didn't want to take her eyes off him. So after a moment's more hesitation, she stepped into the room and padded slowly and quietly over to his bed off in the one corner.

Benji was huddled against the wall – he seemed to like to sleep that way. He had Flame still tucked under his arm in a tight hug while his Mommy Fox stuffie sat on his pillow watching over him. Heatwave and Optimus were sitting on his little bedside table – set up as their robot figures and standing guard in case the Rescue Bots needed to jump into action for him that night. It didn't look like they were needed at the moment, though. The little boy's back was rising and falling in a sound sleep. He looked even smaller than usual that night – under his bulky construction site comforter.

She reached down and adjusted the blankets a bit. Tucking them around him more and fixing the bottom of them. As usual he'd kicked them all over the place and his one little barefoot was hanging out, already cold to the touch. She rubbed his back gently as she finished the adjustment. He was still there. He was OK.

"I love you, Little Fox," she told him quietly – even though she knew he couldn't hear. But maybe his subconscious mind could and she wanted him to know that. For if something ever did happen and they were apart – or even if they were together for the rest of her life. She wanted him to know that – to really, really know that and to hear it as much as possible from her.

She sighed again and she felt some tears start to well and she wiped at them, feeling a little silly. It was fine. They were fine. Nothing had changed since she'd gone to bed. But she felt so shaken by the dream. It felt like things had changed.

She needed to be near him – so she lowered herself onto the bed. First she just sat on the edge but he didn't seem to stir, so she carefully lay herself down and stretched out. She always felt so big on the little twin bed that made Benji look so small. But with how he always slept on his side facing the wall – he'd left her lots of space.

She lay watching him for a while. The rise and fall of his breathing. The occasional twitches and movements in his sleep. Sometimes she'd think he was stirring but then he'd settle and drift back into his sleep. She reached out and touched his arm – stroking at his bicep and where his elbow bent in his clutching of his toy dragon. His guard dragon.

He had so many toys he'd designated as his guards – his guardians. That said a lot. He didn't feel safe. He needed to have all these playthings that he made-believe could protect him. Toys that would come to life and help him. Maybe she hadn't done enough yet to prove to him that she could do that for him. Or maybe she just wasn't enough. Maybe one is never really enough.

She looked up at the tent canopy they had above his bed at the moment. Benji loved it. He thought it was about the coolest thing ever. She was consistently amazed at how the littlest things could make her child so happy. But when you came from nothing – the smallest luxuries could be pretty amazing. They could mean a lot. She knew that too from growing up. She'd never had to worry about a lack of money in their house – but there had been a lack of love and a lack of niceties. She probably would've been excited about a canopy that turned her bed into a permanent fort when she was four too. Benji's antics about it made her sort of excited about it still now.

The blue chuck-wagon pop-up had little white polka dots all over it. Sometimes the tent made the bed into a spaceship or a race car or just a plain old fort. But most of the time, Benji argued that the tent was the night sky just like the night sky in the story of Mommy Fox and Little Fox that they still read near nightly. Though at this point, it wasn't so much reading. She could pretty much recite it off by-heart and so could Benji. He said, though, the tent looked like the Night Sky in the book when Mommy Fox asked it to bring Little Fox to her. Maybe he had a point – and maybe it was nice that they both lay under it for a while each night as she tucked him in, giving them a moment to ask the Night Sky to keep together the things it had brought together. Though, that was likely more her responsibility now than it was the Night Sky's.

She felt Benji stir again and looked over – a way from her contemplation of the night sky, or maybe her silent prayers to it. This time, he rolled over and his eyes fluttered a bit and he seemed to acknowledge her presence – cuddling against her.

"Mommy?" he mumbled.

"Shh," she soothed him and ran her hand through his messy hair. "It's OK. It's just me. Go back to sleep."

He rubbed his tired little face against her arm for a moment and then gazed at her with a bit more awake eyes though they were still threatening to close.

"You sleeping in my bed, Mommy?" he asked a little more confused.

She allowed him a small smile and stroked her thumb down his cheek. It was hot from him having slept on it and she could feel some of the creases from the sheets pressed into his soft, fair skin.

"I just came in to check on your, sweetheart," she near whispered at him. "I had a bad dream and thought I might feel better if I was near you for a while."

Benji blinked tiredly at her but then buried his face against her shoulder and slapped his one arm partway around her, his one little leg kicking under the covers until it found her and then he flopped half of his weight against her side.

"It OK, Mommy," he mumbled in a voice she could tell he was drifting off again. "It a dream. You safe."

It was what she always told him when he scurried into her bedroom and bed in the middle of the night – up from a bad dream and sometimes with his own tear-streaked face and still pounding hear. She'd always hoped – believed to a point – that it was true. It was just a dream. It was OK. That he was safe. But now she knew more than ever she really needed to make it true. Neither of them needed any more bad dreams – or for the bad ones to ever become realities.


	147. Chapter 147

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"I was surprised you called," Bayard Ellis offered casually as he worked at buttering a piece of the bread from the basket the waitress had brought over to the table. He barely gave her a glance as he said it.

But Olivia knew there was nothing casual about the statement. What she had been surprised about was how easily he'd agreed to meet with her – and how OK he'd been about it when she'd indicated she'd prefer if it could be that night.

Ellis wasn't stupid. He'd know something was up to prompt her call. The fact she was sitting across from him with a file folder tucked under her one arm likely wasn't helping matters. But she had wanted to be clear that it was business – there wasn't anything personal about it: good or bad. She actually would've preferred to be sitting at the bar – or at least one of the booths tucked away in the small bar area. Bayard, though, had arrived at the restaurant ahead of her and was already seated with menus by the time she arrived.

She wasn't really sure she felt like eating. She wasn't sure how long she wanted to drag this on – and sharing a meal seemed maybe making it a little too personal. Beyond that, she really wasn't sure she could stomach much at that point.

Her stomach had been in knots all day about the meeting – not to mention everything else with Benji and Jack and the court case and ACS. She was just under so much stress at the moment with home and work – and she hadn't been sleeping well. She was exhausted. She needed a break. But the concept of putting something in her stomach didn't seem that appealing at all. Still, she'd flipped through the menu, trying to be polite before ordering just a salad.

"You should be eating more than that," Ellis had commented as the waitress had retreated, almost like he knew she hadn't eaten that day and really hadn't eaten much at all the past couple days.

Olivia had offered no comment, though, and had instead just sipped at her glass of wine. She definitely needed it to calm her nerves that night. And, she thought she needed it again now with his 'surprised' comment. She brought the glass up to her lips and took another small sip before returning it to the table and tucking a piece of her hair behind her ear.

"Oh?" she allowed. There wasn't really anything to say. She hadn't spoken to him since May. She wasn't going to lie to him about her motives to get in touch with him now.

"You're not angry with me anymore?" he asked giving her those soft but firm eyes that even further expressed he knew something was up. He was about to read her every reaction even more than he already had been from the moment she walked into the restaurant.

"I was never angry," she lied a little – knowing she was giving a tell both in her expression, tone and how she again reached for her wine glass. She didn't have a chance to bring it to her lips before he spoke again, though.

"You had a right to be," Bayard said levelly. "I blew up your relationship with David Haden."

She let the glass hang several inches away from her lips before sighing and returning it to the table untouched that time. "OK. I was angry. But also knew that you were doing right by your client. And," she stressed, "it was a long time ago."

"Was it?" he asked and tilted his head at her inquisitively.

To her it was amazing how far away May felt now. David Haden felt like a lifetime ago now with everything that had been happening in her life – her home – since the fall. Things had changed so much. Dwelling on what-ifs about David wasn't something she had a lot of time for – even if he still did on occasion creep into her mind. But it wasn't really him that crept into her mind – it was how she'd handled the whole situation. Sometimes she didn't handle situations in her personal life that well. She waited too long to make decisions – and by then it was usually too late. When it came to the boys, though, she didn't have that kind of leeway. There wasn't the time or the wiggle room.

"I've moved on," she told him flatly.

"Mmm," Bayard offered at that and after examining her for several more uncomfortable beats, returned his attention to his bread for a moment. "So this is about … a favor then?"

She watched him now for a moment and tried to figure out how to say it now that he'd opened the door. She'd gone through various scenarios in her head before the meeting about how she'd try to ask this and garner his support. But the truth was that he was commanding and directing the conversation – and had since the beginning.

She quickly weighed what she could say to try to regain control of it. The fact that he could take command of a conversation – and she knew a courtroom – that he could direct a question-and-answer session all the while maintaining that hapless innocent look on his face even though he knew exactly what he was doing. The level voice he used it manipulating testimony to that exact sweet spot he wanted and needed to wine his cases … it was all exactly why she wanted him – needed him – to help her now.

"I'm trying to adopt two children," she put out there bluntly. The potential shock value of the statement was about the only way she knew at the moment to possibly shake him a bit and bring control back into her arena.

But there didn't seem to be any shock that radiated through Ellis' well-practiced body language. He instead just barely glanced at her again.

"Your brother's children?" he asked but then diverted. "How is Simon?" he added and took a small bite out of his bread, chewing slowly while still watching her careful.

She shook her head and shrugged. "I wouldn't know. The last time you spoke to Simon was likely the last time I spoke to him," she said flatly – not much liking the diversion.

"Interesting family dynamic."

She snorted and shook her head again. That wasn't worth commenting on. Her relationship with Simon was beyond confusing. She thought it might be over this time. But she'd thought that before when he hadn't spoken to her for nearly five years and then reappeared to create more havoc in her life. She didn't think she'd be as accommodating about dealing with that if he did appear again – not if she still had the boys in her life. She couldn't be. Though she still worried about him. And now she worried about her little niece and nephew too. She hoped things worked out OK for them – but she didn't really know they would when they had Simon creating a tsunami in their wake. She could only hope that this time he'd learned his lesson and he'd grow up and be a man – be a father.

"They aren't Simon's kids," she allowed at that and Bayard caught her eyes more at that with the smallest flicker of question now.

She retrieved her phone from her coat pocket and looked through her photos for a moment. She inadvertently smiled for a moment as she caught sight of one she'd taken of Benji in the living room. He was sitting in front of his fire station and fire truck and had Heatwave held in the air in his robot form. He was clearly telling her something very important based on his face and the apparent animation in his body. She couldn't remember what it was. Likely something completely ridiculous. But she just liked the expression on his face and how content, comfortable and happy he appeared. Excited by whatever it was he was telling her. She wanted one of both of the boys to show Ellis, though, so she kept flipping through.

She didn't have too many of the boys together. Jack was resistant to having his photo taken. So even the ones she did have he was rarely looking at the camera. The photo she had on her desk at work was about the best she had of the two of them but she must've accidentally removed it from her phone in a previous sync because she couldn't seem to find it.

She eventually settled on one that she'd caught of the boys on the couch. As usual Jack had his video game controller in hand, though, he'd cast his eyes slightly in her direction when she'd said something to him and raised the phone to snap the picture. Benji was pressed against him – a little roughly – trying to get him to play and was being ignored, as usual. So the little boy had a giant raspberry hanging out of his mouth and directed at his uncle. He'd caught her call about the photo too though. He'd turned as well and had the goofiest look on his mischievous face with his tongue hanging out of it.

She put the phone on the table in front of Ellis – she wasn't sure if he'd take it from her.

"The little boy is Benji," she said flatly, "and the older boy is Jack." She watched as Ellis leaned over slightly to look at the screen. "You can look through them, if you want," she offered. "There's lots on there."

He gave her another glance but did pick up the phone and she watched as he started to flick through the very personal photos that she'd been collecting – capturing her boys' lives, her life with them, the life she wanted.

"These aren't children in waiting?" he stated more as fact than question as he continued to look.

"No," she allowed.

"Who are they?" he asked, as he returned the phone to the table and examined her again.

She sighed a bit at that and pulled the phone back closer to her and looked at the picture he'd stopped on. Benji had put his hoodie on backwards a few days ago and before helping him right it – she had taken a picture. He looked so confused and ridiculous. It was like he couldn't figure out what he'd done. He had his arms held out helplessly and his hair was near standing on end with the static – the hood bobbing in front of his face and covering up part of it. But you could still almost see and hear the "Moooommmy Fox!" he was demanding, unimpressed with her laughing at him and taking the time to take a picture before she came to his rescue.

"I knew Jack's father while I was in college," she allowed and looked back to Ellis who'd returned to his careful examination of her.

"And the younger boy?"

"He's Jack's nephew."

"Where are their parents?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow at that. "Jack's father died about three years ago. I guess getting closer to four. There is no mother. Benji's mother died about eight months ago and there is no father."

Bayard looked at her. "Whose care are they under?"

"Mine," she told him flatly. "Benji's been in my care since November. Jack's 19. He turned 19 at the end of December. He lives in the dorms at City."

He raised his eyebrow and then looked back to his bread. "Adoption – custody – is not really my area."

She sighed. She was hoping for a bit more than that from him. She was maybe hoping for a bit more shock or the string of questions or even the disapproving looks that she'd started to become used to. But there was none of that. It was almost like he wasn't passing any judgment on her and her attempts to adopt two boys – or that he really had no thoughts on that matter at all. She didn't believe that to be true, though. Bayard had thoughts – opinions – on near everything. Though he shared them under cautious measurement, he usually wasn't afraid to share them – even when they weren't something you wanted to hear

"I know, Bayard. But – please, just take a look at our case file." She knew she asked a little too pleadingly, but still pushed the folder she had with her to the center of the table. He didn't make a move to take it.

"I need your help," she stressed. "We were in court earlier in the week to try to get permanent guardianship of Benji and extended guardianship of Jack. But the judge held over the case. She wants a home study and pushed for the permanency of adoption with them. I've got ACS at my door. My lawyer … he was useless. I need someone else to handle this for me."

"What's ACS want?" he asked.

"They're doing a negligence investigation. Someone reported that Benji is being neglected."

He raised an eyebrow at that. "Is he?"

"Not now," she said flatly with a bit of distaste that he'd even have to ask that.

"Before?"

She sighed. "Bayard – their case is complicated. The system has failed these boys – repeatedly and if someone doesn't help them – help me … us – it is going to fail them again."

But 'complicated' must've caught his attention enough that he pulled the file folder a bit closer to him and giving her another small look, he flipped it open.

"I typed up some notes," she said of the top page.

He allowed a small nod but then after scanning it for a few more seconds, flipped it over and started looking at the copies of the available bits of paperwork she'd collected so far. It was a growing file – but she knew for the case to go through properly it was going to need to grow more. He paged through it more quickly, seeming to just do a preliminary scan, and then flipped back to her first page of typed bullet points and started to read it more carefully.

"Give me a summary," he said without looking at her. "What are the complications?"

She took another sip of her wine at that and collected her thoughts for a moment while watching the top of his head as he worked down the page. She wasn't really sure even knew where to start.

"I wanted to take permanent guardianship of Benji. Jack signed over his parental designation and temporary guardianship to me in November. He's his legal guardian. The judge didn't want to grant that until the six month's had passed and now she wants a home study done."

Bayard shrugged. "So wait the six months and do the home study."

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "I've done a home study before, Bayard." That earned a longer glance from him. "I wasn't approved – not for adoption and not for fostering. Unfit parental material. That can't happen again."

She saw the slightest change in his composure at that – the smallest flicker in his eyes and perhaps a cloud of empathy crossing his face. "What were the grounds for the denial?"

"My job. A lack of extended family or support network."

He nodded at that but she thought she saw a glimmer in him that suggested he didn't think those were justifiable grounds to curb her approval. "You said you're seeking adoption – not guardianship now?"

"If I have to do a home study – I'm going to adopt."

"I still don't see the complication," he said.

"I think it'd be easier to take Jack on through an adult adoption. We tried for extended guardianship. But right now – it's not even clear if he meets all the criteria for that to get approval. After … the mess … in court this week, the judge is giving me 90 days of guardianship over him to see if we can get the paperwork sorted out. But the boys are from Horseheads – a small town upstate. Collecting some of the paperwork has been … challenging. Some of it feels … disorganized and like there's a certain amount of resistance. For both of them. Then with Jack – his father left him money in a trust. He doesn't have access to it until his 21st birthday. His family also owns a farm that apparently his uncle is trying to sell. I don't know if Jack would have any claim to that if the property and business did sell."

"He doesn't have rights to anything if he seeks to cut ties with his family and be legally adopted by you," Bayard told her sternly.

"In the very least, Jack deserves to get the money his father left him in his will," Olivia put back at him.

She sighed and looked at her glass of wine again for a moment considering it. "The boys experienced a lot of neglect since Jack's father died," she said. "Jack's been abused. The exact extent of it …" she shook her head. "I'm still working on breaking down those walls. But there's been very clear abuse."

"The younger boy?"

She shrugged but felt her eyes glass slightly at even the thought of that. She did think of it. It scared her. It made her ache for her little boy so badly. "He definitely saw things and heard things. Experienced things that no child should have to. There was mental and emotional abuse. Negligence. But I don't think Benji was hit. Jack was hit – at least."

She shook her head. "Bayard – the town. People in that town. Officials. Knew things weren't right in that house. Police were in and out. Social workers were in and out. No one ever removed them. They didn't help them. Jack's father died a horrific death in a farming accident. His sister – Benji's mother – she had mental health issues, addiction issues. At the very least she was sexual promiscuous. She was suicidal and she eventually died from a drug overdose."

Bayard looked up at her but just flipped the folder closed and shoved it back to the center of the table.

She sighed. "This isn't about me," she said. "It's really about them – and a system that has … left them at a disadvantage. It didn't work for them. It failed them. Repeatedly. I can keep it from failing them again – and I'm going to do that. They deserve it. Benji deserves to have as normal of childhood as possible – and Jack deserves to enter adulthood with some support and a safety net. If you can't – or you don't want to – help. That's fine. But would you please just … meet them before you decide."


	148. Chapter 148

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia let a thin smile spread across her face as she saw Bayard Ellis coming towards the table she was sitting at in the upper loft viewing area of the indoor skatepark. He looked slightly out of place – and not nearly as casual as she might've expected him to be for a weekend. She knew he had the ability to dress down. She'd attended a few of his daughter's softball games the previous year to know he at least owned athletic pants and tshirts – even a ball cap and cleats. But at the moment he nearly looked like he'd was stepping out of a Saturday morning meeting at the office and had just decided to take off his blazer in a half-assed attempt to look casual.

How out of context he appeared at the indoor skating facility wasn't helped by the fact that he was clearly scooping out of the place. Not that she'd really blamed him on that. It was her first time at an indoor skatepark too and she hadn't been entirely sure what to expect. But she wasn't expecting the bright, colorful, well-lit, spacious and clearly family-friendly venue. The more time she spent with the boys in-and-out of Funky's, talking to Gecko and seeing some of the outdoor parks – the more she was learning that she had a tilted vision of what skateboarding culture was. It didn't seem nearly as rough-and-tumble, stoner-burnout, loud obnoxious swearing teenaged boy drive as she might've expected based on all the stereotypes.

The facility actually had a room labeled the 'parents longue' that she'd poked her head into and had been surprised to a glassed in room overlooking the skate park – similar to what you'd expect to see in a parents' viewing area at a swimming pool – with comfortable couches that looked surprisingly clean and well maintained and lots of tables and barstools lining the window. There were several moms and dads leaning against the glass and supervising their children – or just generally watching the acrobatic show of physics that was zipping along on the lower level of the facilities as kids on skateboards and scooters went up and down ramps and tornadoed through bowls and grinded across rails and boxes. Some of them were flying through the air with the greatest of ease – making it look like the exercise took nearly no effort at all. Others looked like they were still just learning – barely standing on their boards and stumbling around in little attempts to get the wheels of their deck to come off the ground in little hops or just trying to maintain their balance and they coasted awkwardly up-and-down some tiny quarterpipes.

There'd been another area on the upper level that had been labeled as the mezzanine playback room. It was a bit darker and dingier looking – clearly trying to mirror a bit of a dive bar for the teenaged kids. There were a variety of table sizes – chairs and stools intermixed amongst large screen televisions that all seemed to be playing various extreme sports competitions or complication videos. The windows in that area overlooked the giant foam pit for the kids to do their tricks over and supposedly land safely into. Cameras in the park area were capturing the skaters' efforts above the foam pit – some of them spinning and flipping in the area with legs, arms and skateboards hanging in every which-way. Olivia knew there was fancy names for some of the tricks. She'd sat and watched the boys play Skate on the Xbox enough to pick up on that. She'd played herself with Jack enough and seen words appear on screen congratulating her on landing this or that – which had only been achieved by absentmindedly mashing at the buttons on the controller and no real effort. She knew from Jack and Benji saying things about Superman Grabs and Impossibles and Saran Wraps and Bonelesses, Cavemens and Caspers – that there was a whole lingo for what the kids were managing – or at least attempting out there on the floor. But she wasn't able to identify much of any of it yet from just watching. She knew enough to have pinpointed what an ollie, manual and kickflip was. She'd picked up on some of the grinding maneuvered too – but mostly because they seemed to have self-explanatory names: boardslide, nosegrind, tailslide, crooked slide, 50-50. Those were things she could remember and make out. The rest of it … she was trying.

They stopped and watched for just a moment as one kid spun through the air and landed in the pit as the video caught his trick. For each skater the cameras were playing back the trick in slow motion on a screen above the window and earning hoots and hollers from a lot of the pre-teens and teens hanging out in the room. It seemed to be a bit of cool down zone for the kids, giving them a place to gather near the little concession stand set up to look and feel like they were ordering their soda from a real bar.

But Olivia and the boys had bypassed that room too. They'd instead made their way into a little café restaurant that was nestled in the one corner above the park. It didn't have a view of the skatepark – likely trying to keep the noise down from the kids cheering on their friends, just a tad. It seemed like most of the kids were either in the faux-bar area or out in the park – so they'd managed to find a table to seat themselves at OK.

The next shock had come when a young girl had actually brought a menu over for them – and they hadn't just had to go and stand in a concession line. Olivia's surprise became even greater when she scanned down the choices and realized that even though the menu was small, the café was at least trying to offer the kids and their parents some options beyond chocolate bars, chips and soda.

She'd been a little skeptical when Jack had said they didn't need to stop to grab lunch on the way out to the park – that they could eat there. She'd balked at them having a lunch of just junk food. But he'd insisted they had other things to eat. She'd just dropped it. She knew Jack would get riled up when Ellis appeared – and she didn't want to rock the boat too much before that. She had to handle Jack with kid gloves a lot of the time – especially when she knew she needed something out of him that involved him not giving attitude and being self-destructive towards their cause.

But the teen had apparently been right – they served a lot more than junk food in the little café. The choices were simple: spaghetti, mac and cheese, chicken fingers, hot dogs and pizza. Not exactly the eptiomy of nutrition but better than the processed, pre-packaged, frozen food warmed up in a microwave that she'd been expecting. And at least the side options weren't junk. It was all veggies and dip, salad, apples and oranges, yogurt, granola bars and oatmeal cookies. Even the list of drinks surprised her: juice, water, Gatorade and fruit smoothies. If the kids wanted soda or Icees, chips or chocolate bars – they had to move out to the bar-concession stand or the vending machines in the parents' longue. She was surprised to say the least – but also a little impressed.

And it didn't end there. There was a 'pro shop' that looked like it was set up to give Funky's and probably any other skate shop in the city a run-for-its-money. And it certainly looked a lot busier than any time she'd been in Funky's – with the number of kids loitering around in it and pointing at decks and trucks and wheels and bearings and helmets and stickers and tshirts. Even just walking by the doors, she could hear their excited voices and saw a woman that looked about her age manning the cash and looking a little frazzled dealing with all the tween boys.

The facility was also an area to rent equipment – for kids who apparently wanted to try out a scooter or skateboard and didn't have their own or didn't want to have to invest in and transport their own. Rentals were also available for the mandated helmets and pads necessary to get out on the ramps in the park. And there were signs everywhere promoting the facility's various summer camps and afterschool classes and weekend workshops, as well as mini competitions and birthday parties.

With options like that in the city – Olivia was almost finding herself wondering how Gecko kept in business. Though, she supposed he catered to a different clientele. This park was clearly directed at children and tweens. Though Funky's offered programs in the community, Gecko's shop was clearly aimed at the more 'mature skater' – if such a thing actually existed.

"They let you in here like that," she allowed in a small tease as Bayard spotted her and claimed a place at the table, throwing his jacket over the back of one of the chairs, revealing that he'd at least dressed-down to a rugby shirt despite still having on pants that looked a little too dressy for a Saturday at a skate park.

"When you said you were taking the boys skating and to meet you here, this wasn't exactly what I was envisioning," he commented drily.

She allowed another thin smile at that. "Impressive, isn't it?"

"But lacking in a skating rink," he said flatly.

She snorted at that and rubbed her eyebrow. When Ellis had contacted her on Friday and agreed to meet the boys. She'd taken it as a good sign. She hoped it had meant he'd spent some more time looking over their file after their dinner on Thursday night. That he'd seen enough there to be interested in the case – or at least he was considering helping her, doing her a favor

She hadn't been entirely sure where he stood when she'd left the restaurant. He'd asked her some questions while they ate. But he'd seemed so casual and reserved about it. He wasn't bombarding her with the same sorts of questions that she'd come to expect from people as they found out about the boys. He certainly hadn't grilled her with the sorts of questions and justifications that Mark had when she first met him and discussed her intentions. So Bayard's interest hadn't come across as what she might expect from the attorney. It had more been small talk. He'd asked some minor questions about the boys – their ages, their interests. He'd talked a bit about his daughter, a bit about the city, a bit about certain politics in the city, state and country that were grating at him. That had been it, though. She was almost expecting him to end the meal with offering to pay for that but saying he wasn't interested in the case. That maybe he'd be able to suggest someone but otherwise he'd just send her on her merry way – wishing her luck in his own reserved fashion, that she knew would probably end up making her feel like the situation was a bit more hopeless than she thought. Instead, though, he'd pulled the file folder back closer to him as she was preparing to depart.

"Leave this with me," he'd said. "I'll be in touch."

She'd nodded – at least appreciating that he was going to look it over and think about it a bit more. That meant a lot. She knew she'd likely been fooling herself if she'd really expected him to take the case on the spot. Him thinking about it was likely a good sign. She needed someone who'd put some thought into the whole situation and not just try to rush it through – promising rubber stamps and then not even filing the paperwork properly. So she'd been almost surprised when she'd gotten a one-line text from him barely 24 hours ago, simply saying, "I'll meet the boys." But it had made her smile and increased her hopes. She'd left him a voicemail later in the day saying she was taking the boys skating on Saturday and to meet them at "NYC Skate at 1p.m." (in reality, NYCSK8, but not that Bayard would've known that from how she'd said it) and just given him an address.

She thought if he'd looked up the address at all, he'd likely figured it wasn't a skating rink or an arena. Or at least it would've been a pretty unknown one for someone who'd lived in the city for years – which would be odd. Not that she expected Bayard to have an intimidate knowledge of every skating rink, arena or community center in Brooklyn. But she thought the address alone should've been a giveaway that they weren't going ice skating. Still, she supposed she still should've clarified that in her vocabulary anymore – skating had taken on a different meaning.

"Sorry," she allowed. "Didn't mean to disappoint you. Did you bring your skates?"

He shook his head at her but then looked around some more. "The boys down in the park?"

She nodded her head over in the direction of a videogame longue that the boys hat retreated to while they waited for their food. Apparently having a videogame system at home wasn't enough – and being away from it for a few hours on a Saturday was unbearable. So they'd quickly disappeared over there to claim a console. She could see Jack's head in the room but not Benji's. Though, she assumed he was likely cuddled up to his uncle watching if he hadn't been able to claim a controller of his own for whatever they were playing in there. She suspected it was the exact same skateboard game they had at home – and Jack was likely just showing off to the other kids in the room.

"They're playing videogames," she said. "We ordered some lunch."

As if on cue, their waitress appeared with their meals at that and put them in front of the various vacant seats, before glancing at Ellis.

"Will you be ordering?"

He just shook his head though and the waitress retreated.

"You're sure you don't want something?" Olivia offered. She felt like she needed to be giving – since he was giving his at least his time on a Saturday - and she hoped his legal services moving forward. And he had paid for dinner – or her salad and wine – the couple nights before. But he just shook his head again.

She nodded. She wasn't going to push it. But she felt like him not joining them for a meal was potentially a bad sign. He wasn't going to stay long. Maybe he just wanted to see the boys. She wasn't sure how much just seeing them would do in convincing him that they were worthwhile and she really wanted this. And, if he wasn't sharing a meal with them – she wasn't sure he'd get much of a chance to get to really meet them and get to know them. Her hopes for how this might go dimmed a bit more. But she made no comment.

Instead, Olivia just glanced over towards the videogame longue again – preparing to go get the boys. The sooner she got them over there – the more time Bayard would get to spend with them before he retreated. But she saw Benji sticking his head out the door. He'd clearly spotted the waitress bringing over his chicken fingers. She gestured for him to come over and he started this trot to the table but then slowed as he noticed Ellis and began to slowly creep the rest of the way – eyeing him suspiciously. With a few feet left – he dashed at Olivia and buried his face against her and crawled up onto her lap, doing his best to avoid making any sort of eye contact with the man sitting across the table.

She rubbed at his bicep, trying to calm him a bit and assure him that he was perfectly safe. She could see Bayard watching. She wasn't sure that Benji's shy and timid act would do much of convincing him of her parenting abilities either.

"He's nervous around men he doesn't know," she told the man across from her quietly. But then she nudged Benji just a bit until he met her eyes. "Benji – do you want to say 'hello' to my friend Bayard." He shook his head against her. "I'd really like it if you would."

"Hello," Benji said quietly, his face still buried against her, making the greeting even more muffled.

"Little Fox – can you please look at him and say hello," she put back to him.

She was really trying to nudge him towards more polite – or at least more socially acceptable – behavior around people he didn't know. She knew he was shy and scared. She knew he had reason to be. She didn't want to toss him to the wolves. But she also didn't want him so scared of all adults that he couldn't function around them. She didn't want him living in constant fear that something bad was going to happen to him. Still – as usual with Benji – it was a slow process and she didn't think he was going to co-operate that day. But then slowly turned his head (though she could tell he was looking beyond Ellis and not directly at him.).

"Hello," Benji said again.

Bayard managed a small smile at that. "Hello, Benji," he said. "It's nice to meet you."

Benji gave no response to that, though and instead looked up at Olivia. "Bb, Bb, Bb," he told her. "He a B too."

She nodded. "You're right, Benj. So smart. Bayard starts with a B."

"Bb, Bb, Bb – barnyard," Benji declared a bit more happily.

She snorted at that and glanced at Ellis. She was sure he'd likely heard that before – probably growing up. But his face didn't really betray any sort of reaction or emotion to the little boy's words.

"Bayard," Olivia corrected him anyways. "Not barnyard. Bayard."

"There a barn at the farm," Benji informed her. "It have cows. You say we go to the barn. Then we pet cows."

She snorted at him. "We'll go to the petting farm, Benj. But I don't think they have cows there."

"What they have?"

She shrugged. "I don't know. Goats. Sheep."

"GOATS AND SHEEP?" he said with some disgusted disbelief.

Clearly in Benji's little head, goats and sheep were sub-par farm animals – especially when it came to petting. She got the sense that he thought the only farm animals worth petting were cows. And maybe horses and dogs. Those had been mentioned before too. Olivia wasn't sure she'd ever had any desire to pet any sort of barn animal prior to Benji being in her life. But somehow petting a goat or a sheep seemed slightly less intimidating than having to pet a horse or a cow. She wasn't really sure why anyone would want to pet a cow, though Benji had made clear it was a terrific idea. So she thought Benji at a petting zoo might just be an amusing experience for everyone involved – whatever the animals were.

"Maybe some ducks and chickens. I don't know Benj. I've never been. It's at the zoo. You'll be able to see lots of animals."

"Foxes?" he perked up, ramming his pointy knees into her thighs harder and sitting up higher, smacking eager hands against her shoulders

"Hmm. I don't think the Central Park Zoo has foxes, sweetheart. Polar bears and penguins and sea lions."

Benji huffed at that. "We not pet foxes?"

She let out a small laugh and smiled at him, cupping his cheek a bit and smoothing down some of his messy hair. No matter how much she brushed it or combed it or styled it for him – it had a mind of its own. Of course, it didn't help that Benji near constantly had his hands in his faux-hawk 'fixing it' into a giant mess. As cute as it was on him – she thought as soon as the summer heat started to show itself, she was going to use it as an excuse to shave it off him.

"Little Fox – even if they have foxes, we aren't going to be petting them. We'll look at them. They bite."

He sat up more at that. "BITING IS BAD, MOMMY! YOU SAID!"

"I know. But they're animals. Animals bite."

"I a fox and I not allowed to bite. You have to be gentle and not bite people."

She smiled and cast a glance at Ellis who was at least starting to look a little amused at the exchange.

"Well, you're a little fox. But animal foxes have different rules. So we'd just look."

He gazed at her at that. "When we go to the barnyard zoo and look at foxes?"

"Hmm. Soon," she allowed. She didn't really want to put a date on it – and now she thought she was going to have to do some research to see if any zoos in the city had anything that resembled a fox. Otherwise she thought she would have a disappointed Little Fox to deal with. "But right now … how about you go and tell Peedg, his spaghetti is ready."

Benji considered that for a moment and then gazed at Bayard again a little untrustingly – like Ellis might do something untoward to his Mommy Fox while he was gone. But then he slid off her lap and went tearing back to the videogame room – yelling, "PEEDG LUNCH!" from about halfway across the café.

Olivia looked at Bayard, who still seemed a little amused. She wasn't sure if he was laughing at Benji or her – and her explanations and parenting abilities. But she allowed a small smile.

"So that's Benji," she said and gestured in his direction again.

"Looks like a handful," Ellis agreed with an acknowledging nod.

She snorted and shook her head, looking up at the ceiling at that. "Yeah. He keeps me busy."

"Four?" Bayard confirmed from their previous conversation.

"Yep," she nodded.

"Pre-kindergarten?"

She rubbed her eyebrow at that. "He was in a pre-k class at a private nursery school. It didn't work out. He's been out for a couple weeks. He's starting the UPK program offered through the NYPD daycare on Monday, though."

Bayard raised his eyebrows at that. "You got him a subsidized spot?"

She shrugged. "I applied. They called. He got the available slot."

"That's convenient."

She snorted. "With how things have been going – I was due for something convenient to crop up."

She glanced up again as she saw Jack and Benji returning to the table. Benji was still trailing a bit behind his uncle – like he was keeping the teen's body between him and Ellis for protection. So Olivia held out her hand and waited for Benji to scoot into her reach, before she settled onto her lap and she reached and brought his basket of chicken fingers to sit in front of her instead of at his vacant spot at the table. She knew that letting him eat on her lap wasn't the best behavior to be instilling in him either. But she wanted him to be as present for Bayard to see and interact with as possible. She knew that likely wasn't going to happen if Benji was having to sit on a chair next to the man. If anything, then the little boy would just cower and tremble and gaze at her with sad eyes the whole time while completely ignoring his lunch.

"Jack, this is Bayard Ellis," she told the teen, as she watched Benji examine his food. "He's a friend – and an attorney."

Jack looked at the attorney for a moment but didn't offer out any hand – though, Bayard hadn't stuck out his either. Olivia knew, though, that Ellis was always measuring people and mirroring his actions and personality to theirs. If Jack wasn't going to be Mr. Manners – neither was he. But Olivia could sense a bit of a gruffness in how Bayard was viewing the teen. It made her slightly uncomfortable. Mark had approached Jack with a gruffness and it had been disastrous for them. Mark didn't see Jack as part of the package – just a legal pawn in her getting custody of Benji. That wasn't how Olivia saw it at all. Not anymore. And, she needed Jack to trust and like Ellis. And she needed Ellis to at least see there was a kid worth fighting for under Jack's teenaged attitude and his high-cast walls trying to block out the view of all the damage he'd endured thus far in his life.

There were no words exchanged between the two, though. There was hardly even any eye contact to establish an initial bearing or to allow for any sort of niceties. The teen just slid into his spot at the table and looked at the large plate of spaghetti and marinara sauce that had been left there for him with a side of rather sad looking iceberg lettuce salad and a little wedge of garlic toast. He picked up the toast after looking at the plate for a moment.

"Hey," he finally mumbled but stuffed the bread into his mouth – likely in an effort to avoid having to talk further.

"Hello Jack," Bayard put back to him. But Jack didn't acknowledge it at all – continuing to examine his garlic toast with great interest and then taking another bite out of it as soon as he swallowed what had been taken up space in his mouth.

Bayard glanced at Olivia at that and she had to restrain herself from giving an audible sigh. She'd talked to Jack a bit about this. She'd explained to him that Ellis would be meeting him there. That he might take on their case. That that would be a good thing for all of them. She was expecting him to be a bit more of a grown up about it and help their cause – not to play the mute and act like he was somewhere between 10-14 years old, rather than a 19-year-old man.

"These wrong, Mommy," Benji said, though, and distracted her from her intervention.

She looked down at the little boy who was working at picking off the breading on his chicken fingers. "What's wrong with them, sweetheart?" she asked. But he just held up some of the batter at her like that was explanation enough. She took it from him because he was dangling it at her in a way that she was sure he was about to at least drop it on her shirt and leave a grease stain – if not manage to somehow get it down her shirt or mashed into her face. "It's just the batter, Benj. Like nuggets."

"NO!" he told her sternly and with a solemnest to his voice. "They fingers not nuggets. They wrong."

She did sigh at that. Most of the time her Little Fox would eat whatever she put in front of him. But sometimes Benji could be picky. The things he was picky about in terms of food, though, really were ridiculous.

Benji loved chicken nuggets. If that was an option when they were eating out – it was his order of choice. It wouldn't be her preference on what he be ingesting. But she figured if it was only once a month or so – it wasn't going to kill him. He'd clearly eaten far worse and survived – with a pale, pasty complexion and stunted growth, but he'd lived through it.

Still, with his love of chicken nuggets, she'd taken to slicing up some chicken breasts and throwing them in the oven. She told him they were chicken fingers and she mixed up some honey and dill dip for him to dip them in. It made an easy option to toss together for his lunch bag – and something quick to warm up for dinner on the nights she didn't manage to get him home until after 7 p.m. too. It was a hit with Jack too. Though, if Jack found the baked strips in the fridge – he'd eat through whatever was left as a snack. She'd had to point out to him the one time that him eating through the entire container was the equivalent of him eating about three or four chicken breasts in one go. That wasn't exactly her definition of a snack. Taking two or three of the strips out of the container maybe. Chowing down on the entire thing? Not so much. She was learning, though, to do up an extra batch of them on Sunday and to send them home with him for the week. Though, she suspected they were likely all getting eaten later that night as a 'snack' and not being used for lunches or snacks for later in the week – even though she'd pointed out to him that they did well on salad or on sandwiches too. Even stir-fries or rice.

Sometimes Jack could just be so clueless. Another time he'd taken the honey dill dip she'd made up for Benji and dumped a bunch of hot sauce into it. That might've been his taste preference but when she'd set out some for Benji the next time his little nephew about burned his tongue off. Jack had insisted Benji liked spicy food – and had argued with her about which one of them was mistaken. She clearly felt it was him. Jack clearly felt that she didn't know Benji and his tastes. She'd eventually just dropped it. She didn't want to argue about who knew Benji better. They both knew him in different ways – and even if Jack had known him longer, she sometimes felt she was far more attuned to the little boy's wants, likes and needs than the teen. Call it being a grown up or a woman or a mother. But somehow she thought she had a better idea of what a four-year-old needed and liked than a 19-year-old boy. It had been left with her telling him that if he wanted hot sauce in the dip – he was to put some in another container and stir it in – not contaminate the entire pot.

But her introduction of 'naked chicken fingers' (as Jack called them) into their routine diet had apparently contaminated Benji's opinion of what constituted a chicken finger. Apparently them being battered wasn't an option.

"They're like Transformer chicken fingers," she tried, feeling ridiculous saying it in front of Ellis and she could even feel Jack laughing at her and giving her that shit-eating smirk of his. "They're chicken fingers disguised as nuggets, Benj. Just try them."

"They wrong," he said again and held up another piece of batter for her.

She took it away from him and took the finger he was working on and dipped it into the honey that the waitress had brought over to go with them. It was likely going to be another faux-pas when he got around to trying that since it didn't have the dill in it that she usually mixed in for him. Still, she took a bite and chewed – causing a shriek from Benji.

"What?" she said and gave him a serious look. "I thought they were wrong and you didn't want them."

"MOOOMMMMMIIIE!" he wringed.

She shrugged. "I don't know, Little Fox. It sure tastes like a nugget to me. Maybe you should try?"

He grabbed the finger back from her and examined the end she'd just chewed on before shoving it in his mouth and gnawing of his own piece. She shook her head and rolled her eyes.

"He's retarded," Jack informed him.

She gave him a stern look. "Don't talk about him like that – especially in front of him," she said with an edge to her voice. She was still working at getting Benji passed thinking he was stupid. She wasn't sure she ever really would – and she was just praying that those kinds of comments didn't crop up again at the NYPD daycare. She didn't want to have to deal with that heartbreak on a regular basis. Benji wasn't stupid. He was just behind. He just needed help catching up – and better socialization.

Benji, though, was distracted by the food at the moment and didn't seem to have heard Jack's commentary. Now that she'd demonstrated that the chicken fingers were clearly edible, eating them didn't seem to be issue. He wasn't retarded. But her Little Fox was unique. He was his own special character – with his own ideas and needs. She was learning how to approach them and deal with them each day.

"So, Jack, Olivia's told me a lot about you," Ellis interjected, likely trying to defuse the tense glare that had settled between her and Jack. But the comment just made Jack glare at her a bit more harshly. "Why don't you tell me a bit about yourself," Bayard suggested.

Jack just shrugged again, though, and stabbed at the salad shoving it into his mouth.

Olivia sighed at that. "Jack's a sophomore at City's architecture pro …"

Ellis held up a hand at that and she gave him a bit of a look. She didn't like getting the hand from anyone. It struck her as beyond rude. But he just gave her a stern look of his own. "I'm sure the young man is capable of speaking for himself," he said and looked back at Jack, who briefly looked up from his food and examined him.

"I'm studying architecture," Jack said flatly.

Ellis nodded. "Good. What else?"

Jack made a noise and looked at Olivia clattering his utensils to the table. "Can I go skate now?" he demanded.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "Your lunch will get cold."

Jack just shrugged. "So?"

She shook her head a bit and tried to resist the urge to give her silent prayer to the ceiling that she found herself having to do too often when Jack was in one of his moods.

"Jack, I'd appreciate if you'd sit here and have a conversation with us while we eat our meal," she put at him.

Jack just glared at her. "We came here to skate – not to eat, didn't we?"

She did sigh at that and then shrugged. "OK," she allowed. "Go skate."

Having him stay and visit with them – to try to give Ellis the opportunity to get to know him when he was like that – wasn't going to do anything to help any of them. If anything, it would likely make Ellis less interested in helping them. Or at least in helping Jack. Sometimes Jack excelled at self-sabotage. She knew how that was. She'd done it to herself over the years. She'd watched Elliot do it to himself. She'd had moments where she'd watched Nick do it to himself. But she wished Jack would learn to reel it in – especially when she was trying to set up something to help him, to help all of them.

He stood from the table and looked at Benji. "Com'on 'Jamin," he demanded.

Olivia looked down at Benji. He was still gnawing on one of the chicken fingers and had a baby carrot grasped in his other hand.

"Let him eat his lunch, Jack," she told him sternly. "Come back in 10 minutes and get him."

"So you can do your sales pitch with him as a prop?" Jack spat at her.

She glared at him. "No, Jack. So he can eat his lunch. Go skate. Go calm down. And then come back ready to act like a grown-up."

He glared at her and then shifted his glare to Ellis. "Don't fuck us around like the other guy with your bullshit questions," he said but Ellis just eyed him silently at that outburst.

"JACK!" Olivia said sternly. "Don't use that language – not in front of Benji and not directed at an adult or one of my friends. GO CALM DOWN. Don't come back up here until you're ready to sit down and talk like a grown-up."

He huffed at her and smacked his chair and stormed away, snatching his deck from where it'd been tucked behind her chair.

She rubbed her eyebrow and looked down at Benji. He was wide-eyed, the baby carrot hanging out the side of his mouth.

"It's OK, Benj," she assured. "Just finish your lunch. Jack will be back in a bit and then we'll all go down and get you skating."

He crunched on the carrot but snuggled more against her, still looking in the direction Jack had stormed.

She sighed and shrugged at Ellis. "I'm sorry," she offered. She felt like any chance they had of Bayard taking on their case likely had just dissipated. She knew how much he'd hated when Simon had been hot-headed and a destructive force in his own defense. He'd basically wasted Ellis' time – which had meant she'd wasted his time. She didn't think he'd let her do that to him again – favor or not.

"He always like that?" Bayard asked, examining her carefully in his own personal lie-detector as he awaited her answer.

She shrugged. "Not always. He's just … been through a lot, Bayard. And, right now he's really scared and … not very trusting of lawyers after what happened."

Bayard gave a small nod. "Well, we're going to have some work to do with him."

It was her turn to examine him. "Does that mean you're going to take on our case?"

Bayard shrugged and set his eyes on Benji rather than her. But her Little Fox seemed to have gone back to eating his lunch at that point, bouncing slightly on her lap as he picked at the food.

"I called ACS on your behalf yesterday," he said flatly. "I don't expect them to be bothering you again. They aren't going to be getting a court order."

"So it just disappears?" she asked, a little surprised he'd called. But she wasn't going to argue with it. She'd been a little stressed that she hadn't heard anything from them either way by the end of the business day on Friday. She was almost expecting them to appear at her door that day. It was part of the reason she'd wanted to be away from the apartment for the bulk of Saturday – just in case. Make them look for her if they had something more to say.

"Unless you have reason to believe they'd have further evidence coming from elsewhere? But even if they do - he doesn't look neglected to me."

She snorted and rubbed at the side of Benji's head, through his short-cropped hair, until he looked up at her with those expressive little boy eyes.

"You're good, aren't you Benj?"

He nodded and held out a carrot to her. "Thank you, Little Fox," she said. "Are you going to share with Bayard?"

Benji looked at her for a moment more but then looked back to his basket of food and dug out another carrot and held it across to Bayard, who gave him a small smile and accepted it.

"Deal sealed with a carrot?" he asked Olivia, who just snorted in reply – and then he took a bite.


	149. Chapter 149

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Wow, look at your name and everything, Benj," Olivia tried in her attempts to fake excitement for him – pointing at his hook outside his classroom door with his cubby below and shelf above it.

They'd checked into the daycare center upstairs and the administrators was showing them around and getting them settled – giving her yet another briefing on how their programming worked and where Benji would be during the day. She felt comfortable leaving there. She was telling herself that she was confident that it would be a better place for the little boy and that they wouldn't be having a repeat of the problems at the nursery school. Still, Benji wasn't buying any of it. Her efforts over the weekend to prep him for the transition seemed to have mostly fallen on deaf ears. The apprehension about the new class and daycare became even more apparent in the morning as she tried to get him out the door and only grew as she had to drag him into work and then upstairs. Now she could tell he was teetering closer and closer to tears – and she just knew if he started, it was going to take a lot for her to hold it together too. She found it so hard to see Benji scared and hurting. But going to pre-kindergarten – staying a daycare – it was part of growing up. It was a necessary step and it was something he needed to get comfortable with. He had years more of schooling ahead of him – and she had years more of working ahead of her if she was going to be raising a little boy. She had to drop him off and go to her job and other responsibilities. He needed to learn that was part of life and part of being a family. But try explaining that to a four year old?

"Mommy, I play with Abby-lee-ah and Zara. I be good. I promise," Benji whined at her, looking at her with big, sad eyes.

She sighed and glanced at the administrator, before crouching down to Benji's height and taking both of his hands.

"Sweetheart, it's not too much fun having to just play with Abuelita while Zara is at school all day, is it?"

"YEEEEEEESSSSS IT IS!" Benji protested.

She shook her head. "Well, Abuelita has things she needs to be doing during the day too, Little Fox. She can't always be playing with you. She was just helping you and Mommy. But now that we've got you into the Police Academy, you're going to come here during the day while Mommy is at work. But I'll talk to Zara's daddy and we'll try to set up a playdate so you and Zara can play again soon."

Benji just collapsed against her and whimpered. "Don't leave me Mommy!" Olivia could tell he was moving closer and closer to tears – if not an all-out meltdown.

She rubbed his back and then reached to move the straps of the new backpack she'd bought him – as part of the bribe in easing him into going to the daycare – off his shoulders.

"I'm not leaving you, Benj," she assured him. "I'm going to be right downstairs. And Zara's daddy is right downstairs too."

"Nick?" Benji asked helplessly.

"That's Zara's daddy," she agreed.

"Auntie?"

She pulled him away from her a bit at that and gave him a thin smile. His face was flushing red and she could see his eyes watering. She swiped at them in a pre-emptive measure.

"Auntie Alex will likely be downstairs visiting Mommy and Nick at some point today too," she agreed again.

"She come visit me?"

Olivia shook her head. "Not today, Little Fox. You're going to be so busy today meeting your new classmates and your new teacher and making new friends and learning all sorts of new things. You aren't going to have time to visit Auntie Alex."

"YES I WILL!" he protested.

Olivia shook her head sadly. "You won't, Benj. Police Academy is a very busy place. You'll have so much to do."

"But I don't wanna to be police officer," Benji whined and a tear trickled down his face. "I wanna be Rescue Bot fireman Transformer!"

She snorted and smiled a bit more broadly at him. "They're going to teach you all sorts of things to get you read for your Rescue Bot fireman Transformer exams too," she assured him.

He collapsed against her again. "Then I take my promo-shin test?" he asked quietly.

She'd shushed him a couple times over the weekend while he was screeching about just for the sake of screeching about and told him she was studying for her promotion exam so she could be a better police officer. He'd somehow remembered the talk with the probie firefighter and had managed to put together that firefighters had to take a test too. He combined that with how grouchy Jack got at test times and now he was very concerned about when he'd have to take his Rescue Bot exam. She'd just told him he had a lot to learn before he would be ready for his Rescue Bot exam.

"In a few years, Benj," she offered again. "You've got lots to learn first."

"DON'T LLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEAVE ME, MOMMMIIEEE," he cried and that time as she pulled him away from her to examine him, she saw that the tears really were streaming now. "YOU BE GONE FOREVER."

She wiped at his face some more, but then moved to unzip his jacket. She knew she needed to get out of there. He was going to make her cry – and them dragging this out was only going to make it harder and harder for the both of them. He needed to start feeling safe and secure and self-sooth – hopefully with the help of the administrator and the teacher when he got into the classroom.

"I will not be gone forever, Benji," she told him, as she pulled the jacket off his flailing arms that quickly locked around her neck as her got them free.

"YES YOU WILL!"

"I will not, Benji. I always, always come back and get you. And I always, always will come back to get you. I'm just going downstairs. Mommy has to do her police work too – just like you're going to do your police work up here."

"I DON'T WANNA!" he wringed.

"I know you don't want to, Little Fox. But there's all kinds of things we just have to do – even when we don't really want to. And, you know what?" He rubbed his face firmly against her shoulder in a hard shake in the negative. "I think you're going to have lots of fun after you get in there. I met your teacher the other day. Miss Buzzby and she seems so nice and so smart and so funny. I think you're going to like her lots. And you know what too?" He shook his head hard again. "All the little boys and girls in the class have a mommy or a daddy who's a police officer too."

"Dick-tech-hive?" Benji mumbled against her.

She nodded. "Yeah. A bunch of them will have a mommy or daddy who's a detective too."

"You dick-tech-hive," he informed her quietly.

She nodded again. "I am."

She could hear him sniffing and sort of hoped he wasn't rubbing snot all over her shoulder along with his tears. She grabbed for where she'd set his bag on the floor and unzipped it while he continued to cling to her and pulled out his stuffie.

"Your Mommy Fox lovey is going to stay with you while I'm downstairs," she said and glanced at the administrator again to make sure that was OK.

They'd already talked about it when she'd been up on Friday. She'd been told that they did allow children to have either a stuffie or blanket lovey with them during their first days – but outside toys weren't allowed beyond special days or show-and-tells times that would be assigned to him. She had sort of hoped that maybe she'd be able to navigate Benji into the room without one of his toys. She wasn't sure if when he was starting in the class in the middle of the year if having a stuffed animal with him might make him a mark for teasing. She didn't want that at all. She wanted to completely avoid situations like that ever happening again – as much as that was in her power.

But Olivia also knew how Benji felt about his toys. He was so attached to them. They always had some of them with him – and he seemed terrified about leaving any of them. Like leaving them alone in the apartment might mean he'd never actually see them again – either they'd be gone when he got home or he'd never actually get home. So she knew having some of his favorites with him was a stabilizing and calming force in his life. They needed that that morning.

Benji grabbed for his stuffie and hugged her to his chest. Mommy Fox's snout rubbing against his damp, tear streaked cheek. But he had his eyes fixed on his real Mommy Fox. They looked so sad and so scared – still brimming with tears in a way that forced Olivia to take her own deep breath to hold back her own and to gulp down that growing lump in her throat.

She rubbed at his bicep and tried to give him her own brave smile but she felt like it likely looked a little sad.

"OK, Benji. I need to go downstairs to work. But Mrs. Coutinhou here is going to take you into your classroom and introduce you to Miss Buzzby – who's going to introduce you to the whole class. And I'll stand right here until you get inside and then you can turn back and wave. Then it's time for me to go."

"I NOT WAVE. YOU NOT GO!" he spat out, his mouth stringy with the salvia of his own choked back tears. It made her wonder how many he was actually managing to hold in – how much strength and bravery that was taking – considering the amount of tears that were flowing down his face.

"It's time for me to you to work and you to go to school, Little Fox," she offered again and smoothed out his hair. "It's time for me to say goodbye until this afternoon."

He shook his head hard, his cheek beating against Mommy Fox's face in a way that sent her neck bending at an angle.

"Yes," Olivia said softly and then trailed her hand down his arm and lifted up his hand.

She'd picked up The Kissing Hand at the library for him the day before and they'd read it in the afternoon and then again before he went to bed – as she tried to calm him and prepare him for his first day at the new daycare.

Benji had seemed enchanted by the story of Chester Raccoon – who didn't want to go to school, he wanted to stay home with his mother. But she wasn't sure he realized that she was trying to make a point to him – trying to set an example for him and prepare him. Olivia, though, felt a bit like Mother Raccoon, rather than Mommy Fox, that morning. Just like in the story, she was assuring her little boy that he was going to love school, and make new friends and play with new toys and get to read new books.

She hoped she wasn't lying to him – especially on the friends part. She so wanted her little boy to start making some friends and creating relationships with other children. She hoped that now that they'd both be surrounded by police families – other people who'd better understand their situation and what they were dealing with in their daily lives – that they'd both be able to work at creating some relationships, friendships and a support network to get them through this new chapter in their lives. Her and Benji both needed that – and she knew it was necessary for him in so many ways. She couldn't just keep to herself. She had a responsibility to be putting herself out there and helping him build those relationships and setting up those playdates and socializing him. It wasn't just on the shoulders of a little boy. She had a lot of responsibility in it too.

Still, in trying to get him to take this first step, she'd taken a cue from Mother Raccoon and had planted a kiss in the palm of Benji's hand. A kiss meant to rush from his hand all the way to his heart – so he feel the comfort of her kiss, presence and love no matter how scared or lonely he was at school. He just had to press his hand to his cheek to be reminded of it. She'd even taken one of his markers (despite initially thinking better of it and suspecting she might be scrubbing the marker off his face that night) and had drawn a little red heart on his palm for him in place of his lips.

But now she pressed her lips there again and giving him another smile, took his hand and pressed it to his cheek for him.

"You're going to be fine," she assured him quietly. "I'm going to be right downstairs and I'm going to be right back to get you as soon as I'm done work. But, Benj, you aren't even going to notice I'm gone because you're going to be so busy. You're going to work really hard for me and be so brave for me, right?"

Benji nodded sadly at her, his tears still streaming down his face and his hand still held against his cheek.

"Thank you, Little Fox," she said. "I'm so proud of you."

She leaned forward a pressed a kiss against his salty cheek and then his little temple, before swiping at the tears that were still coming one last time, and then standing and smoothing out his hair again and then spiking it just a touch for him. She gave him a small smile and then nodded at the administrator.

"OK, we're all ready," she tried to say in her own brave and convincing voice but had been almost surprised at how close she'd felt it to cracking when she did push those words out.

Mrs. Coutinhou returned the thin smile and then gave Benji a bigger one, sticking out her hand. Benji gazed at her for a moment but then slowly took it.

"OK, BENJI!" the woman said with a bit too much enthusiasm and excitement – in the practiced voice that likely only a daycare worker would truly pull off. "Everyone in the class is so excited to meet you. So how about let's go meet them?"

Benji just looked at her with big eyes but didn't give her a response – so Mrs. Coutinhou just started to slowly nudge him forward and he reluctantly followed.

Olivia watched and said quietly as he reached the threshold of the door, "Goodbye, Little Fox, have a good day at school. I'll see you soon."

Benji just gazed at her and still didn't respond. She still wasn't sure he really believed she'd be back when she left him in any sort of institutionalized setting. She might just be downstairs – but it might as well be the other side of the world to Benji. It caused an ache in her and was pulling at her heartstrings in a way that she thought that 18 years in the NYPD shouldn't even make her capable of. But there it was.

"Hello Miss Buzzby and pre-k class!" Mrs. Coutinhou said with a conviction as they got through the door. "Have I got a special treat for you – a brand new friend and classmate. Can everyone say hello to Benji?"

Olivia moved closer to the door and watched as the group of children who were sitting at the floor at the front of the room looked back at her Little Fox but let out a "HELLO BENJI!" that sounded genuine. She could even see some of the kids sitting up on their knees to get a better look at him. She hoped that that was a sign of enthusiasm to take him on as a friend – and not them scoping out teasing or bullying opportunities. She'd been assured they had a zero tolerance policy for any of that. But little kids were little kids – and some times they could be unruly and they could be cruel. She knew that. She just didn't want her child to have to deal with it again.

Mrs. Coutinhou started taking him closer to the front of the class but she looked back to the door and gave Olivia another smile and pointed at her. "Are you going to wave goodbye to Mommy, Benji?" she asked.

Benji looked at her and she could see the tears still streaking down his face – his cheeks flushed red and his lips trembling. She was sure she could see all of him shaking like a leaf too. But at least he was wailing and screaming – or on the ground kicking and flailing, or clinging to her and refusing to let go. Yet, somehow she thought dealing with that might be easier. Looking at him looking at her so sad was just pulling at her so hard that she felt her own eyes glassing even more too – especially as he lifted his little hand and hesitantly waved at her. She lifted hers and returned it and then watched as he slowly turned away from her in a way she felt like he was almost truly saying goodbye without the expectation they'd ever see each other again. It made her want to go right in there and grab him back that second – that they'd try again tomorrow. That he wasn't ready for a new daycare. She wasn't ready yet either.

But instead, as he turned, she forced herself to turn herself. She reached and hung his backpack and coat on his hook – and again looked at his name card there. She listened for a second and could hear the teacher now introducing Benji to the class and the start of what sounded like some sort of name and introduction game with the rest of the students.

She sighed and forced herself to move down the hallway and back towards the entrance door. She swiped at her own eyes – running her thumbs under them and coaching herself to keep the glassy, watering mixture there in. To calm her breathing and to gulp down that lump in her throat. To make sure her voice wasn't cracking. She was going to have to get herself under control before she showed her face in the bullpen. She thought she should see if she could find the ladies'r oom on that floor before heading back downstairs. But as she stepped out of the secured daycare area she nearly bumped right into Nick who was leaning just beyond the doors.

She looked at him surprised and then found herself unconsciously reach to wipe at her face more – hoping that her distraught wasn't apparent to him.

"What are you doing here?" she asked. "Did we catch a case?"

He nodded and then held up her coat at her. "I thought you might want to skip having to make an appearance in the squad. We can head right for the car."

She nodded and took the coat looking down. He clearly could tell that she was out of sorts. She wasn't sure she liked that at all. She was pretty sure the only emotions that her and Nick had the allowable visibility list were anger and frustration. Though they were both starting to see each other as very human – she wasn't sure she wanted him to have too much of a glimpse that she was a woman (maybe an overly emotional motherly one). But she thought he was going to let it drop, as he let her silently pull the coat up onto her shoulders and they started for the elevators down the hall.

"It's always hard," Nick said, as he followed after her. "Leaving them for the first time in a new place. Ben's pretty tough, though."

She glanced over her shoulder at him and allowed him a thin smile. "Yeah, he is," she agreed.

She knew it was true. She just wished he didn't have to be as tough as he was and that it could be easier for him.


	150. Chapter 150

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"So make sure when you get to their house, that you take this out of your bag and hang it up right away," she told Jack, as she carefully folded his vested suit for him and prepared to put it in the suitcase she was lending to him.

They'd had back-and-forth all week about if he should even take a suit. Jack had initially argued that he was likely going to look stupid going to a 'skating interview' dressed in a suit. She'd put back to him that it wasn't a 'skateboarding interview' that it was an 'architectural internship interview' – and that he should look the part. He said looking the part meant dressing like a skater – not some suit.

"It's not New York. It's California," he'd near spat at her over the phone one night that week when she'd been quizzing him on if he'd done his laundry and taken anything that needed to go into the dry cleaners in ahead of his trip.

She really didn't need his attitude that week. She knew he was stressed out on multiple levels. He was still riled up about what had happened with their guardianship attempts. He was still worried about ACS – even, though she'd told him that Ellis was handling it for them and that the timeframe for anything to initially happen had more than passed and they were fine. And, he was unsure he even liked Ellis or the idea of having to go through more legal hoops to get their little family to work out. Add in him having finished up his winter term – which he didn't seem happy about the exam – and being starting his spring term and him already stressing about all his new courses and the workload and then combine it with the pending interview. Basically, Jack was vamped up an attitudinal rampage of nerves and stress that he'd decided to direct at her – that she just wasn't too interested in hearing.

Benji was having a hard enough week and had been emotional and clingy. Daycare was going well enough. He'd survived his first week without any major problems. Still, he'd been a little teary nearly every day when she'd dropped him off and had clung to her in the evenings and been a little more whiney than usual. Dealing with Benji's transition and trying to make that as easy for him as possible was taking enough of her time and energy that week – she didn't need Jack's issues to be so in her face too. But she was definitely learning with two boys at complete opposite ends of the age spectrum, she didn't get much choice in timing or issues that needed to be dealt with or smoothed over. There was always something and if it wasn't one of them, it was the other. More times than not – it was both of them at the same time.

She'd finally just told Jack to talk to Gecko about what he should wear for the interview. She knew he should just wear … whatever … his usual clothes or his skate clothes for when he was doing his skating demonstration and maybe the session where they were apparently going to be observing him interacting with other candidates and teaching some kids something. But she firmly felt when he went in for his interview and to show off some of his blueprints – he should be dressed to impressed, not in a shirt and jeans. Gecko had agreed. Not that Jack had ever said that she'd been right – nor did she ever actually expect the teen to admit that he'd been wrong. So she'd just taken some heed in the fact that his employer had been able to talk some sense to him.

So now she just needed to ensure his suit got there in a state that wasn't a wrinkled ball – because she really doubted Jack knew how to iron or would take it in to get pressed, if it needed it. Not that she got the impression he was listening to her at all at the moment. He was sitting on the edge of her bed – hardly helping in the packing at all. He'd just dumped his backpack of clothes out on the floor of the living room when she'd asked him if he was all packed for his flight in the morning and what he was all taking. She'd quickly decided that she needed to intervene and had collected the mass of clothes off the floor and brought them – and him – into her room, pulling her rolling suitcase that rarely got used out of her closet and starting to work on sorting through and refolding his belongings. She'd definitely been glad too that he inadvertently kept some of his clothes at the apartment anymore – at least leaving them for her to launder on his behalf – because she hadn't been overly impressed with some of the options (or the supposed cleanliness) of the items he'd jammed into his pack.

"Did you hear me, Jack?" she asked and watched him glance up at her blankly. "Did you hear me?" she asked again.

He opened his mouth like he was going to try to repeat back something to her but then he just sighed and shook his head.

"As soon as you get to their house, you need to take your suit out of the suitcase and hang it up – so it doesn't get too wrinkled and so it has time to shake out a bit before the interview," she told him again.

He nodded. "Yeah, OK," he said quietly and then went back to just looking at the clothes they still had sitting on the bed waiting to be put in the bag.

She watched him for a moment and then turned back to working on the packing. Undivided attention wasn't allowed with Jack. She had to look like she was focused on something else before asking if something was wrong.

"You're nervous?" she put to him.

He just shrugged.

"You're going to be fine," she told him. "And, even if you don't get it, Jack, it's going to be a good learning experience for you."

He just gave her a glance and shrugged again. "This bag is really girly," he informed her, apparently not wanting to talk about his interview process at all that night.

She looked at her suitcase. It was just a dark evergreen medium-sized rolling suitcase. She didn't think there was anything girly about it at all.

"It's just a suitcase, Jack," she said. "I'm sorry it's not up to your standards."

Apparently it was really just a passing comment meant to change topics because he just shrugged again and went back to fingering at the two kid-sized NYPD tshirts she still had sitting on the bed. She'd grabbed them for the two children of Gecko's friend who was putting Jack up during his stay. She thought that they should at least give them something for their trouble – and she'd stressed to Jack that one of the nights he should offer to take the family out for dinner or to pay for some take-out. And that if they took him out exploring or to a skatepark on Saturday after he got there or on Sunday before his interview – that he should probably offer to pay any admission fees that came up or at least treat them to a Coke or chips or an ice cream or whatever. She'd mentioned that maybe he should offer up some gas money too if they were driving him around – or even just back-and-forth from the airport. And, she'd stressed that he really needed to be on his best behavior – to be polite, to not have attitude, to not be swearing in front of other people's children and to say please and thank you and to respect their rules. She thought most of it was pretty basic stuff and it wasn't that she thought that Jack was a bad kid – or even an impolite or rude kid. He was just a teenager – who happened to be under a lot of stress and fairly emotional at the moment. He didn't always think and sometimes he didn't deal while with what he was feeling or know how to express it in a constructive way – so it came out harshly. She could deal with that. She didn't really want a family that was doing them a favor to have to deal with that, though.

"So do they just give you these?" Jack asked kind of suddenly.

She looked at him again and just shrugged. "More or less," she allowed.

The truth was the NYPD didn't give you much of anything. She got a uniform, clothing and equipment allowance – but that didn't exactly include children's tshirts. Though, picking up that sort of thing wasn't exactly a problem either. It wasn't a problem anywhere in the city, though. She probably could've actually picked the shirts up for cheaper on a street corner. But she didn't want them disintegrating on the kids on their first wash.

"So you paid for them?" Jack asked and looked at her.

She allowed him another glance and grabbed some of his socks to stuff into the suitcase. "Don't worry about it," she said. "They're for the kids."

"You got Benji cop stuff. Pajamas," Jack added flatly in a strange sort of statement.

She rubbed at her eyebrow and looked at him again. "Well, at the time he needed pajamas. But those weren't from work. I picked them up at the police museum."

Jack snorted. "There's a police museum?"

She nodded. "Yeah. There's a firefighter one too. I might actually take him this weekend. Reward him for getting through the week. Distract him from the fact you aren't here."

She was actually a little concerned about how Benji might react when he realized Jack wouldn't be around to 'play' that weekend. There'd only been a couple of weekend were Jack hadn't made at least an appearance. The little boy always looked forward to having the playtime and roughhousing time and chatterbox time with his uncle. With how Benji had been feeling and acting that week, she was pretty certain he was going to notice Jack's absence and make an issue of it. She knew that they'd still be communicating with Jack on the phone and that she'd likely set Benji in front of Skype at some point – but she knew it wasn't the same. Benji missing his uncle – and what that did for his sense of stability and security – was actually one of her larger worries about what they'd do if Jack did actually get offered the internship and headed out to California for months. But she'd decided they'd worry about that once they reached that point – if they actually did.

"A firefighter museum?" Jack mouthed back to her with some disbelief. "That sounds boring."

She snorted at him. "It's a good thing we're doing it on a weekend where you'll have no pressure to come then, isn't it?" she informed him. "Benji will like it. Meet some of Heatwaves ancestors."

Jack made an amused noise at that and then looked at her and made another noise with his mouth that sounded a surprising amount like the transforming noise that the fire station and the fire truck she'd given the little boy for Christmas made.

"This is Optimus Prime," Jack mimicked the robot voice at her with a smart-ass look on his face. "SOUND THE ALARM! RESCUUUUUE BOTS! AWAY!"

She gave him a small smile for his efforts. It was actually a pretty decent impression. But she shook her head. Jack was a weird kid. About as weird as Benji in his own way. She didn't remember being as weird as either of them growing up. But she was likely deluding herself.

"That fire station is the most annoying thing ever. I can't believe you got it for him," Jack said.

She'd made sure the teen actually played with Benji for a while when he arrived that evening since the little boy wouldn't get that for the rest of the weekend. Of course Benji had wanted to play Rescue Bots and had dragged his fire station and fire truck and the rest of the paraphernalia into the middle of the floor. It was one of Jack's least favorite games. It was clear most of the time he'd pretty much be playing anything else – with his preference leaning towards the Duplo or Trio blocks and Hot Wheels. When Benji started turning the crank to 'transform' the fire station or banging on his computer panel buttons, lifting the ladder to turn his fire truck into a control center or setting off Copper's sirens – Jack's annoyance with playing Rescue Bots only increased.

"He loves it," Olivia said flatly. "I don't even notice the sounds anymore." That wasn't entirely true. There were some evenings where she wanted more than anything to rip the batteries out of all the toys too. But she wasn't going to give Jack that fodder.

"I hope you aren't going to replace any of the batteries when they finally die," Jack added with some more distaste but then went back to looking at the shirts, as she reached for them to toss in the bag, as she started to finish up the packing for him.

"How come you haven't gotten me any cop stuff but you get it for the rest of the universe?" he put at her.

She examined him for a second at that. There seemed to be some sincerity behind the question and some genuine hurt. But she honestly didn't think Jack had any interest in it. He'd done his best to stress to her that when they were out in public together on weekends that she shouldn't 'act like a cop'. She wasn't entirely sure what she did in her private life or their time with them which usually involved walking to various places, supervising Benji at a park or playground, taking them through the grocery store or buying them breakfast at a dinner. She didn't think there was anything she did that made her seem like 'a cop' in those normal, human, casual weekend interactions that they saw dozens of other people participating in too. He'd been even more concerned that she not let anyone at Funky's know she was a cop. Apparently her career choice – any of her professional achievements – were a source of great embarrassment for Jack. She hadn't even considered he'd want any piece of clothing or otherwise that had NYPD plastered across it. If spending time with her was embarrassing. She thought wearing the department's paraphernalia would likely be mortifying for him. But maybe she'd been wrong.

"I didn't know you wanted anything, Jack," she put back to him, ensuring she kept a level voice, just in case he was trying to draw her into some sort of argument. "I can grab something for you next week. What do you want?"

He just shrugged again, though, but then met her eyes. "You've got a hoodie in your closet," he informed her.

She snorted at that and then really did look at him. "You're going through my closet?"

He stuttered a bit at that. "Not now!" he objected vehemently. "In the other apartment before when I was hanging stuff up. I just saw it." She watched him. She'd embarrassed him – a bit of red had crept into his cheeks. "You never wear it," he added for her though.

She gazed at him again and rubbed her eyebrow. "Well, I don't think hoodies are as much of a fashion statement as you," she said. "I wear it when I'm sick sometimes. Or when we get really cold snaps."

Jack seemed to look at her a bit more hopefully at that. "It's a large," he filled in for her.

She did let out a bigger snort of a suppressed chuckle at that but let a bit of a smile grow across her face. "You really are going through my closet," she said but it only made him break the eye contact. "You can have it if you want," Olivia said, though, and he quickly met her line of sight again, his face letting up before he stood from the bed and made a beeline for her closet door.

She hadn't exactly expected that, either. And, she watched as he stepped a little cautiously inside her small walk-in closet and glanced around at how she'd organized her belongings, before he clearly spotted the sweatshirt sitting on one of the top shelves with some of her sweaters and he moved to reach for it. He re-emerged from the closet shaking out the grey hoodie – that she'd really only classify as ratty. She wasn't sure how only it even was at that point. She knew she'd had it for years, though. And, the hoodies and zip-ups and tshirts that she could buy through work used a vastly different design now. But Jack looked quite pleased with himself – and the acquisition. He pulled it over his head and then tugged it down his body.

"It fits," he informed her.

She gave him a small smile and a little nod. "It does," she agreed.

She actually thought it looked a little big on him. But even with her recent purchases for Jack – most clothes looked a little big on him. He seemed to like it that way. She didn't approve. But it was what it was.

She wasn't sure how she felt about a piece of her clothing looking a little big on what was technically a full-grown man. But she supposed the last time she'd had it on – it was a little huge on her. It probably wouldn't be quite as huge anymore but that wasn't something she needed to think about. She wasn't even sure the last time she'd had it on. Maybe in the fall around when she'd met Jack – when she was working at getting over that nasty cold.

"We might have to wash it," he informed her, as he trudged back to the bed and sat down to apparently continue watch her do all the work for him in getting him ready to take over to the airport in the morning.

She gave him a funny look. "It should be clean," she told him.

He shook his head. "No. It definitely smells like you."

She gave him a funnier look. She was sort of insulted but she was also sort of concerned that maybe it hadn't made it to the hamper after the last time she'd worn it – and if it had been when she had that cold, she really didn't want him potentially picking up any germs that hadn't managed to die out on the fabric yet. She grabbed at his arm and brought the material up to her nose. Now she felt like Jack. She didn't want to think about how many times she'd watched him sniff something in determining if it was clean enough to wear – even if she'd seen him wearing it for days and it was clearly ready for the wash.

"It smells like fabric softener," she informed him with some disgust intermingled with relief.

"Yeah. Exactly. It smells like you. Girly."

She snorted and shook her head at him at that – growing slightly annoyed and dropping his arm back into place. "I'm pretty sure fabric softener is gender neutral, Jack. And it'd be washed with the same stuff that I've been doing all the laundry you leave here with."

"No wonder the girls aren't interested in me," he informed her. "You're masking my masculinity."

She snorted again and met his eyes. "They're far more attracted to my fabric softener than they are to your jeans that you wash once a month," she informed him. "Maybe you should reassess what's scaring them away."

That actually got an amused sound and a small smile out of him – but he just gazed at the floor. "I can just like … borrow it …" he put to her. "For the weekend."

She watched him again. "You're going to take a NYPD hoodie to Los Angeles?"

He shrugged. But it really struck her then. Her son – her ward for the next 90 days – was wearing not just a sweatshirt that was advertising the place she worked, but her sweatshirt. Something that he'd just gone and pulled out of her closet and informed her that it smelled like her. And he was sitting there on her bed – watching her pack his suitcase for him – in it already, and looking at her with embarrassed little boy eyes. In that moment, that ratty hoodie and Jack wanting to drag it out to California in temperatures that were going to be far warmer than what they were experiencing in New York at the moment – it really wasn't that much different than Benji dragging his Mommy Fox lovey to daycare each day that week. He was just trying to make it look slightly more grown-up.

She gave him a smile though and reached out and touched his cheek – holding her eyes there until he met hers.

"You keep it," she told him. "I want you to have it. And, I wouldn't want something returned to me that smells like boy anyways."

He snorted at that and gave her a smile but looked back down to the ground embarrassed again.


	151. Chapter 151

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Maybe I just shouldn't go," Jack suggested a little sheepishly without looking at her.

She sighed and watched the side of the head. He was looking at the entrance of security again – just like he had been for the past 10 minutes and making excuses why he shouldn't go through it yet.

Jack had been slow getting going in the morning. That was normal for him. What had been more unusual was that he'd been near silent on their trip over to JFK. He always had something to say – even if it was just to tell Benji to shut up. But that morning there'd been hardly a peep out of him. Even when Olivia had directed questions at him, he'd done is best to give non-verbal responses – nodding his head or shaking it.

Really the only chatter she'd gotten out of him was when they'd stopped at a newsstand for him to pick out a couple snacks for on the plane. First he'd wanted to know if they'd feed him on the plane and when she'd told him not likely – he'd gotten grumpy about that. Then when he'd just picked out a bag of chips and a chocolate bar she'd told him he should pick some gum or a chewy candy too and he'd said he didn't want any.

"You'll want them on the plane," she'd informed him.

"No, I won't," he'd insisted.

"You haven't flown before, Jack," she'd said. "Your ears are likely going to pop."

He looked at her clearly confused. "What's that mean?"

"The change in the pressure when you're taking off and landing – your ears will pop. It will be uncomfortable or at least feel strange the first time it happens. Chewing on something will help," she'd said and added a pack of Starburst to his pile of junk food that normally she'd disapprove of. Perhaps she would normally disapprove of more when it meant she was also having to buy Benji some M&M's at barely 6 a.m. in the morning. She was clearly feeding them both a breakfast of champions that morning. But Jack had just given her an unimpressed look at her candy selection and replaced the Starburst with sour Skittles and a pack of cinnamon gum – making the pile of calories and sugar even bigger. Then he had wandered over to the cooler to get a drink.

"You can't take liquids through security, Jack," she'd told him.

He'd glared at her. "Why not? Do they think I'm going to make a bomb out of a Coke?"

She shrugged. "I don't know what they think. You'll be able to pick up a drink when you get through security. Or they'll give you something in flight."

"So I can't take a bottle of Coke through security but after I get through security I can buy it and take it on the plane?" he said. "That's retarded. It's a money grab."

She just shrugged. "Em's the rules," she said. He might have a point – but she wasn't going to argue with him about it. Because there really was no point to that.

Some of their conversations and interactions leading up to this trip had just been an even larger reminder for Olivia of how little of the world – or even the state and country – that Jack had seen beyond his own backyard. This was a big deal for him – getting on a plane, flying thousands of miles, seeing a different city, being boarded by a family he didn't know, hopefully visiting sites and skateparks that he'd only heard about in the media, seeing the Pacific Ocean (if he was lucky), doing his first real interview – being far away from home. Really far away.

He was nervous. She could tell. He was really, really nervous. The fear and apprehension of the unknown and the steps he was going to have to take to get through each one – it was all palpable in him. She'd been doing her best to calm him as much as he'd allow. But every step of the way in their preparation – he was trying to downplay any of his anxieties and push her away. That was until last night and until that morning. Now the scared boy act was in full swing and the young man wasn't quite as visible.

It made her ache for him a little. It made her worry about him more than she already was. She wasn't sure how ready he was for all of this. But she knew he was technically an adult – and even if he wasn't technically grown-up yet, it was her responsibility at the moment to get him there. So she needed to keep pushing his boundaries and getting him to man up. This was part of that – even though another part of her just wanted to hug him and tell him if he'd changed his mind and didn't want to go anymore that was OK. But that really wasn't OK. He needed to go. He needed to get on that plane and get this step in reclaiming and living his own life.

Still, after they got to the airport, Jack had seemed to grow even more introverted and shy. He'd seemed entirely overwhelmed with the entire check-in process – from finding his airline's counter to getting his boarding pass and checking the suitcase. He'd looked so unsure and confused with some of it that she'd literally had to take over – or she thought he might not have pushed through at all. Though, it had become clear after they made it through that process that he might've purposely been dallying to put off the inevitable departure and to try to hide how scared he was to take those steps on his own in this next phase of his growing up. He'd escaped the farm – now it was his chance to start take advantage of the work he'd put in so far and to direct his life even more to where he wanted to be going. But he was acting like there was quite the contrast between going away to college versus potentially getting an internship on the opposite side of the country – or at least there was now. Olivia thought that maybe if he was still under Greg's watchful eyes and harsh-heavy hands – this might not have been such a big decision and step that he seemed to be taking.

And, now in the continued efforts to put off his departure, Jack had them all standing outside of the TSA security checkpoint – waiting for him to move through it and head towards his gate.

Jack looked near terrified, standing watching other people going through the little process. He seemed almost like a statue. Olivia had just let him watch at first – thinking that he wanted to see what was involved. She thought he'd eventually take those steps forward. But the clock was ticking closer to his boarding time and he wasn't moving. And really, Benji was getting restless and she sort of wanted to get him moving before the little boy had a meltdown in the airport. So she knew it was time to intervene again and to give him another nudge. Soon it was going to have to be an all-out push – out of the nest and to get him into flight.

"Jack, we've paid for your ticket. We've checked your luggage. You've got your boarding pass. You're getting on the plane," she told him probably a little more sternly than she likely needed to.

She actually wasn't sure them loitering outside of the security checkpoint was the best idea. If she was one of the TSA officers – she would've noticed at that point that there'd been a group of people standing there for several minutes just looking around. But she didn't really think any of those people on shift looked like they were paid enough to care. She hadn't even seen the woman who was standing at the entrance checking people's boarding passes give them so much as a glance – and there really weren't that many people moving around the airport that morning.

Jack, though, had seemed very leery about going through the checkpoint. He'd already asked her several clarifying questions about the process since they'd arrived at the airport.

"BUT WHAT IF THE METAL DETECTOR GOES OFF?" he'd gapped at her when he realized both him and his backpack – which had his skateboard strapped on it and his computer inside it – and his black telescopic tube containing some of his actual drafting documents that he'd been so stressed and meticulous about picking would all be going through the security checkpoint.

"If it goes off, then you let them look through your bags and they'll wave the wand over you," she'd told him. "But you're probably going to get put through the xray scanner."

He gapped at her even more. "So they can look at my junk? I don't think so."

"Well, then they're going to be touching your junk instead – and I don't think you want that either," she'd put back to him flatly.

"They're going to touch me? They can't touch me!"

"Jack – if you don't co-operate with what they ask of you, they're going to have to pat you down."

"I DON'T WANT ANYONE TOUCHING ME!" he'd told her and had actually looked like he was about to cry.

She'd given his elbow a small squeeze at that. "Then just go through the scanner it's not a big deal. You'll be fine."

"I don't want them looking at me," he'd said.

"Sweetheart – the only thing they'll be looking at is any metal or weapons you have under your clothes. And that's not a problem for you is it?"

He'd shaken his head and near whispered, "Fucking New York. I'm not a terrorist."

During the week, one of the concerns he'd mentioned was that maybe flying out of New York was a bad idea. She hadn't clued into what he was saying at first and had jokingly asked if he wanted to be put on a bus instead. But he'd put back at her, "Isn't it scary flying over the city?"

She'd replied, "It's actually kind of neat, Jack. It's a different perspective. You'll likely be able to pick out some the landmarks. It will be fun for you."

"Yeah until the plane flies into a building," he'd said. "Maybe we should've booked flights out of Newark."

She'd sighed at that point realizing he was turning his fears about flying into truly irrational ones that he was finding reasons to rationalize because of his location. Part of her understood. Part of her just thought he was being ridiculous. And, she decided not to point out to him that none of the 9/11 planes had been flying out of JFK – though one of them had departed Newark. He also didn't need to know that two had been en route to Los Angeles. So she'd just calmed him down as best she could in offering assurances that planes wouldn't be falling out of the sky on the day of his flight. She wasn't entirely sure he believed her.

"What about 'Jamin?" Jack protested instead, apparently sensing his security qualms weren't working.

Olivia glanced at Benji. Any distress he had about Jack leaving had been replaced for the moment with complete annoyance that he wasn't going to get to see an airplane in the way he had hoped to while they were at the airport. He kept pulling at arm – where she was gripping his hand tightly to keep him from wandering too far off – and trying to move off in different directions. There'd been some whining and some foot stomping.

Benji wasn't happy about having just seen some airplanes flying overhead and hearing them. He wanted to SEE an airplane. She actually got the sense that desire would only be fulfilled if he got to pet an airplane in the way he expected to get to pet a cow – and that just wasn't going to be happening. At the moment, the sterile environment in the airport had been classified as exceedingly boring and he just wanted them to move to another location where MAYBE he'd see an airplane – or at least looking at something interesting.

Olivia actually thought she might have to see about them going over to a nearby park or beach after they did manage to get Jack to head through security. Hopefully from there Benji would be able to watch some planes take-off and land while running out some of his sillies - and she could avoid having a pre-schooler tantrum on the train back into the city.

"He's fine, Jack," she'd put to the teen.

"But what if I get the internship?" he demanded. "What then?"

"We'll figure that out then," she informed him.

"But what if the adoption hasn't gone through and your parental designation has expired?" he tried.

"Then Bayard will help us figure out the best way to deal with that for the summer, Jack. But we don't need to worry about that right now. Right now you're only going to be gone for a few days. Benji's going to be fine. You're going to be fine. This is going to be a good learning experience for you. Think of it as an adventure."

"I don't want an adventure," Jack had mumbled at her and looked back to the security entrance.

"Sweetheart – if you didn't want an adventure you shouldn't have been applying to jobs in California," Olivia said.

He gave her an annoyed look.

"It's going to be warmer than here," she offered as a compromise – trying to see some of the enthusiasm and excitement that had been there when he'd nearly begged her to let him go to the interview. But she supposed they'd had a rough few weeks. Things had changed a bit since them for them. Jack likely didn't feel as comfortable nowas he had in their post-holiday glow.

"You're going to be able to skate outside," she tried. "Maybe you'll get out to some of these famous parks you're always talking about."

He shrugged again. "I've got schoolwork to do."

She sighed. "Jack – you talked to your teachers. They know you're away and what you're up to. Don't throw away the opportunities you have out there to have your nose in a book. You'll regret it later. Do some studying on the plane – maybe for an hour before you go to bed. But don't give up your time there just to keep up with your studies You'll get caught up when you get back. I know you will."

"KEEPING UP WITH MY STUDIES IS IMPORTANT!" he protested. "You're always saying that. At me about it. The scholarship."

She gave him a serious nod. "It is. But so is living life - and living in the moment, Jack. Let that family show you around the city tomorrow. Get ready for your interview or practice your skating or what you're going to say …"

"I need to work on my designs …" he mumbled.

"Jack – you don't need to be fiddling around with them more. It's only going to stress you out. They look fine."

"You don't know that," he'd told her with another glance.

She sighed. It was true. She didn't really know. She didn't know anything about architecture or designing skateparks or even drafting and blueprints … or just drawing in general. But she did know if he sat at his laptop fiddling around with his designs all weekend or drawing and redrawing the ones he had in that tube – he was just going to get himself all hyped up. He would likely mess up something that he already had done and then be all upset about that.

"Jack – it's all going to be fine. Your flight is going to be fine. The interview is going to be fine. You're going to be fine."

"YOU DON'T KNOW THAT," he'd put back to her with more of an edge to his voice.

She reached out for his shoulder with her one free hand and squeezed it before reaching and cupping his cheek and really looking at him. "Yes, I do," she assured him.

Sometimes there were moments where she said things to the boys and she felt like she was lying to them. That she was offering them false reassurances. This wasn't one of them, though. She knew Jack was ready for this and he needed this – no matter how much she didn't like the idea. No matter how many of her own apprehensions and anxieties were running through her.

"OK," she said, as she dropped her hand away. "You've got to get going. We'll wait here until you get through just in case there's a problem."

Jack gaped at her at that. "A problem? I thought you just said everything was going to be fine!"

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "I just meant if they decide you need to check something or leave it here," she offered.

"Check something?" he looked ever more concerned now.

"The skateboard. That blueprint tube."

He gazed at her with more concern. "Well they can't take them. This stuff needs to come with me."

"And, I'm sure it will, Jack. I just … haven't travelled with this much stuff before and I want to make sure you get through the checkpoint, OK?"

He gave her a small wordless nod. The more she dealt with getting Jack out the door to this interview – even though it was something that he wanted and really a necessary experience for him – the more she was having flashbacks to just the Monday before and getting Benji into his first day at the new daycare. Jack's was a more grown-up situation but some of his reactions – the apprehension and fear she saw in him – were all too familiar. She couldn't decide which was harder – leaving Benji upstairs while she was at work or putting her teenager on a plane to send him across the country for an internship interview he may not get. Both were tough and pulling at her heartstrings.

"OK," she agreed and gave him her own nod. "Say goodbye to Benj."

Jack gave her a bit of a sad look but let his backpack and protective tube drop to the floor, as he crouched down to Benji's height.

"It's time for me to go, 'Jamin," Jack said quietly and the little boy looked at him – Olivia letting go of his hand so he could better interact with his uncle.

"You goin' on a plane, Peedg?"

"Yeah," Jack agreed.

"I wanna go on a plane, Mommy," he told her and looked up at her. "I go with Peedg."

Olivia shook her head. "Not this time, sweetheart. Another time."

"WHY NOT NOW?" Benji demanded.

"Because only Peedg has a ticket. We don't have tickets."

"Peedg – you share your ticket?" Benji asked hopefully and looked at him with big eyes.

Jack gave him a small smile but shook his head. "I can't, dude. Don't work that way."

Benji smacked his body against him. "Don't go, Peedg."

Jack wrapped his arms around him. "I've gotta. But I'll be back in a few days. Don't worry. You've gotta take care of Olivia while I'm gone. Make sure she doesn't do anything stupid."

Benji pulled away from him at that and looked at him with big eyes. "YOU DON'T SAY STUPID, PEEDG!"

He snorted and glanced up at her. "Ah, OK. Make sure she stays safe."

Benji nodded and collapsed against him. "You not go forever, right, Peedg?"

Jack shook his head. "Not forever. Just a few days. You're going to hang out with your Mommy. Just like always."

"When you go on the bus you leave forever," Benji said quietly.

Olivia heard Jack suck in a breath at that and rubbed the little boy's back. "It wasn't forever. Just a while."

"Forever," Benji said softly. "We get on bus and we leave farm and London forever."

Jack glanced at her and then looked at the ground and seemed to pulled Benji even tighter to him. "Yeah. That was forever. But now we're with Olivia so that's better. And this isn't a bus anyway. It's a plane."

"You hate me?" Benji mumbled against him.

"I don't hate you, Benjamin," the teen said with the smallest crack in his voice. "You're the coolest little dude ever. How could I hate you?"

"You leaving 'gin," Benji whimpered.

"It's not like before," Jack said. "It's just a couple days and you're with Olivia – just like always. She takes good care of you and you take good care of her, right?"

Benji nodded against him but Olivia could hear his sniffles from where she was standing. It was causing that lump to grow in her throat again. She thought she'd been preparing Benji for Jack being away for the weekend. She thought that it technically wouldn't be too different from their usual routine – beyond them not all sharing Sunday dinner together. But there was more to it than that – insecurities and fears and apprehensions in them both from scars that she'd barely scratched the surface with in helping them begin to heal. This might be harder than she thought. It was going to be harder for her Little Fox than she thought and for her Growling Fox too. Harder still if Jack did get the internship and decided to take it – and he'd be gone for months.

"I'll bring you back something cool from California," Jack promised the little boy.

"Cali-form-ah?" Benji asked.

Jack nodded. "Yeah. I'm going to California. I'll bring you back something."

"What you bring back?" Benji asked and looked at him a little expectantly through his watering eyes.

Jack shrugged. "I don't know, 'Jamin. Something cool. I'll find something really cool for you."

"Transformer?" Benji suggested.

Jack snorted and gave him a small smile. "Yeah. Maybe. I'll see what I can find, Benj."

Benji just nodded again at that and Jack hugged him a bit tighter and then Olivia watched as the teen placed at kiss against his forehead. She wasn't sure she'd seen him do that to the little boy before. But then the teen shook the kid's head in his hands a bit.

"OK, love you. Be good," Jack demanded of him and then rose to full height and swiped at his own eyes.

Olivia gave him a small smile and reached out to retrieve Benji's hand. He took it, but she could see he was still very teary – likely to become more teary as Jack moved away from them. So she quickly picked him up and put her own kiss against his cheek and gave him a little smile.

"So brave," she told him, as Jack bent to retrieve his backpack and drafter's tube.

The teen looked at her expectantly as he got the items back on his back. It was likely a useless maneuver. He was just going to be taking them off again in a few steps and a few moments. But she didn't say anything and just stepped forward herself and knocked up the rim of his cap a bit, so she could see his own glassy eyes. She touched his cheek.

"You're going to be fine," she assured him again. "I'm proud of you."

"Yeah," Jack mumbled and looked down.

She bent her head to catch his eyes again. "I'm proud of you," she told him again more firmly that time with and better eye contact. "And I love you. Very much."

"Yeah," he just allowed again and tried to break the eye contact.

She gave him a small smile at that and pulled his head down a bit and pressed her lips against his temple and gave his shoulder a small squeeze – as Benji leaned off of her and pressed a sloopy kiss against Jack's opposite cheek.

"Be good, Peedg," Benji said. "I love you. I proud too."

Jack snorted and gave the little boy a smile.

"OK," Oliva said and nudged Jack's shoulder. "Com'on, get going. Don't make this more of a production."

He nodded. "Bye," he offered quietly.

"See you soon," she corrected him rather than the 'goodbye'. She didn't think any of them dealt too well with goodbyes. "On Wednesday. And you call as soon as you've landed and you've found the Kormans, OK?"

He nodded. "Yeah."

Olivia clutched Benji a bit tighter to her side as Jack moved over to the line and handed the woman there his boarding pass and ID for her to check and she waved him in. The little boy stayed quiet as they continued to watch Jack move along the small line of people waiting to get through security at the time of day on a Saturday. He glanced their way a couple times but then seemed to think better of it and went back to examining the checkpoint he was heading for.

Olivia could see him reading the signs and listening to the one TSA officer who was barking orders out at the travelers. As Jack reached the security scanners, she watched as he first removed his jacket, zip hoodie, belt, cap and shoes and placed them in bins and on the conveyer belt of the scanner. Then he fumbled around with his backpack – pulling out his laptop – and then as another officer came over and looked at his skateboard and said something, he unclipped it off the backpack and put it on the belt to travel through the scanner solo.

She could see the tension in Jack's body as the then waited to go through the xray scanner himself. She hoped that nothing cropped up or Jack didn't give enough attitude that they had reason to pull him aside or pat him down. She wasn't sure how he'd handle being touched – especially if it was by some of the burly looking officers manning the checkpoint he was going through.

Eventually he got waved forward and she saw him take the stance with his arms above his head and his legs spread. But then he someone must've said something to him – because she saw his head turn and then watched as Jack hopped around a bit and tried to hike up his sagging pants. She had told him to wear a pair of his new jeans on the flight – but he hadn't listened. That time, though, with the pant adjustment, it looked like the scan did what it needed to do and he disappeared through the opening.

She could just barely see the top of his head then but could tell he was waiting for his belongings to come through the other side of the scanner. The movement that followed – it was clear he was getting redressed as his things arrived. Then finally she saw his head pop up a bit more like he was standing on his tippy-toes and checking to see if they were still there. She was glad she was. He was looking for them – for her - so that was exactly where she was supposed to be in that moment. She held up her hand in the hopes he could see it and hiked Benji up her side a bit more too.

"Wave to Peedg," she told the little boy who waved his own hand a little sadly and clung to her.

Jack had seen them though and his hand popped up in a wave too – before she saw some more movement as he disappeared out of sight to go and look for his gate. It felt a little strange him leaving – to officially be left alone with Benji in a different way than before.

"Now what?" Benji asked quietly.

She shook her head with a bit of a shrug. "I don't know, Benj. Now what?"


	152. Chapter 152

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia pulled the door to the daycare in as the locking mechanism buzzed and the administrator allowed her entrance.

Her head had been churning since she'd gotten the call only minutes ago that there was a problem with Benji upstairs. She'd just been grateful that she'd been at the precinct when her phone rang. She'd been out on a case all morning and had barely managed to sit at her desk when she did pick up the phone – and had immediately said she'd be right up.

Part of her wanted to believe that this was going to be something very simple. Maybe Benji had decided that the slices of cucumber that he'd insisted she put in his lunch box for him that day had become slimy and he had been putting on a bit of a show for his teacher and the daycare helpers. But at the same time she knew that they wouldn't be calling her about something as easy to manage as that.

Olivia knew that this was likely really going to be a test of how Benji had been coping in Jack's absence. She'd thought he'd been doing OK. Though, she'd been doing her best to keep him distracted.

After leaving the airport on Saturday, they'd headed over to the Fire Museum. That activity had definitely distracted the little boy from the fact that his uncle had just left on an airplane. Benji had gazed in wide-eyed wonderment at the big red 'fire trucks' and related artifacts dating back to the 18th century. He'd been particularly drawn to the hand-pumped engine and a horse-drawn ladder wagon with a model of a horse attached to it. Though, they'd had some back-and-forth about whether they were actually fire trucks or not. She thought he'd eventually believed her that they were – they were red and had buckets and hoses after-all. But it had boggled his little mind a bit. Not that the debate about whether or not they were in-fact fire trucks had dissuaded him from wanting to climb onto and play in all of them. Unfortunately that wasn't an option.

The only play-on option available was a replica of the cab of a current FDNY fire truck. After getting to see and touch the real thing before, Olivia wasn't sure the clear photo-op gimmick would be much of a draw. But Benji had still been thrilled to sit up on the cab and turn the wheel while making siren noises and vrooming noises for nearly half-an-hour. She'd actually had to ask him to move several times so that other people – adults – could have their turn taking pictures of themselves decked on in the firefighter dress-up gear left in the area while they sat behind the wheel.

Benji hadn't been too upset when he'd been asked to move, though. There was a model of a Dalmatian sitting in the little area behind the cab. It had been named Spotter and had several special missions he'd completed by the time they'd left the area. Even more exciting, though, there'd been lots of dials and gauges and buttons and valves along the side of the truck for him to look at and pretend to push and explain to her exactly what they were all for. Most of them seemed to be related to measuring levels of danger for the Rescue Bots to decide if they needed to go to the rescue. He'd even had her dig Heatwave out of her purse so he could hold the toy up to the gauges for him to decide if they needed to go on a Transformer mission. Apparently they had reached the point they had – and Benji had dragged them tearing into the next exhibit hall.

There'd been a female volunteer in there with actual firefighter gear. As usual with strangers, Benji had played shy at first. Though, Olivia could tell he wanted to try it on. She'd eventually managed to coax him over but he'd hid behind her legs and kept his finger looped into a beltloop on her waist while she talked to the woman. He'd finally managed to whisper out that he'd tried on a real firemen's helmet at a real fire station before – and the volunteer had gently asked if he'd like to try on a real fireman's jacket and real fireman boots too. He'd gazed and cowered a bit but had nodded and Olivia had helped him get into the gear.

He looked completely ridiculous – but completely adorable in the oversized get-up. The boots went almost up to his crotch and the coat hung to the ground. And, just like at the fire station, the heavy helmet tipped and dipped on his little head. But Benji was completely over the moon to get to wear the outfit. And, Olivia had been more than happy for the photo opportunity. She thought the woman might have trouble getting Benji out of the gear. But after her Little Fox realized that he wanted to look at the rest of the gear and firefighter tools in the gallery – and that he could hardly walk – let alone run – in the big boots, he'd allowed them to be removed from him so they could look around the exhibition hall. By the time they'd left it he'd decided that they needed an axe, hacksaw, halligan tool and smoke mask for in the apartment – because it was what real firefighters had and he needed them for his Rescue Bot firefighter training. She'd told him she doubted they'd have those necessities in the gift shop but they could see – while really hoping they didn't have any sort of plastic children's replicas that she might be expected to buy. She thought she wasn't above telling him that he'd have to wait until Christmas next year when he could ask Santa for these firefighting necessities. Either that or his birthday. Maybe at least Halloween.

Benji's favorite exhibit hall, though, had been the fire simulator. He'd loved getting to feel the hot door in the mocked up apartment and to tell her oh-so-very seriously, "There's a fire in there, Mommy. We don't go into that room." And he'd near expertly spotted the fire and burn hazards in the living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. It made her think that maybe there was some educational value to all the Rescue Bot and Fireman Sam viewing she'd been enduring lately. But what Benji really loved was when they reached the bedroom area with the volunteer there who struck a button to send theatrical smoke filling the room.

Benji was filled with near glee that they were in 'a real fire'. Olivia wasn't sure that was something to be getting excited about. The first time they did the simulation and the smoke alarm went off, he'd declared, "FIRE! FIRE! We need to put it out!" and had gone charging back to towards the kitchen like he intended to get some water to throw at the invisible flames. The volunteer had managed to retrieve them and do her little spiel about what to do in the case of a fire. Benji had especially loved the 'stop, drop and roll' instructions, though he'd been disappointed that Mommy Fox didn't have any interest in rolling around on the museum floor with him. At least she didn't the first four times they did the simulation. On the fifth time through it – she'd decided to endure the practice exercise, otherwise she thought they may never actually get to leave the exhibit hall since she wasn't getting her proper firefighter training done and wouldn't be able to pass her Rescue Bot promotion test. And, that was very serious business in Benji's mind.

After the volunteer had instructed them on how to properly escape a fire – which involved crawling down a fake hallway to the exhibit's exhibit (another activity that Olivia's knees could've done without though she eventually participated) – they then ended up in a 'emergency meeting spot' and were provided with plastic phones to pretend to call 911, which had a recorded operator asking them relevant questions. Benji had decided he was talking to a real firefighter. But he'd been so entranced with the whole exercise she'd made sure to stress to him repeatedly that you only call 911 in emergencies and not to just talk to firefighters or Rescue Bots – that if you're talking to them on the phone all the time, it's distracting them from dealing with real emergencies. She really hoped she didn't have some incident of him calling the number. It's the kind of thing she wouldn't live down if it did happen. Not to mention, she'd be mortified about it all-together.

After going through the simulation multiple times, Benji had finally decided – with her urging – that they'd trained enough for one day. So they were provided with more materials in to create their escape route planning of the apartment. Olivia had politely taken it, thinking that Benji might be interested in doing the activity when they got home. But at that moment, he was far more interested in the fire safety coloring and activity book they had in the room. She actually had sat helping him with it for quite a while before she had flipped through the number of activity pages left and suggested they take it home to finish instead.

So she thought she'd done a pretty good job at distracting him and that Jack's departure was all but forgotten by the time they got back to the apartment. But soon after getting in the door, he'd informed her he wanted a 'firefighter lunch.' When she'd asked what firefighter's ate for lunch, he'd thought about it for a few seconds before declaring confidently, "Grill cheez and tam-it-toe soup!" And, that was when she knew that she hadn't soothed him in Jack's departure as much as she had hoped.

Olivia knew that grilled cheese and tomato soup were comfort food for both Benji and Jack. It was something that they both near equally requested. She'd managed to glean from Benji that it was something his great-grandmother had made for him – near daily. She suspected that the woman had reached the point that she no longer remembered the frequency she was serving the meal or they were the only simplistic items her mind could manage throwing together at that point in her decline. It made Olivia sad – for her and for the boys. But she supposed at least it meant they'd been being fed at that point with items that had something that vaguely resembled having a nutritional value. Still, even its request from the little boy made her know he was having an off-day and was thinking about his uncle – and maybe the farm and their whole situation in general. He just didn't know how to verbalize it. At least not then.

The verbalization had started to set in on Sunday. They'd gotten through circle-time at the library OK. He'd picked his books for the week and this video for the afternoon. But nearly as soon as they'd gotten in the door from that, he'd asked when Jack would be arriving for his usual Sunday visit – if he hadn't been there since Friday night.

"Jack isn't coming over today, Little Fox," she'd told him. "Jack's away doing his internship interview in California. So he can't come."

Benji had just looked at her like that was completely new information to him – even though it had been reaffirmed to him countless times by that point. "So Peedg be here later?" he'd asked.

She'd shaken her head. "No, Benj. He won't be over today. We'll see Peedg Wednesday night when he gets home. We'll go meet him at the airport and he'll come sleep here for the night so we can hear about his trip."

That had appeased him for the moment and Finding Nemo had appeased him for part of the afternoon – until she'd made the mistake of asking him what he wanted for dinner and presenting him with some options.

"Jee-Peedg picks Sunday tupper," he'd informed her.

She'd rubbed at her eyebrow. "He does. But J.P. isn't here, Benj. So we can pick whatever we want," she'd said.

"No. Jee-Peedg picks good tupper."

She'd sighed. She could see the pending meltdown looming at that point. But she'd just made pasta since that was what Jack requested for Sunday dinner about 70 per cent of the time anyways. Though, getting Benji to eat when Jack wasn't there had been a chore – and then getting him to bed had been a bigger chore.

The crying and anxieties about Jack being gone 'forever' only seemed to increase as Benji's fatigue set in and even getting the teen on the phone hadn't calmed him. It had become clear then that until Jack actually did land back in the city, she was going to have to be giving constant reassurances that Jack hadn't left him again – he'd just taken a short trip and would be back. But time was different in the eyes of a four-year-old and Jack hadn't established the track record for these kinds of absences no matter how many reassurances she and the teen were giving the little boy. So she suspected that the current call from the daycare had more to do with that than anything else.

"We're sorry to bother you," the administrator sighed at her as soon as she stepped inside the door.

"It's OK," Olivia assured. She was actually glad they called in a way. She didn't want to make it a habit – and she knew she wouldn't always be available to come running. But the reality was that part of the reason she had so wanted Benji to end up in the precinct daycare was exactly for situations like this - so she could be there.

"Normally, we wouldn't call unless it was a real emergency or discipline problem," Mrs. Coutinhou said as she started to lead her down the hallway to the large group room that the children were served their meals in, took their naps in and generally gathered for events and activities that involved the whole daycare rather than individual classes. "But with Benji having just been here barely a week …" she sighed, "and he just seems so upset."

Olivia nodded. "It's OK," she offered again. "What happened?"

They hadn't really given her an explanation on the phone – beyond saying that Benji was physically fine but that they thought she should likely come up as soon as she could. In the moment, she really hadn't needed or wanted more of an explanation than that. Just knowing that something was wrong and her Little Fox needed her was enough to send her straight to the elevators. But in the few minutes of cool-down time she'd had on the way to the daycare, she definitely thought she could get a briefing on what she was walking into.

"We aren't entirely sure," Mrs. Coutinhou had shrugged. "His teacher said he seemed a little off this morning and she was having trouble getting him to focus. He wasn't interested in participating in the activities with the rest of the class."

Olivia rubbed her eyebrow at that. It was sounding a bit like the usual regurgitation of Benji's problems at the other preschool. She hoped they hadn't called her upstairs just to tell her that her Little Fox was a poor student and for her to go through that discussion and battle all over again already.

"Well, his uncle … Jack … he's out of the city right now," she offered. "So that threw off his routine a little this weekend. He's been a little out of sorts. But Jack will be back on Wednesday and I can talk to Benji about … not letting his anxieties disrupt the whole class."

"Oooh. Oh. No," Mrs. Coutinhou said and stopped short in the hallway. "I didn't mean that. We're used to dealing with all sorts of anxieties and classroom disruptions. I was just trying to give you some context off what the morning had looked like since we aren't entirely sure what's upset him so."

Olivia examined her almost a little surprised she wasn't been chastised for her child's behavior but eventually managed another nod. "OK," she said. "Well … umm … I guess I'll just remind him that Jack will be back soon and try to calm him down a bit for you."

"Oh, he seems calm enough," Mrs. Coutinhou said as they approached the door to the room but as they stepped inside she pointed to the back corner. "We just can't get him to come out from under the table."

Olivia's gaze followed the pointed finger and fell on what looked like a water table off in the far corner of the room. Under it – huddled all the way into the corner, his back facing the rest of the room – she could see a little body that clearly belonged to her Little Fox.

She sighed and started to make her way over but had only managed to get about seven steps into the room before she heard a voice tease, "They calling SVU up when a kid has a meltdown now."

Olivia looked towards the voice. She saw an adult man sitting there with a little girl who so clearly resembled him, it was obviously his daughter. She recognized him. He was a detective in the building. But she wouldn't say she knew him. Though, over the past few years, she wouldn't say she really knew or associated with anyone anymore.

She was conscious of the fact she'd become more closed off to the work colleagues aspect of her life. People in her age bracket had outside lives and commitments. They were going home to their spouses and children. They weren't that interested in catching a drink or meal or a game of darts or pool after work anymore – or at least not in the same way as when they'd be patrol or in her younger days as a detective. But the group of them in SVU just weren't the same anymore either. The social camaraderie wasn't there as much since Elliot left and Nick and Amanda came in. Since Munch started working nights and avoiding it all. So she buried herself in work or she went home alone – rather than being reminded again about most people actually having managed to figure out how to balance life, family – relationships – and the job while she didn't have any of that. At least she hadn't until a few months ago.

"Only when it's my kid, Cormac," she put to him. His name was about as much as she could come up with. Though, she knew he was a detective who worked in robbery. She'd had a few interactions with him over the years. She'd seen him around. She'd probably occasionally made chit-chat with him.

He looked at her a little confused for a moment before glancing in Benji's direction and then settling his gaze back on her. "Oh. Sorry. I didn't know," he said.

The statement sort of hit her. As much as she sort of felt like she was being talked about these days – or even for the past year or two with everything that had gone on with SVU – clearly everyone wasn't talking. Or they really didn't care or weren't that interested. People really only were so interested in other people's lives anyways. And her life really wasn't that interesting to be chatting about. So that offered her some comfort – Cormac hadn't heard. He didn't seem to know or care or be batting his eyes about it in a second-thought. Though, also with having Benji in the precinct daycare, she also knew that her business was that much more public. Word would get around slowly and people who did care would know. Still, Olivia wasn't really sure she cared that much anymore. They could talk if it meant she still had Benji.

"I didn't mean to upset him," Cormac interjected when she hadn't said anything.

She raised her eyebrow at that. Cormac had done something? That would make sense. She was sure even an unknown man being in the daycare for lunch likely would've made Benji leery. But if the detective had actually tried to talk to him or interact with him in some way – that could've spelt disaster. Or at least the hiding Little Fox that was in the corner at the moment.

"What happened?" she asked.

Cormac gave a small shrug. "I was just eating lunch with Lilly. Your boy was acting a little squirrely," he said, in such a cop assessment of the situation, and he gestured down to the complete opposite end of the table where the family-style lunch had been taking place and where there was now a vacant seat. "He knocked over his juice. I moved to grab it for him before it really spilled and all of a sudden he's making noises and then off over there like a shot."

Olivia gave a small nod and rubbed at her eyebrow. She thought she'd stressed to the staff that Benji wasn't that comfortable around unknown men. But she supposed they couldn't exactly ban parents for visiting their kids. It was part of the perks of actually getting your child into the daycare program. She wouldn't begrudge any of the parents that. She knew she'd definitely be taking advantage of being able to go up and see Benji when she could and some of the various community activities that daycare had. Her and Benji were both going to have to work at accepting that a lot of the parents visiting the daycare were going to be men. It was an NYPD precinct daycare. As many women who had joined the ranks – it was still male dominated. And, dads wanted to get time with their kids just as much as any mom would. At least the good ones.

Still, she wished that maybe they'd positioned Benji a little bit differently. Though, it did look they'd put him as far away as possible from Cormac while still letting her Little Fox eat with the group. So, she supposed they were trying to make the best of the situation for all parties. It just didn't look like it had worked out as neatly as maybe they might've hoped.

"Ah. OK. He just … doesn't like strangers," she allowed.

Cormac eyed her for a second. "Yeah. Sorry. I didn't mean to upset him on you … or the staff."

She gave him a thin smile. "It's OK. I'll get him sorted out."

Olivia walked the rest of the way to the back corner of the room and bent down to look at Benji.

"Hi Little Fox," she offered but he gave no response. She could see that he was still shaking. So she lowered herself to the floor and sat on the ground – looking at him again. "Are we hiding?" He still didn't respond. "You want to look at Mommy so we can talk about what scared you?"

Benji just wrapped his arms around his knees tighter at that, curling himself even more into a ball and rubbing his cheek against his knees – still not looking at her, still hidden so far under the table and into the corner that she'd have to nearly crawl under it and forcibly remove him, if she was going to get him out involuntarily.

"Grag here," he whispered shakily.

Olivia watched him at that. She could see the tremble in him and she glanced over at Cormac again. She could see he was watching them. He likely thought she was mad at him. But it really didn't sound like he'd done anything beyond try to prevent a bigger mess. He wouldn't have known that trying to help Benji – and the staff – would've created the reaction it did.

Olivia tried to dredge up her memories of Greg – what he had looked like. It was so long ago. It was really a faded vision of a young man in his 20s. Shadowy. She thought most of her mind's eye was likely just filling in memories of Jay's appearance, which was becoming more and more based on the teenaged boy she had in front of her now. She really didn't know she knew what Jay or Greg had looked like that lifetime ago. But she really didn't think either of them looked anything like Cormac.

Still, the comment from her little boy made her wonder if something about the exchange had been triggering for Benji? Something had startled him enough that he saw his great-uncle? Something had sent him running and hiding? The reality then set in that running and hiding – in a corner, under tables – that was likely something her Little Fox had done in that farmhouse as he tried to get out of the way of his uncle. Would it have been hiding away from his mother too? Would it have become more frequent and scarier after Jack had gone away to school and he no longer had his uncle to protect him and deflect Greg's attentions away from the little boy? It must've.

It struck her and it broke her heart. Her little boy was literally cowering under the table in a corner – terrified to come out and barely responsive even to her. The extent of what her boys had endured was slowly becoming starker and starker and as it came out the more she worried for them and the more she wanted to fix it. The more she understood it was going to take months and years to repair their wounds and scars. Some of them would likely never go away.

"That's not your Uncle Greg, sweetheart," she said quietly and shuffled her ass a bit closer to the table. "It's Lilly's daddy. He just came up to have lunch with her. He didn't mean to scare you. He's a detective like me. He's a police officer."

Benji rocked a bit at that. "He yell," he said quietly.

Olivia gave another glance in Cormac's direction. She thought either him or the staff would've mentioned that piece of vital information. So she thought Benji's interpretation of the events were a little skewed. She was starting to suspect that Cormac likely did say something as he stood and reached to right the spilled juice. Would that have been something Benji would've been screamed at about by Greg? Or even hit? Would the movement by the detective and an utterance he'd let out been enough to set off her little boy? It must've been. Because he'd been triggered and he'd been set off. And, his abilities to cope were just too depleted right now with him stewing about Jack's absence and now they were all paying the price. It didn't bode well for if the teen did get offered the internship.

"I don't think he yelled, Benji. I think he just wanted to stop your juice from spilling too much. He didn't want you to get it all over you or any of the other kids," she offered and put her hand out to touch his back. He flinched a bit under her touch and again her heart broke a tiny bit more. Her little boy shouldn't be jumping under her affections. He should've never had any reason to believe that touches could be bad. Not touches from her.

"Spilling bad," he mumbled.

She shook her head. "No, sweetheart. Spilling is not bad. It's an accident and accidents happen. Spills just have to be cleaned up."

"I bad," Benji mumbled again.

"No, Little Fox. You are not bad," she said with a firmness even though inside she was feeling her emotions again go to mush. For all the stoic nature she could force herself to pull off at work – her little boy had a way of making her tear up like no other, in ways she hadn't experienced before. "No one is upset with you. Not me. Not Lilly's daddy. Not your teachers. We all just want you to come out from under there."

"Peedg mad," he offered quietly.

"Peedg is definitely not mad," she said. "Peedg doesn't even know you spilled. And Peedg spills all the time. He's very clumsy, isn't he?"

Benji gave a little nod. It was a word she'd been teaching him and that they'd gotten into the happy of applying to his uncle. Jack was always sloping and just generally leaving a mess in his wake. Not to mention, he was always tripping over his own feet and bumping into things. It was actually a little amazing he was as good of skateboarder as he was – or at least that he didn't get injured more often. Because from what she saw at home – he hardly knew how to stand on a flat, motionless surface, let alone to be on something with wheels and be doing jumps and flips in the air and off ramps.

She glanced at her watch. It'd barely be 9:30 a.m. out in California. Jack was likely just starting his interview process of that day. Probably flying off some quarterpipe out there. But she didn't think Benji needed to know the details of the time difference or what his uncle was likely up to at the moment.

"Little Fox, why don't you come out? And I think we're going to go home early today so we can be there when Jack calls and tells us about his interview. We want to be ready for him, right?"

Benji gave her a little glance. "Peedg don't wanna talk to me," he offered.

She shook her head. "Peedg always wants to talk to you – and you know what? I think you're going to be the first person he calls as soon as he gets out of that interview. He's going to want to tell you about how it went so much. So I think we better make sure we're home and ready to answer the phone and talk when he calls."

Benji rubbed his face against his hands on his knees some more. "We go home?" he asked.

She nodded. She was sure her captain would love that. But right now getting her child out from under the table and comforting him was more important than anything she could think of that she had on the go at work that afternoon. Her little boy was the priority. He needed to be talked to and he needed to be comforted. She wasn't going to accomplish that sitting on the floor there and the problem wasn't going to be solved if she got him out from under the table and then left him in the daycare for the rest of the afternoon. In this instance – they could try again in the morning: after she'd talked to Benji and after she'd briefed the staff on what had really happened and discussed potential remedies for going forward.

"We're going to go home, Benji," she said.

He looked at her more then with big watery eyes that some how looked so sad and so empty at the same time. But he slowly unwrapped himself and crawled out from under the table, crawling into her lap. She pulled him tight against her and brushed at his hair, placing a long, firm kiss against his temple.

"I love you, Little Fox," she assured him. "It's going to be OK."

She hoped she wasn't offering him false promises.


	153. Chapter 153

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"So then the heg-hog get in the mitten, Pedge," Benji recited to Jack over the phone in his excited recollection of his far less eventful day at preschool than the day before.

Olivia glanced up from grabbing a couple minutes on the computer while her little boy chatted at his uncle – before she got her chance to grill Jack about how his actual interview and portfolio showing had gone that day. She'd expected Jack to grab her on the Skype account again that night – like the night before. He should've seen her online – it was part of the reason she had the computer open - they were waiting for him to appear. But he'd just called her phone instead. Maybe he didn't feel sitting in front of the computer or maybe he just hadn't been able to hook up to the family's internet in a place with any privacy that night.

Benji didn't seem to care that he couldn't see his uncle – even though he'd been pretty ecstatic to get to see Jack's face on the computer monitor the night before. He'd needed that then. But that night, he was calmer and he'd just grabbed the phone and trotted over to the couch instead. Now he had his feet in the air as he lay on his back and gave the teen a rather animated retelling of The Mitten.

"Then the owl get in. AND THEN THE FOX GET IN, Pedge. And I the fox because I a fox. And they had to make lots of room for me to crawl in because I have sharp teeth."

Olivia didn't think Jack was contributing much to the conversation. She hadn't heard any muddled voice coming over the speaker on the opposite end of the line. Even if Jack had wanted to speak – Benji was talking at such a million-miles-an-hour, she didn't think the teen would've been able to get a word in edge-wise. There were just not gaps of silence. And, it had been going on for a bit now.

She sighed and decided to give Jack a bit of a break. He likely was tired and wound-up after the interview. He had been the night before when they'd spoken to him after his skating demonstration and the simulated camp exercises he'd had to do with other candidates and pretend campers. Though, the morning had likely been more low-key than that in its physical demands, she was sure being in the actual interview had put him under stress. Not to mention, it had been his first portfolio showing outside of a classroom setting ever and he had been more than a little worked-up about that before leaving on the trip.

She walked over to the couch. "OK, Little Fox, give Mommy a chance to talk to Peedg. I want you to go and pick up your toys and then go change into your PJs, please. Put your clothes in the hamper. Then you can come back and say good night to your uncle before we do storytime."

Benji huffed at her and rolled on the couch so his back was to her. "Mommy making me pick up toys," he whispered none too quietly into the phone.

There was a slight silence after that before he rolled back over and held out the phone.

"Peedg says I hafta," he huffed again and bounced on the edge of the couch with some displeasure before nearly launching himself off it.

She snorted but took the phone and pointed to the little area next to the couch that had become Benji's tornado zone. "All of that into your bins, Benj," she instructed again before rearranging some of the misaligned cushions from the little boy's acrobatics and then sitting herself down.

"Hi Jack," she greeted.

Olivia really wanted to hear how things went that day. She'd been worrying for him and thinking about him a good chunk of the day – almost to the point of distraction. There'd actually been one point where Nick had waved his hand in her face to pull her out of his lost-in-thought limbo and had asked her where she'd gone. She'd just shrugged at the time. But it was a lot to think about. She wanted it to go well for Jack. Still, with how Benji had been coping over the weekend and the day before – she knew there'd be challenges if the teen get the internship and decided to take it.

She still wasn't sure it would be the best choice for their family or where they were all at. But she didn't want to stifle Jack's dreams and ambitions. And, she was really trying not to get too far ahead of herself. As much as she hoped it would go well for Jack – he was up against lots of competition from all over the country and all over the world. It was really just an honor and a privilege that he even got selected for the interview. There'd be other candidates with far more experience in all sorts of areas than him. So it was likely just best for all of them to look at the trip out there and the interview process as a learning experience – for none of them to get their hopes too far up but while still going into it as prepared as possible. Even with that perspective, though, Olivia wanted to know everything he would tell her about it. But she'd learned the night before that – as usual – with Jack, being too interested just shut him down. So she was going to try to play it cooler tonight and hope to glean a little bit more information from him.

"Hey," he put back to her rather meekly. She didn't think that was a good sign.

"How you doing?" she asked, but then glanced towards Benji as he tossed one of his robots halfway across the living room and clearly missed the toy bin he was aiming for. She snapped her fingers at him until he looked at her and sternly shook her head. He huffed again but walked over and picked the toy up and more gently put it into the bin – though it still dropped into the plastic container with a clatter. Getting him to bed that night was going to be a joy – she could already tell.

"'Kay, I guess," Jack replied.

She reflected on that for a beat. She didn't much like that response either. He didn't seem excited. He didn't seem worked up in any way – good or bad. He sounded far too reserved. But maybe he was just tired.

"How'd it go?" she tried – hoping it wouldn't shut him down.

"Guess it was OK," he allowed.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "Yeah? What kind of questions did they ask you?"

She could almost feel him shrugging from the other side of the country at that and initially didn't expect him to answer.

"I don't know," Jack mumbled a bit. "Stuff about leadership qualities and if I'd worked with kids. They asked if I'd ever been to camp before so that sucked. And they asked if I have like first aid and CPR and all this other random crap like lifeguarding and boat and water safety. So I sucked there too."

She sighed. Jack not having experiences of some of the other kids who would've had better childhoods or more opportunities growing up had been a bit of a concern for her. But Gecko had assured her that this skateboard company often focused on underprivileged kids. Jack certainly wasn't as badly off as some – but the types of jobs, experiences, activities and training he'd had on his resume was likely pale in comparison to other young adults vying for the internships.

"Well, you've done that mentor training and instructor training with Funky's – did you stress that to them?" she asked.

"Yeah," he mumbled again.

"Those were likely just general questions to get an idea of your foundations, Jack," she tried to assure. But part of her knew if he didn't have a good foundation – even if he answered the rest of the questions well and had an impressive portfolio, it might not have been enough to pull him through. "What sorts of questions did they ask about what you'd actually be doing on the internship?"

"I don't know," he sighed. "Stuff about what I was studying and my marks. They said you aren't just like an intern that you have some counselor duties and chores and shit around camp too. They gave all these little like examples of if something was happening with another intern or a camper or like a supervisor what I'd do. And like why I want the internship and what I think I'd bring to it and to the 'camp family'. And they wanted me to give them like a five sentence biography for myself. It was weird. I don't know. They asked lots of stuff. … A lot. They said it was a set list of questions they were asking everyone but then they were like – you only have three minutes to answer each question. And sometimes that wasn't enough and sometimes it was like way too much."

He didn't sound confident at all. She wasn't even entirely sure he had completely absorbed everything they'd been asking him. It was clear he'd never experienced an interview like that before. Jack hadn't really ever had to do any kind of interview for a job before. She'd tried to rehearse some answers with him and questions to expect – she knew Gecko had done the same. But he hadn't been that much of a willing participant. She actually got the impression that he'd sort of thought she was full of it in trying to prepare him. So part of her wanted to know the answers he'd given. But she thought that would be pushing him too far. He didn't sound like he much wanted to talk about any of it.

She watched as Benji zipped by her headed to the bedroom to change and knew they likely only had a couple minutes more to chat unless something in there distracted the little boy. She supposed that was always a possibility.

"Did you get a sense of what they thought of your portfolio?" she tried to press in an alternative direction.

She heard him sigh again – and there was a long pause. He clearly didn't like that question.

"I had put in one that was like an industrial concrete design. It was just supposed to be like … show I could do lots of stuff and had lots of ideas that went beyond like quarterpipes. But they seemed to get super hung up on it and were like saying they're a camp and they don't pour cement and shit. That you work in wood and stuff needs to be set up so it can be torn down and rearranged and moved and blah, blah, fucking blah. So I guess I picked shitty stuff to put in my portfolio."

Olivia let out her own sigh at that. She'd been no help in what to pick for his portfolio. That was something she knew absolutely nothing about. She'd told him to talk to Gecko. She told him to talk to some of his profs to get some recommendations and advice. But she wasn't really sure he'd spoken to either. Though, he'd certainly stressed and fiddled around with the portfolio for weeks and shown her various options and combinations. She'd pointed out some she liked – but that was mostly based on atheistic and not knowledge of architecture or skate park building.

The teen sounded so down about it. It wasn't even an agitated excitement of not being sure how it went. He seemed pretty self-defeated. Olivia knew if the interviewers had sensed that in the interview – if that was the front he'd presented to them, he won't likely have made any short-list. But she hoped that maybe Jack was a better interview than he thought. After-all – he'd made it into a decent school as a scholarship student. Surely he must've had to apply and interview at other schools and with other scholarship committees and other recruiters and admission officers. She knew he had moments where he could come off as personable and confident – even downright egoistical and cocky. But she wasn't getting any of that from him that night.

"I'm sorry it didn't go the way you wanted, Jack," she offered. "But I hope it didn't go as badly as you think. I'm sure it didn't."

She could feel the shrug again through the phone. "Yeah. I guess. I'm just not feeling very well. I wasn't feeling too well during the interview either. I guess … whatever …"

She rubbed at her eyebrow again. She thought he was likely using that as an excuse to make himself feel better about how it went. She hoped he hadn't created this 'not feeling well' as an illusion to self-sabotage when he'd even gone into the interview because he was nervous and second-guessing himself on if he wanted the summer internship at all.

He'd told her last night too that he wasn't feeling well. He'd said that he had a dull pain in his stomach. But he hadn't eaten and he'd been skating for a chunk of the day – and he had the interview and portfolio the next morning. She'd told him he'd likely pulled something from skating hard – and had then instructed him to get something to eat and to just try to rest and calm down. To not be overtired and a bundle of nerves going into the interview. She really thought it wasn't anything more than that. Nerves, stress, dealing with the time difference, being a way from home, being outside in the fresh air and skateboarding for half the day. If it wasn't that – it was likely the hot dog joint that they'd taken him to on Sunday in their explorations of the city, she'd thought.

They'd taken Jack out to Santa Monica the Sunday to let him see an apparently famous skatepark there and for him to get some practice in. They'd then walked along Venice Beach – which Jack had said had more terrifyingly weird people than all of New York – before spending some time on the Santa Monica Pier. Jack had gotten to go on a rollercoaster, which he'd seemed pretty pleased with. He'd never been on one before and had nearly as excitedly described it to her as Benji had been describing his day at preschool to Jack. She'd gotten a play-by-play of the ride. She clearly needed to get them out to Coney Island one weekend if a rollercoaster and little amusement park was that much of a thrill. Because the rollercoaster actually seemed to overshadow having seen the Pacific Ocean – though he did note that he'd seen that too and that it smelt. But not like in 'New York's ocean'. They'd then stopped at a hot dog joint before heading back to the house.

Jack had bragged to her about getting a jumbo dog that had been wrapped in bacon and topped off with mayo, hot mustard and chili peppers – before having tatter tots added to it and cheese melted over the top. He'd described it as one of the best things he'd ever eaten. But it had sounded to her like a stomach ache waiting to happen – and as far as Olivia was concerned, it had definitely happened.

She'd eaten her share of street meat over the years on the job – but the order (which Jack had allegedly eaten with a side of cheese fries and washed down with a ice cream float) sounded beyond over the top to her. And, considering after talking excitedly about his trip on Sunday night to lamenting about feeling ill on Monday night – she thought the teen was definitely playing for the indulgence. It definitely wasn't a meal of champions when he had a two-day interview process ahead of him. But 19-year-old boys didn't seem to always make the most intelligent decisions about … much of anything, she was learning even more starkly than she ever had on the job.

"I think you're likely just really overtired and stressed out, Jack," she tried to assure him again.

"I don't know. It still hurts. It's gotten worse," he mumbled at her.

"Jack, sweetheart, you likely pulled something and it probably does feel worse. Just give it a couple days."

"I haven't taken a crap since being here either," he informed her rather uncharacteristically. Jack and anything about his body was off-limits.

She almost had to laugh but instead just rolled her eyes. "That's pretty normal with travel. You're off your regular diet and your regular schedule. You're under stress. It happens. Get some fiber in you."

"Yeah," Jack said at a near whine. "I just … don't feel well, Olivia. Something feels … really off."

She sighed. It was hard to gauge what he was feeling from across the country. But she really felt like he was just creating excuses at this point to mask his disappointment with how things had gone in the interview process. She wasn't going to get too worked up about some constipation and indigestion by the sounds of it.

"Well … you'll be on the plane and headed home in the morning. So you can rest then and get back into your routine after you land."

"Yeah …" Jack sighed. It clearly wasn't the answer he wanted to hear but she wasn't sure what else he wanted her to offer. Maybe she could blow a kiss through the receiver? Benji seemed to feel kisses made all his bumps and bruises feel better. Unfortunately teenagers weren't that simple.

"Have you got your stuff together and packed so you aren't rushed in the morning?" she asked, trying to change the subject a bit.

"Yeah," he mumbled again but then lowered his voice to a whispered disgust. "They want to take me out to some Japanese restaurant for dinner, though."

She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow again. "Well, Jack, I'm sure they'll have something other than sushi on the menu," she told him with a touch of firmness. She knew how he was with trying new foods. She's suggested Japanese before but he'd turned up his nose.

Jack made a sound. "It's not even that. I don't even think I can eat anything …"

"Just … be polite. It's likely something the family enjoys and they want to share it with you. Order some teriyaki or something. Tempura. You'll be fine."

"I'm just … not hungry …" Jack mumbled again with a clear sadness to his voice.

Olivia sighed again. She could almost feel his disappointment radiating across the country. And his disappointment was hers. She wished he felt better about the whole situation.

Benji came bounding back into the room and hopped in front of her in a Superman pose – clearly ready to claim the phone back now that he was dressed in his Super Monkey pajamas that she thought were beyond immensely appropriate for him. Her Little Fox stuck out his hand in a clear demand that he was ready for his turn again.

She gave him a thin smile but then shifted her attention back to the teen on the other end of the line. She could almost picture Jack flopped in a sulk on a bed in a guest bedroom with the door closed and the room dark – not enjoying the California sun or the last evening of his adventure.

"OK … well … just try to eat something, Jack. Be polite. Maybe getting some veggies and rice … maybe some tea into you will help you feel a bit better."

"Yeah …" he mumbled even more softly and defeated than before.

"OK … sweetheart … Benji's here to say good night. So I'm going to let you go. But we'll meet you at the airport tomorrow. … Try not to worry about how things went too much. It's over now. You did the best you could – and I'm sure it didn't go as badly as you feel right now. We can talk about it more tomorrow … if you want …"

"Yeah …" he allowed again quietly.

"OK …" she said letting out another sigh. "Night, Jack. Love you."

"Yeah … night …" he muttered in a voice that she swore was near tears. But she just handed the phone to Benji, even though she wanted to try to cheer him up a bit more. She didn't think she'd be too successful at it, though. Maybe Benji would have more luck.

"PEEDG!" he near screamed into the phone as she returned it to his hand. "So then a BEAR gets into the mitten …"


	154. Chapter 154

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia sighed and held out her hand. "Just leave it with me and give us a few minutes alone," she put to the doctor in a stern tone.

She could tell that he was losing patience with her – and more especially with Jack. But she was losing patience with the doctor. None of them needed that at the moment.

"You realize that we're getting the OR ready for him – and if he isn't going to sign this form we have lots of other …"

"I DO REALIZE THAT," she snapped back at him with enough force that Benji squirmed in her lap and snuggled his face into her chest like it was them who'd just had a voice raised at them – and not the other way around. She met the doctor's eyes directly. "Leave it with me – and by the time the nurse comes in her to prep him, I'll have it signed for you," she said.

The doctor made a huffing noise at her but handed her the clipboard and pulled back their curtain and left in as loud of matter as possible given that he could only pull the flimsy material back into place in disgust.

She sighed and looked back at the teen. He was staring at the ceiling in glassy-eyed defiance – doing his best to make his view known while not participating in the conversation. The reality was he wasn't up to participating in the conversation. That defiant stare was likely taking nearly everything he had left in him at the moment.

Olivia felt bad. She felt awful actually. She was feeling like she'd just epically failed another test of parenthood. But she knew she probably wasn't feeling half as bad as Jack – at least not physically.

She'd known as soon as she saw him coming out of Arrivals that she'd made a mistake in spending the past two nights telling him that him feeling 'off' was just nerves. That his abdominal pains were likely just related to the food he was eating combined with the stress of the interview and travel. And, the excitement she had about seeing him – about getting to watch Benji's glee at seeing him back, about hearing more about the interview and his trip – had quickly faded.

Jack was guarding his right side as he walked towards them. She wouldn't even really call it walking. It was more of a hobble as he slumped forward with the movements like each step was causing him pain. As they closed the gap she'd realized that most of the color was gone from his face. He was near grey – and as she reached out to touch him, he jerked away. But her hand pursued him anyways and felt the clamminess spreading over his forehead that seemed to be radiating with fever.

"Are you OK?" she'd asked him, having hardly exchanged pleasantries and Jack just wincing away from Benji's excited jumps at him in greeting. He didn't pick up the little boy – he barely looked at him or the scribbled 'Welcome Home JP' poster that he'd made for his uncle.

"I don't know," Jack mumbled at her. "It's just the flu or food poisoning or something. I told you I wasn't feeling well."

She nodded – already feeling bad for not having listened to him when he'd previously expressed that to her. It was clear he wasn't feeling well. It actually looked like it was probably more than just not feeling well - but she was giving herself a few minutes to assess exactly how badly off he was.

"Well, let me take the bag for you," she'd said. "We'll get you home so you can rest."

A sure sign that he really wasn't feeling well, he hadn't protested her taking control of the suitcase – and had apparently interpreted her saying she'd take his bag as her taking his backpack and he'd let it slide to the floor from his shoulders. She looked at him for a moment. But then picked it up and put it on her own back. It was almost surprisingly heavy.

"Are you still having stomach pains?" she asked, trying to be casual.

He shrugged but kept his elbow guarding his side and the other hand resting against his belly.

"I don't know," he said. "Something happened when we were landing. Now it just feels weird."

She looked at him more at that. "What do you mean something happened?"

He shrugged again. "Like I farted but didn't fart …"

"Like the pressure in your abdomen changed … released?" she asked.

"I guess …"

"And it doesn't hurt now?" she pushed.

"I don't know. It just feels weird right now," he said a little more annoyed. "Can we just go home … ?"

She didn't like what he was saying. Her concern was growing. But he wasn't whithering on the ground in pain – so that had to mean something. Or at least that's what she'd hoped for the moment.

"OK," she allowed. "Let's take a cab …"

Jack groaned at her. "Transit will be faster. It's like rush hour …"

She shook her head. "Nah. Tail end – and everyone's leaving the city, not heading into it at this time of day," she said.

The reality was she didn't really feel like dropping the money on a cab but with the way Jack looked, she wasn't sure he'd make it on transit – even if he was just battling the flu. But her hope that it might still be the flu – or food poisoning - had completely ceased shortly after they were in the cab. The driver had barely gotten out of them out of the airport before Jack leaned over and vomited on his shoes and the floor the cab. It was mostly liquid – almost a bile. But it didn't look like anything she'd expect to see out someone throwing up with the stomach flu or food posining.

"Peedg pew-ked," Benji informed her, wrinkling up his nose and trying to shuffle across the bench closer to her - and away from the mess.

"I can see that," she commented quietly and reached over the little boy to put her hand on Jack's shoulder. "Are you OK?" she asked. He was still hunched over at that point and spitting more out on the floor – clearly trying to get the taste out of his mouth.

"You going to be paying to get that cleaned up?" the cabbie shot back at her. But she just gave him a dirty look. She didn't need to deal with that bullshit at the moment. She was sure it wasn't the first time someone had puked in his vehicle. At least this was illness and not alcohol induced.

It seemed like the cabbie didn't like her look as much as she didn't like his question, though. He hit a pothole right on cue and with the bump and Jack let out a moan – that then turned into more of a groan as he rammed his forehead against the seat, gritting his teeth.

"Jack, sweetheart, can you sit up? What's wrong?" she asked and put her hand to out to try to block his head from bumping against the seat and plexiglass again. But the teen just continued to moan, his arms wrapped around his mid-section and his face in a grimace.

"Something's wrong," he managed to mumble out in a painful staccato.

She just nodded that much was clear – and she was sure this wasn't how she'd ever felt during a stomach flu or food poisoning.

"Can you take us to the nearest hospital?" she told the cabbie, who glanced over his shoulder at her again.

"Kid OK?" he asked.

"Just get us to the hospital," she barked again.

"I don't want to go to the hospital," Jack had managed to push out. "I just want to go home."

But she didn't give him a choice in the matter. He wasn't in condition to be making any sort of decisions. And, she was glad she hadn't let him make any sort of decisions.

With his resistance to even going to the hospital, she'd fully expected him to push her away as soon as they got him into an exam room. But Jack hadn't let her leave his side. She could see real fear in his eyes – especially when things started moving quickly at the hospital. They were taken in and seen by the doctors with surprising speed – but that had only increased Jack's fear and protests.

He hadn't wanted the doctor to touch him – and had refused to put on a hospital gown. The doctor had ended up doing the exam with his shirt hiked up and the right side of his pants pushed slightly lower. He'd done a bedside ultrasound and when they sent Jack for an xray – he would only remove his shirt and still not change into a gown. He kept going between protesting being at the hospital and saying he needed to be at school to mumbling about his pain and tearing up. Olivia just kept trying to calm him and to calm Benji, who was confused and concerned to see his uncle in such a state. She kept snarking at the doctors that 'Couldn't you give him something to help with his discomfort' but they's said until they determined a diagnosis, they didn't want to mask any of his symptoms. So instead Jack just withered and grimaced and moaned clutching at his side with glassy eyes and clearly fighting to try to not let the full extent of his pain and discomfort show on his face. He wasn't doing a very good job at it. She could see how much he was hurting - and it was hurting her to watch it.

At least after they finally made the determination that it was his appendix, they started to get some antibiotics and gave him something to manage his pain a bit better until they could get him into the operating room. She wasn't sure it was as much a pain killer as it was a mild sedative to try to calm him down. Thankfully, though, it looked like they were getting him into the operating room pretty quickly. They hadn't been there more than about two hours and they were already preparing to get him in. But even as Jack seemed to be resting a bit more comfortably – at least for the moment, the slight break in the agony seemed to be giving him the glimmer of energy to push back a bit more defiantly. He was scared. He didn't want to go into surgery.

"Jack," Olivia tried again and leaned forward with the clipboard. "You need to sign this form for the doctor. I can't sign it for you – not since you're awake and competent."

"I don't want to have surgery," he mumbled at her, still looking at the ceiling and refusing to make eye contact.

"Sweetheart, no one wants to have surgery. But this isn't multiple choice …"

"I have surgery, Peedg," Benji offered.

Jack just moaned at that. Olivia thought it was more out of annoyance than any spike in his discomfort.

"If your four-year-old nephew can go through surgery," she tried to encourage in agreement with the little boy, "I think you can manage too."

"They had to cut open his wrist," Jack said with as much firmness as he could muster, but all Olivia saw was a lone tear trickle down his cheek. "They want to cut open my whole stomach."

She sighed and put the clipboard on the edge of the bed and held Benji closer to her with her one arm, while reaching out for the teen's clenched hand with another. He was gripping at the sheets on the bed so tightly his knuckles had turned white.

"Jack – they are going to try to just go in laparoscopically first – just through your side. You heard what the surgeon said, right? You're understanding it? If it is ruptured – they might have to make a bigger incision. They won't know until they go in. It might just be a couple small incisions."

"Or a giant one …" he said weakly and tried to pull his hand away from her a bit, but she held on it tightly.

"Or a giant one," she agreed. "But if it's a giant one – that means it is ruptured …"

"They think it's ruptured?" Jack asked and finally looked at her.

She gave him a sad look and a small nod. "That's what the doctor thinks, Jack. But they can't tell on the imaging right now. They aren't going to know until they go in. And if it's ruptured – they need to clean out all that infection. It's important for them to do it quickly, sweetheart. That's why they want you to sign this piece of paper – so they can get you into the operating room."

"I can't miss more school," Jack said quietly.

She sighed. "Don't worry about that right now, Jack. It's a medical issue. They're going to accommodate you. But right now – that's not what's important. This surgery is what is important right now. So you need to sign this release …" she said and picked up the clipboard again.

Jack shook his head. "I don't want to."

"Jack – this is serious," she said with a touch more sterness. "A ruptured appendix left untreated can turn very serious. You've got all that infection from your appendix inside your abdomen right now. They need to get that cleaned up before the infection spreads or sepsis sets in."

"What's that do?" Jack asked and rolled his head back to look at the ceiling. "How serious?"

"Serious, Jack," she said. She didn't want get into other details. They both knew what the other underlying details were. They didn't need to be said out loud.

"It can kill you?" Jack asked. "... That's OK."

She wasn't sure Benji completely understood – if that word was in his vocabulary. But he still cuddled against her and she involuntarily crushed him against her harder – while reaching out and tilting Jack's chin towards her so he met her eyes. His eyes were so glassy and scared.

"It's not OK, Jack," she said sternly, a lump building in her throat and her own eyes glassing to match his. "And it hurts me so, so much to hear you even say that."

He made a sound and tried to pull away from her. "So? … Then I can be with my dad," he said and his voice cracked.

Olivia gulped a bit in a choke to try to hold in her emotions. Both of the boys were upset and scared. She didn't need her own emotions to seep in and rattle either of them more.

"Sweetheart, you're in pain right now. You have drugs in you. You're tired and you're scared. You aren't thinking straight to make these decisions on your own. So – you need to trust me, when I say that doing this surgery is what's best for you – and that right now you need to sign this release."

Jack just shook his head.

Olivia sighed and looked down at the floor for a moment and then stroked at Benji's head, his face hidden against her chest. She could feel his slow breathing but his heart pounding against her. She looked back to the teen and again took his hand.

"Jack, look at me," she said but he ignored her. "Jean-Paul," she said with a touch more gentleness that had an underlying firmness to it. "Look at me."

The teen finally listened and brought his head in her direction and she offered him another thin smile.

"Sweetheart, I know you're scared. That's OK. But I need you to be a man for however long it takes you to sign your name on this piece of paper. Then after that, Jack, you can be as much of a little boy as you want. You can be as scared as you want. And – I'm not going to go anywhere. I'm going to be right here with you every step of the way. I'm going to be here when they take you into the operating room. I'm going to be right out here during your whole surgery. And, I'm going to be right next to you when you wake up – and to help you through your recovery. You're not alone. And I'm not going anywhere. You're my son, OK? Right now – you're legally my ward. But you're also legally able to sign this form on your own. So – sign it – and then we'll go right back to you being my boy, OK?"

"What if something happens?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head and held his hand tighter. "Jack, nothing is going to happen – and if something does, I'm right here and I'm going to take care of you."

Tears came harder. "I don't want to," he said.

She nodded. "I know, Jack. But you need to. Ten seconds, OK? Ten seconds to be a man – and then you can be as scared as you want."

She put the clipboard closer to him and held out the pen. He looked at her weeply but took it and awkwardly signed the form with the lines of his IV tugging against the movements of his hand. Still, she smiled at him as he finished and reached and stroked his cheek, before taking the pen and clipboard back from him.

"Good boy," she assured him. "It's going to be OK."

She leaned and put a kiss in the top of Benji's hair, as he still hid his face and returned her other hand to a firm grip with Jack. But it only was a few minutes before the nurse came back in and started going through some checks in getting him ready for the surgery. Jack stayed quiet during it and watched what she was doing carefully - answering a few questions in a near whisper.

Olivia let him handle the questions, since he seemed to be responsive at this point. Earlier, during the exam with the doctors, they'd been asking her questions because Jack had still been in so much pain, he'd been nearly non-responsive. It had been simple questions – if he had any allergies, if he'd ever had any surgeries before, if he'd had troubles with anesthesia in the past, if he had any medical conditions. She'd felt useless and like an awful mother at her inability to provide even basic information about a young man who was legally her ward at the moment. It had driven home how little she actually did know about Jack. So, if the teen was currently in a state to answer on his own, she was letting him and listening and taking note. That's what she'd have to do until she got access to his health records or until Jack talked to her – even about some of these medical basics of his personal history.

Finally the nurse took the clipboard and looked at it, flipping through the form to make sure it was signed in the appropriate places.

"You're going to need to get into the gown," she said and tapped on the end of the bed where the faded material was still sitting ignored. "Everything off. You can leave your clothes with your mom. She'll have them up in recovery for you. The orderly will be up to get you in a few minutes to take you down to the OR."

The nurse disappeared and Olivia looked at Jack – he wasn't moving but she knew it was another area that wasn't multiple choice.

"We'll give you a few minutes of privacy," she told him and shuffled Benji off her lap a bit, to go and stand outside the curtain while Jack changed.

"I'm not taking off my underwear," Jack informed her.

She just looked at him and nodded. "OK, Jack," she agreed. She wasn't going to argue with him about it. The surgeon or nurse could deal with peeling them off him or having a fight with him about them coming off when they transferred him to the operating table.

"How am I supposed to get changed with this?" Jack said and shot a look at the IV stand.

She looked at him and sighed. "Do you want help?" she offered – as awkward as she knew it would be to be helping a 19-year-old change. But it'd probably be more awkward for him than her – and he had some sedatives in him at that point.

He just looked at her blankly.

"Sit up," she instructed and deposited Benji on the chair she'd be occupying. He sat wide-eyed, like he was confused but ready to watch the show.

Jack struggled to get upright, again guarding his side, and she helped him get into a more stable position.

"Take off your shirt," she instructed him again, and helped him pull it over his head. Then she guided the sleeve of the tshirt carefully along his line and then unhooked the IV bag and lifted it out of the arm hole. She tossed it at the foot of the bed and grabbed the gown, guiding the arm hole of it back down the line and then holding it out for Jack until he stuck his arm through. She handed the other side to him and he slipped his arm in. She stepped behind him and tied up strings at the back. "Stand up and take off your jeans," she told him as she finished.

Him complied. And hiked up the gown in an awkward way that clearly demonstrated that he had no experience wearing dresses – but he managed to unbutton his fly and let his pants shuffle down his waist and he near flopped back onto the edge of the bed, so she yanked them off his calves and set them down on the end of the bed. She leaned down to grab his socks but he stopped her.

"I want to keep my socks. My feet are cold," he protested weakly.

She sighed. She wasn't sure if, and when, she'd get a chance to get back to the apartment. She hadn't tried calling anyone yet – or even really thought about what she was going to do with Benji that night. She was sure by the time Jack got out of surgery and through recovery – they'd at least be keeping him over night. If anything, it sounded like he'd likely be there a couple days – even in a best-case scenario with a ruptured appendix. She didn't want to end up with him having lost his socks and his briefs – though, she supposed she did have his suitcase of clothes (but likely all dirty).

"Sweetheart, they're likely going to bring you some sort of booties and they'll cover you up with blankets or something. You'll be warm," she promised and ignored his request and snagged his smelly socks off his feet.

As she rose back up she placed a kiss on his forehead and rubbed at his temple with her thumb. Even with the sedative and the antibiotics already in his system, he still looked like he was hurting so much and he was so full of fear.

"Just lay back down until they come and get you, Jack. Try to rest," she said and gave him a small nudge. But the curtain opened and two orderlies appeared next to their bed.

The one looked at his paperwork. "Jean-Paul Lewis?"

Jack gave a small nod.

"OK," the guy said. "We're here to get you down to the OR."

Jack gave another small nod.

"So are you up for moving? We want to get you onto this gurney."

Jack glanced at Olivia but she just gripped his hand and took some of his weight as he got to his feet and took the few steps over to the rolling bed.

"You want to slip your briefs off before you get on the bed there, bud," the orderly said. "Make things easier on everyone when we're getting you set up downstairs."

Jack looked slightly horrified and opened his mouth to say something but Olivia interjected.

"They're just going to take them off you in the OR, Jack. Leave them with me and we can get them back on you when you're out of the surgery. It's OK."

"I … I … don't want them looking …"

She shook her head and gave his shoulder another small squeeze. Watching Jack's interaction with the male doctors and nurses, watching his reluctance to strip down – even his shirt – wasn't something that had gone unnoticed with her. His fear to be left alone in the room – his insistence that she stay by his side. She knew some of it wasn't just him being afraid. She knew some of it had to do with whatever his uncle had put him through – and really it was only increasing her anxiety about what that was. But it wasn't the time to be pushing that issue.

"They aren't going to be looking, Jack. It's just policy. They're just going to be looking at your abdomen. You're never going to be alone in the room with anyone."

He looked at her hesitantly but moved to pull up the gown again and she looked away to give him a moment of privacy – instead setting her sights on Benji and trying to give him a reassuring smile. He had been watching everything with a quiet interest. But she knew as soon as he had a chance there'd be questions and his quiet interest might boil over into hefty fear and concern.

She turned back to the teen as she saw him throw the briefs on the end of the bed with the rest of the pile of clothes. He was sitting on the edge of the gurney at that point and the orderly helping him lay down, while the other pulled a blanket up over him. He looked even younger, littler and scared now that he was in position to travel to the OR.

"It's going to be OK," she told him quietly. She knew it would be. Logically her entire being was telling her that – but she still had her own fear about it. It was still hard to see now _her_ child in pain and scared and going into a fairly major surgery. Jack didn't give her any verbal response but allowed a weak nod.

"You can come down to the OR and stay with him until the anesthesiologist comes out and gets him," the orderly told her.

She nodded and went over and grabbed Benji, hoisting him up and onto her hip.

"Can I just leave this stuff here?" she asked, pointing to the pile of clothes and the suitcase and backpack and Benji's things. It looked like they'd come expecting to stay a week – not just from the airport.

"Sure," the orderly nodded. "Come back here after. Someone will get you to the surgery waiting room until he's ready for ya."

She just nodded again and then positioned herself beside Jack, and grabbed his hand, while they wheeled him down the hall and into the elevator to go down to the floor were the operating bays were. He was gripping her hand tightly but kept his eyes looking straight up – still glassy. She just kept looking at him and trying to give him as much reassurance as she could. Benji kept gazing at his uncle too.

"You asleep during surgery, Peedg," Benji offered while they stood on the elevator.

Jack let out a small snort and gave Benji a little smile. "I know, Jamin."

"So you don't feel or 'member and then you wake up and then Mommy Fox take you home forever," Benji assured him - in his favorite reciting of his version of how Mommy Fox brought Little Fox to his forever home.

Jack nodded but another tear came and Olivia reached and wiped it for him and gave him another smile smile. "You're going to be just fine, sweetheart. So brave," she told him, in the mantra she often reserved for her Little Fox. But maybe her Growling Fox needed to hear it too.

They got down into the small holding area and the orderly took the chart over to a nurse and gave her a short briefing.

"Good luck," he said and then disappeared with his partner back towards the elevator.

Olivia gave Jack a small smile again and squeezed his hand. "It's going to be over before you know it," she told him.

He allowed a small nod. "Yeah," he agreed. "Then we can go home?"

"By the time you get out, Jack, we're going to be here overnight."

He examined her. "Will Jamin be here when I wake up?"

"YEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeS!" Benji answered for himself.

She smiled and put a kiss against the little boy's forehead. "Yes," she nodded. "He might be asleep – but he'll be here."

"They'll let him?" Jack asked and glanced over at the nursing station.

Olivia looked at the nurses – who were oblivious of the current conversation. She was sure that having a small child around through the night would be frowned on – but she'd figure out someway around it. She didn't think having someone come and get Benji would be good for the little boy. She wasn't even sure who to call? Alex? Nick? But it would likely spell disaster no matter who it was. Beyond that – if Jack wanted the little boy there – he'd be there. She'd figure out how to make it work.

"They'll let him," she just agreed flatly - but she hoped with enough confidence that Jack believed her.

Jack nodded and then went back to examining the ceiling.

"I love you," Olivia offered him and he glanced at her and nodded again. Part of her really wanted him to return the sentiment – but she knew she couldn't force it. If he wasn't ready to say it then – he wasn't ready to say it. She didn't have a chance to dwell on it, as a doctor appeared from beyond the swinging doors.

"Jean-Paul?" he asked and looked at them.

Olivia nodded on Jack's behalf, as he seemed to become a statue. She halfways expected him to declare he was opting out of the surgery and for him to get up out of the bed and make a bolt for the elevators.

"I'm Dr. Landowski. I'm going to be your anesthesiologist," he said and grabbed the chart from the nurse and flipped through it for a moment – basically ignoring them. "OK. So you've never had anesthesia before, Jean-Paul?"

Jack shook his head.

"OK. Well. We're going to be injecting it through your IV today. It will put you out real quick – and then I'll be there with you through the whole surgery monitoring you and making sure you're doing well and that you stay asleep for us. And, then I'll be around when you're coming out of it too – in case you need anything. All good? Any questions?"

"I won't feel it?" Jack asked hesitantly.

The doctor shook his head and put the chart into the rack at the end of the bed. "Nope," he said. "OK, all set?" he asked and glanced at Olivia.

She allowed a small nod but looked down at Jack. "OK, sweetheart. I'll see you when you wake up. You're going to be fine."

Jack allowed a small nod. "Yeah … see ya …" he allowed meekly.

She gave him a thin smile but really nearly felt like she wanted to cry. She wanted him to be OK. She wanted to hear that he was confident that he was going to be OK. She wanted him to say he loved her or Benji or their family. She wanted him to call her mom. She just wanted … her son to be OK and to know she was there for him. She hoped he knew and understood – through the pain and the drugs.

"See ya," she agreed – though somehow it hurt.

She watched at the doctor started to maneuver the bed back towards the swinging doors and into the operating room bays.

"See ya, Peedg," Benji called after him.

Jack twisted his head a bit. "See ya Jamin," he said quietly. "Be good."

"YOU BE GOOD," Benji ordered.

Jack allowed a small smile but looked back to the ceiling as the doors pushed up and than swung shut behind him. She was sure he was tearing up again.

Olivia could see through the windows as the doctor pushed his bed down the hall and then someone else met them outside another door and he was wheeled in and out of sight. She let out a small sigh and Benji dropped his head to her shoulder.

"Peedg OK, Mommy?"

She nodded. "He's going to be," she said.

"Dat good," Benji informed him. "He need to be OK."

She pushed her lips onto his forehead. "You're very right, Little Fox. He does."


	155. Chapter 155

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia gave Alex a glance as her and Benji re-entered Jack's hospital room. The attorney was still sitting near the bed of the sleeping teen – exactly as she had been when Olivia had taken Benji out for a bit of a run and to get some food into him. The attorney met eyes with her for a moment as they returned but Olivia's attention landed back on Benji.

The little boy was near skipping to Jack's bed with some glee – the Get Well balloon he'd picked for his uncle tugging behind him.

"PEEDG," the little boy near screeked.

Olivia sighed and shook her head and made a "Shh!" sound at Benji.

Jack was still sleeping and he really needed his rest. He'd made it through surgery fine – more or less. He did have a ruptured appendix and the surgery had taken longer than the surgeon had estimated as they got him cleaned out. He had drainage tubes and a cathater in him. But at that point, Jack still seemed too out of it to really care. They were pumping anti-biotics and pain killers into him intravienously. And, though, he had been awake for part of the day – he mostly seemed to still be drifting in and out of consciousness and was far from completely coherent while he was awake. He was mostly mumbling at him.

The doctor had said they were likely going to leave the drains in him for at least another 24 hours and after they did take them out – they'd probably keep him 24 hours more, if not longer, as they gauged how his body was coping with the infection. So it sounded like they were going to be stuck there for a while. Olivia was feeling rather glad that she hadn't taken anything that had come close to counting as a vacation for years. She had lots of days accumulated. Close to a year actually – not that she'd ever actually get to take all of that. Still, she was definitely working on slowly whittling it down since the boys had appeared in her life. So, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing she'd been a work-oholic without a life, banking hours and overtime and holidays for years.

She hadn't 'Shh'ed Benji quickly enough, though, and Benji had stirred and blinked at him with blurry eyes.

"We get you a balloon, Peedg!" Benji declared and held out the ribbon the foil contraption was attached to.

Jack blinked at him questioningly, clearly not really registering what the little boy was talking about. Benji yanked on the string more, making the bright yellow smiley face balloon dance around in the air.

"SEE?" Benji demanded.

Jack's eyes drifted up to the balloon and gazed at it with near confusion.

"Thanks," he said quietly without much conviction but clearly at least registering that some sort of acknowledgement was expected from him.

Olivia allowed a small smile at that and stepped closer to Benji.

"Here, Little Fox," she said, "let's tie it somewhere so Jack can look at it."

"So then you feel better, Peedg," Benji said and trotted after her as she took it over to one of the vacant chairs to tie around the arm rest for the moment. "Becuz it say 'Get Well'. So you look at it and then you be good."

Jack just made a sound and settled back into the bed more – though she could feel his gaze watching her as she got the balloon in place.

Benji was on a mission to figure out how to get Jack better. He'd been earning some points with the hospital staff – in the cuteness factor. Though, Olivia was definitely having to work at keeping him quiet and out from underfoot. He was taking a little bit too much interest in what the nurses were doing to his uncle when they were in the room. He'd declared to one of the young women, "I take good care of Peedg. I make him better." It had earned some smiles until Benji tried to take over her job for her. And, as the hours went by that she had the little boy cooped up in the hospital – the more she was having to work at keeping him calm, quiet and entertained.

That had initially started with a call to Alex to have her come in and hopefully take the little boy out for a few hours. She intended to send her on a mission to the apartment to pick up a few things for them and their stay – and maybe to try to get Benji to lay down for a nap too. Though, she wasn't too sure how much luck the attorney would have with that. Olivia knew it'd reach the point where she'd have to make the trek home on her own to get showered and changed and to deal with work and the little boy. She needed to try to keep him in some sort of routine during this, if they were going to be in the hospital for several days. Maybe someone could still be taking him into daycare at least? At the moment, though, she wasn't ready to leave Jack's side for more than about 30 minutes at a time. After he seemed a bit more coherent – may after his drains were taken out – she'd feel a bit more comfortable treating him like more of an adult and letting him be in the bed and the room on his own for a few hours at a time.

Olivia had taken Benji out to get him some food. Alex had made a comment that she could manage that after they left. But Olivia knew that the moment she started pushing Benji towards the door there was likely going to be a meltdown. She was trying to make that as easy as possible for everyone involved.

After getting some hospital cafeteria food into the little boy, they'd wandered the halls a little bit and ended up in the gift shop. Benji had pretty much wanted to buy out the whole store of over-priced knick-knacks in his efforts to get Jack better. They'd settled on a few 'necessities' – that really weren't that necessary, considering later that evening Alex would be returning with items from the apartment for them all. But Olivia had humored the little boy. It made him happy – and she thought maybe it might earn a smile from Jack. It didn't really seem that way at the moment, though. He was still looking at the balloon just as blankly has he had been when Benji had first announced its delivery.

"We got you a couple other things," Olivia told the teen gently and put the bag on the side of his bed, prompting Benji to hustle over and start digging through it as she pulled the first item out.

"Socks," she said. They were slipper socks. Likely a little cheesy but they looked warm.

She didn't know what was wrong in the genetics in Jack's family – but Jay had had freezing feet and so did the teen and Benji, as far as she could tell. Benji's feet were cold enough at night that she'd opted to try footie pajamas. But the little boy had only complained they were too hot and it had taken them steps backwards in the potty-training department and resulted in some bed changes and PJ changes in the middle of the night that she could've done without. So she'd reverted back to just pulling thick socks on his little feet when she put him to bed. They always somehow got kicked off his feet in the night, though, and he woke with ice blocks.

Jack seemed to do the exact same thing. After every weekend visit when she went and pulled the bedding off the futon, she'd find wadded up balls of socks at the foot of the bed. She'd find them rammed between cushions on the couch too. His feet were cold – but it was like after a certain point in the day, he couldn't stand having socks on anymore. But he was also apparently too lazy to deposit them in the laundry hamper.

The current offering, though, earned a small weak smile from the teen. She knew his feet were cold. He'd been mumbling and complaining about it – and she had gone to the end of the bed and rubbed them through the blankets a coupe times for him and even through the bedding, she could feel the cold radiating off them.

"Want them on?" she offered and he gave her a little nod. So she flipped up the covers near the foot of the bed and worked at slipping the purchase onto his floppy, cold feet.

"We get you M&Ms too, Peedg," Benji declared while she put in the effort of getting the boy warmed up.

Benji had looked at the candy selection in the gift shop with some fascination. Benji always looked at candy in stores with fascination. It was like he'd never seen it before.

"We get Peedg chalk-cal-it too, Mommy?" Benji had asked hopefully and held up his favorite selection at her.

She took it from him but had shaken her head. "Sweetheart, Peedg isn't allowed to eat hard food yet," she'd told him. They actually hadn't even tried him on fluids yet, though she had been told they'd be bringing around some soup and juice for him at dinner to see if he could manage it. She wasn't sure he'd be interested. Jack hadn't yet mentioned anything about being hungry or asking when he'd get to eat. He'd had some water and ice chips but he'd even thrown that up.

"We can help him eat it, Mommy," Benji informed her.

She snorted and rolled her eyes. "Well, if it's for Jack, I think you should pick something else," she said. "He doesn't really like M&Ms."

Benji looked at her a gasp at that. "Peedg can't eat hard food yet, Mommy FOX!"

She'd nearly laughed. She knew there was no winning that argument and had eventually just gone ahead with the M&M purchase. But now they were back in the room, she took it from Benji's little hand and set it aside.

"We'll save those for later," she said to both of the boys. "And we'll get you something you like after the doctor says you can ate solids, Jack," she told the teen.

"I'm not hungry," he just mumbled.

She allowed a small, sad nod. She knew it was normal after the anesthesia. And, his body was still in shock and bloated. He had antibiotics and pain killers dripping into him making his nauseated and killing an appetite he might have. But she really just wanted to get to the point that they had him up and moving and eating so they could get him home. That couldn't come fast enough as far as she was concerned. She knew was soon as Jack felt a bit better too – he was going to want out of there. She supposed she should be thankful that he felt awful enough at the moment that he wasn't whining and stressing about still being at the hospital 24 hours after their arrival.

She pulled the coloring book and some pencil crayons out of the bag. It was more of a sketchbook than a coloring book. One of the ones that had suggestions on what to draw or the starts of drawings you were meant to finish. It was a bit more grown-up than a coloring book. She thought it might catch Jack's interest but in a way she was also hoping it could be used as a form of entertainment and distraction for Benji.

"We got you a doddle book," she offered and put it a bit closer to him.

He looked at it and reached slowly and flipped through some of the pages. She knew he didn't feel well enough or awake enough at the moment to be interested but he again mumbled a quiet thanks.

"It a big boy color book," Benji informed him and started to try to open the pencil crayons, which Olivia reached and opened for him before he managed to rip the box to shreds. She then plopped the book on the bed table and lowered it to a level Benji could reach. "I help you, Peedg."

Jack looked a bit more interested at that and reached out to select a pencil crayon and drag the book away from Benji a bit and more towards him. Olivia suspected that the reaction was partially out of the teen not wanting the little boy to completely deface the offering with his scribbles. But since they seemed to be getting along for the moment, she took it as an opportunity to move back across the room to where Alex was sitting – pretending not to be watching any of the interactions and flipping through some aging magazine that likely didn't have any articles in it that remotely interested the woman.

Jack had been asleep when Alex had arrive and as Olivia had left with Benji. She wasn't even sure if the teen had completely acknowledged her presence in the room yet – and Alex had seemed a bit hesistant to be left alone with Jack. She seemed to think she was about the last person Jack would want to see if he did wake while they were out.

"He was asking for you while you were gone," Alex informed her as she slumped into the chair next to her for a moment.

Olivia was tired. She was hoping that while Alex had Benji out of the hospital for a few hours, Jack would also be sleeping and none of the doctors or nurses would be in fusing for him. She thought she might able able to snag a few hours sleep – sitting up. But she'd slept in more uncomfortable positions and situations in the past.

Olivia just glanced at the attorney's comment, though. She supposed that meant Jack had been awake – and that they'd both shockingly managed to survive being alone in a hospital room for 30 minutes.

"At least I think he was asking for you," Alex added and looked at her a bit more centered. "He was mumbling about 'mom' when he woke up."

She just shrugged at that and rubbed at her eyebrow. The comment – or the fact that Jack had let that come out of his mouth while she'd been gone – made her slightly uncomfortable.

"Yeah, he's been doing that," she allowed. Because the teen had. In his drug induced state he'd been muttering and mumbling all kinds of things while he drifted in and out of consciousness. He'd also been asking for his dad and for London and his grandmother – and stressing near incoherently about his studies and his job. So she hadn't allowed herself to feel much of anything about his 'mom' mutterings. She wasn't sure he meant anything by them. She wasn't even sure if he was asking for her – or if he was literally asking for his mom. What she did know is that at that point in time Jack really didn't know what he was saying or doing most of the time.

"He's calling you 'mom' now?" Alex prodded.

Olivia gestured at Jack in the bed. "Alex – he's being pumped full or narcotic pain killers and heavy-duty antibiotics right now. He doesn't know what he's saying."

Alex shrugged a little but examined her – clearly realizing she'd just hit a nerve. And, she had.

Olivia was still waiting for her 'mom' moment with Jack. But it was likely an unfair expectation or hope. About the best she was going to get for him at that point in his life was to be viewed as an aunt or maybe a much older sister. He might be asking her to take on certain parenting and guardianship roles for him as he closed that small gap he had left to officially coming of age – but she wasn't sure he'd ever see her as a mother figure for him. He wasn't a little boy like Benji. He had a lot more pain associated with the concept of a mother than her Little Fox. And she'd practically held the door open for him to give calling her 'mom' a test drive a couple times now and he'd declined. She was learning to accept it. She didn't really blame him and she didn't want to pressure him. She wasn't even entirely sure if she thought it would be strange to have Jack calling her 'mom'. But she did know that she saw him as a son – just as much as she saw Benji as one at that point. So she wasn't going to let herself start thinking – or hoping – that some drug-induced slips of 'mom' meant anything other than Jack was hopped up on narcotics and less than 24 hours out from surgery.

Alex watched her again for a moment. Olivia just shook her head and went back to looking at the boys. They were chattering a little bit and Benji had pulled himself up onto the bed next to Jack to better reach the table and scribble on the page opposite of the teen. She was making her he didn't decide to flop his weight against Jack or do anything to 'check' his IV lines for him. Besides, she figured that Alex might be giving her a disapproving look.

Olivia didn't think Alex disliked Jack. She actually thought her friend treated the teen in a similar manner to how she'd observed her with most people his age. But she wasn't sure Alex thought it was a great idea that she was integrating Jack into her life in a similar capacity as she was Benji. Though, the attorney had been helping – and had been reaching out and trying with Jack too. Still, Olivia couldn't shake the idea that people may look at her with some understanding about her want of Benji but with disbelief, if not outright disapproval, that she'd want to give a college-aged boy a chance and the opportunity to be part of a family too.

"OK – maybe he doesn't know what he's saying right now. But he's likely saying things he's been thinking," Alex put back to her. "Being drugged up has the tendency to break down some walls … even if we don't want them to."

Olivia examined her for a moment. It seemed like a friendly offering. A supportive statement. An indication that it was something she was allowed to want and Jack was allowed to think and feel … and even say.

Olivia wanted to believe that maybe Jack was thinking it and he just hadn't verbalized it yet. She wanted them to continue their progress towards becoming a real family. She really wanted to be excited and happy about Jack maybe seeing her as a mother figure in his life. But she wasn't sure she wanted to let any of that excitement or happiness seep out – not when Jack's walls would likely ram back up as his recovery went one. Not until she heard it from him on his terms – not on some drug's terms.

"You not a Transformer Peedg," she hear Benji shriek at Jack and turned her attention back towards the hospital bed.

Jack was just looking at Benji with a bit of a smirk on his face. "I am so," he responded and pointed the IV bags hanging next to his bed. "What do you think that is?"

"Medicine!" Benji said with confidence.

But Jack shook his head. "It's not. It's Transformer oil. They're putting it into me so I can transform."

"NO!" Benji near yelled with just as much certainty as before. "You cannot transform, Peedg! You a people not a robot in dis-guys."

Jack nodded, though. "I am. That's what the surgery was for."

"It for your oh-pin-dicks, Jee-Peedg not to make you a robot."

Jack shrugged. "Think what you want Jamin. But I can transform now."

"NO!" Benji interjected again, just as Olivia started to think she should maybe step in and at least calm the little boy's utterances of disapproval.

"I can," Jack maintained – and then made the near practiced transforming sound that mimicked some of Benji's toys and made some sort of square and robotic movement with his hands. "See. Transformed."

"YOU DID NOT!" Benji did yell that time but Olivia couldn't help but smile. He was being strung along and it actually just felt good to see Jack feel well enough for the moment to rib the little boy.

"I did too."

"WHAT YOU TRANFORM TO PEEDG?" Benji demanded.

"A sleep machine," Jack stated flatly and then closed his eyes and settled back into the bed again – clearly ready for another rest.

Benji looked at him for a moment almost taken back – and then shook his shoulder.

"Peedg," he said and then whispered, "Peedg."

"Shh," Olivia said to the little boy. "Jack's sleeping."

Benji gaped and looked back at Jack and then looked back to Olivia with wide eyes. "It worked," he declared in a breathy whisper full of disbelief and underlying excitement. "Peedg transformed!"

Olivia couldn't help but wonder if there might be other transformation for the teen and their family as he continued on his recovery.


	156. Chapter 156

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"I think we need to go back to the hospital," Jack called at her with the smallest bit of panic rattling in his voice.

She gazed at him from the opposite end of the hallway having just stepped out of Benji's room after finally getting him down for the night. The teen was lurking in the dark just outside her bedroom door – where she'd established him since they'd gotten home (not that he'd let himself sleep in there yet. Jack always seemed reluctant to enter her bedroom space since the move to the new apartment. Part of Olivia was grateful for that. Part of the objective of the move was to get everyone some of their own space and more privacy. But as much as she'd initially thought she'd want her bedroom to very distinctively be 'her' space – another part of her missed already the boys making it their own. Benji didn't seem to hesitate much at all about barging in there but Jack had definitely been clearly respecting the privacy lines that had been drawn. At the moment, though, part of the reason she was giving him the option of having that bedroom and the bed was so he could have some more comfort and privacy in his recovery – rather than sleeping on a futon in a room with a four-year-old).

Jack was just in his boxers and a grey t-shirt at the moment. Both seemed to be hanging off him a bit more than usual. He'd lost some weight since his surgery – noticeably. In the first few days at the hospital he'd seemed so bloated looking from the air they'd pumped into his abdomen to space out some of his organs and cavities while they cleaned him out – not to mention all the fluids they'd pumped into him for days to at least keep him hydrated. But now off the IVs and having managed to have passed a lot of the gas, he was looking a little thin and frail, in Olivia's opinion.

Though, Jack was eating – he had to be to get them on their way home – his appetite really hadn't come back yet. But he was still on painkillers and antibiotics – so she supposed that was normal. He was nauseated and sleeping a lot – and just generally out of it and rather sore and achy. He'd had major surgery – it was expected. They were actually lucky he'd gotten out in five days and not a week (or weeks) after his admittance based on what one nurse had rattled at Olivia. She was grateful, though, it had only been days. That had seemed like far more than long enough.

The teen looked like he'd been lurking there for a while. He seemed a little shaky – and despite being clothed, his hair was still wet from his shower and it barely looked like he'd dried off. Even in the dim light she could see the droplets of water on his cheeks, neck and forehead. Wet spots were visible on his t-shirt too – like he'd just pulled it on without taking the time to truly towel off – and he was holding his arms protectively across his front.

They'd been home a day – after their nearly a five day stay in the hospital. It'd been a long haul. Jack had been restless as he started to feel a bit better - and managing Benji in that setting while the time drew on had been a challenge. Thankfully Alex had taken him into daycare in the mornings and Nick had offered to pick him up after and take him for a couple hours to get some dinner into him and let him play with Zara before bringing him back to the hospital. Alex too had managed to entertain him for most of the weekend on her behalf.

But it all had been a little emotionally jarring for the little boy too. He didn't like to be separated from Olivia for very long – even if it was with Alex and Nick and Zara. His trust that he'd be returned to his Mommy Fox still didn't seem to have too much confidence behind it. Not to mention he was stewing about Jack in his own little boy way. So Olivia had been stuck trying to manage both of the boys' emotions and meltdowns. Jack's about being in the hospital and Benji's about being away from the hospital.

She wasn't sure how much easier being home had been, though – even though she was glad to have both the boys back at the apartment. But even getting Jack home had been a bit of a hassle.

Even though he felt 'better' – he was still in some pain and discomfort from the surgery. Getting him in and out of the cab had been a bit of a challenge. He'd been slow moving lowering himself to that level and then standing up again and she'd seen the winces painted across his face. Getting their belongings – while managing a little boy and an older boy who she felt compelled to grab at his elbow and shoulder trying to prop up some of his weight despite his protests that he could walk – was its own challenge.

Thankfully Alex had taken on a lot of the responsibility of prepping the apartment for their return, including picking up some fresh groceries for them. Olivia wasn't really sure how 'fresh' she'd classify the food – more like processed junk: ice cream, popsicles, pudding cups, jello, canned soup. But it was an attempt to ease Jack into eating without shocking his system too much. There'd been some yogurt, grapes and watermelon thrown in as well but Olivia knew given the option the teen would likely pick the processed, sugary and salty food. She wasn't sure how much she really cared at that point, though.

Olivia had also assigned the task of getting 'something with a recliner in it' to the attorney over the weekend – and sent Alex and the little boy on a furniture shopping adventure. It had sounded like it had been an adventure. Apparently Benji had insisted on sitting on about every chair and couch in the showroom to determine it was 'just right' for Peedg. Olivia was actually surprised that Alex had found something that met Little Fox's standards – though she suspected there'd likely been a negotiation process. Benji would likely make a good defense attorney some day. He knew what he wanted – especially for his important clients.

Olivia wasn't sure Benji would've won if the negotiation process had been with her on the picked item, though. But she thought maybe it was just strange to see a new piece of furniture in her apartment and her old couch gone. Alex had ended up picking a sectional for them. Olivia just really couldn't decide how she felt about that but with the vague instructions she'd given the lawyer – the sole criteria had been met. Each opposite corner of the bulky couch had a built-in recliner, which had been the main goal after seeing how much Jack was still struggling getting in and out of the bed at the hospital and seeing him opt to sleep sitting up.

Alex had pointed out that it was a more 'boy-ish' color, in her continued assertion that Olivia needed to make her space more 'boy friendly' now that the kids were on the scene, and ahead of her home study. She couldn't argue that the near soulful brown leather would likely hide the stains and spills and general wear-and-tear of the boys better. But it also just did seem so masculine and she'd always tried to at least have a touch of femininity in her apartment after having to work day-in-and-day-out surrounded by men – good ones and bad ones. She did acknowledge, though, that the whites and beiges and floral decorations and candles sitting out really didn't suit having a teenaged boy and a preschooler in her space in so many ways anymore.

Olivia had already had to put away a lot of her things in the living room (or just not unpack it at all since moving) to keep it out of Benji's reach – and/or away from grubby hands and dirty feet. Still, letting go of some of that had oddly been one of the hardest and strangest changes in the process of welcoming the boys into her life. It was such a simple and expected change but maybe it was just the most visible way for her to see the pieces of her former life she was giving up – however voluntarily. Letting go of that couch she'd had for far too long anyways was likely one of the last – and more significant steps in that regard.

She kept telling herself that eventually she'd get around to making her bedroom look more like her own space and infusing some femininity into it now that it was technically the only room that was 'hers' – yet really wasn't. She kept telling herself too that eventually she'd also get the time to organize and decorate the living area to celebrate that they were a family living there now and to accommodate what that meant in terms of storage and organization too. Some day she'd get around to decorating Benji's room too and making it his own. She just didn't know when she was supposed to find the time for any of that. It really seemed like their life at the moment was one thing after another. She didn't know when the time and the money to do any of it would really present itself. She supposed she'd have to make the time and the money to accommodate it. She'd have to decide organizing their living space was a priority in organizing their family life.

She at least liked, though, that the sectional divided up the long living room a bit – giving Benji a bit more isolated play area on the opposite side of the sitting area. She didn't have any delusions, however, that it was going to contain his play to that space in any way. But it was one small step it starting to organize the apartment to be a bit more family friendly as they all shared space together.

Jack had examined the couch after they entered the apartment.

"We got a new couch?" he'd asked questioningly, almost like he was still tripping out on the painkillers.

Olivia immediately noticed the 'we' in his question. Not 'you' got a new couch? We got a new couch? An acknowledgement that it was his space too – his home. That's what she wanted it to be – what she wanted him to see it as. Sometimes she wasn't sure if he did – no matter how much she tried to make him feel welcome there and instill that the door was always open and he had the key to come-and-go as he pleased. She knew too that the sting was still real from her telling him living in residence and having his own space in the dorms was part of growing up and good for him – for all of them. She still believed that. He was 19. He didn't want to be stuck raising Benji. He had his whole life ahead of him. But she didn't want any of that to mean that he didn't feel like he had a home and a family – because he very much did as far as she was concerned. Maybe the 'we' was an acknowledgement that he was starting to understand that? Or maybe – more likely – it was still just the drugs … or a turn-of-phrase that he hadn't meant anything by.

So she had just nodded. "It's got a couple recliners in it. I thought it'd be easier for you to get in and out of for now – and more comfortable if you're still wanting to sit up when you're sleeping."

He gazed at her even more questioningly, and in near disbelief. She didn't really blame him. It was sort of a big purchase for his sake – but it also wasn't the first nice thing she'd done with him in mind. He was a member of the family. He was one of her children. She was supposed to be doing nice things for him … or at least taking care of him and trying to make things a bit easier for him.

"I thought it might help keep Benji from jumping on you too. And, we needed more sitting space anyways," she offered as an excuse, seeing some discomfort in his expression. Jack didn't deal well with kindness. "The couch was a little crowded for the three of us."

He'd still looked at her though like he didn't know what to make of it all.

"Why don't you try it out?" she'd suggested, trying to move them on, and away, from any discomfort.

"I HELPED PICK, PEEDG!" Benji declared and ran over to take a flying leap at it before bouncing on one of the center cushions on his pointy little knees. Olivia thought it was exactly that kind of treatment of the furniture that necessitated getting something more durable.

Jack had wandered over and managed to lower himself into the recliner on one end and found the lever to raise the footrest. He really hadn't moved much since then, which Olivia had decided to take as a sign of his approval more-so than a sign of how he was still feeling. She'd set up her bedroom for him anyways though, still wanting him to have the option of sleeping in a real bed (and the option of retreating to a separate room from Benji to avoid any incidents of the little boy deciding he should help his uncle, which seemed to involve throwing himself at him and Jack wincing and trying not to yell in pain or anger.). But Jack had really only gotten up to use the bathroom – opting to sleep the first night in the recliner.

With reaching the second afternoon at home, though, Jack had become restless about wanting to take a shower – something the doctor's had asked he wait to the 24-hour point at home to do, putting him about 48 hours out from when the drains had been removed. Olivia had managed to put him off until the evening but she'd heard him get up from the couch and hobble towards her bathroom while she'd had Benji in a bath in the communal one. She hadn't gone and stopped him. She didn't blame him for wanting to get cleaned up after days in the hospital with just sponge baths, which had hadn't been enthusiastic about at all.

Still, he'd been in there a long time and she'd started to worry. She was hoping he'd listened to and read all the discharge instructions – including not to stand facing the spray nor to soak the incisions too much, to keep them covered with the bandages during his shower and to just pat the area around them dry following it. But she also knew that her disturbing him while he was in the bathroom would likely go over like a lead-balloon. So, while she'd kept her ears open for anything that sounded like him slipping or falling or any calls for help or cries of pain – she'd left him be and tried to just focus on getting her little boy ready for bed. But now here Jack was looking at her like he'd just been traumatized in some way. She wondered how long he'd been standing there. She hadn't heard the bathroom door re-open but Benji had been chattering at her during story-time and goodnight hugs and kisses and tuck-in.

"What's wrong?" she asked concerned. "Did one of your incisions open up?"

Jack had three. They had gone in laparoscopically initially in the hopes they'd be able to treat him that way and just remove the appendix – placing an incision in his side and one near the top of his pubic bone. But when the rupture hadn't been confirmed, they'd had to abandon that route and perform an open surgery – leaving a large incision running down nearly the entire length of his abdomen.

"They just look weird," Jack said nervously. He was fidgeting. It was clear there was more too it than that. You don't go back to the hospital because things 'look weird' – unless 'weird' is gangrene.

She watched him as the realization set in that he'd likely spent much of his time in the bathroom examining the incisions. His dressings had been changed at the hospital – but that was by nurses and Jack had spent much of his time looking at the ceiling and not what was being done to him. Even if he had sneaked a peak while they were still at the hospital – looking down on the surgeon's work would be a very different sensation than having all the time in the world to stare at them head on in the bathroom mirror.

"What do you mean they look weird?" she pressed cautiously. She really didn't want to head into the hospital unnecessarily. She knew that at that time of night they'd just end up sitting in the ER – and with Jack stable, they were likely to be sitting there a very long time.

"I don't know maybe infected," he offered unsurely.

She sighed at him and rubbed her eyebrow. "OK," she agreed but headed by him and into the bathroom. "Well, let's take your temperature and see if you're running a fever."

"The incisions look bad," he protested, as she dug the ear thermometer out of the one drawer.

The random things that she previously wouldn't have considered purchasing for herself but kept being added to apartment now that there were kids on the scene continued to amaze her. Not just her life – but her whole space, everything around her – was continuing to evolve and transform in even the smallest ways that sometimes she wouldn't realize until she stopped to think about it for a minute. Sometimes it made her smile stupidly and other times she shook her head. Kids brought so many things into your life that you didn't even think about until they were there. She thought she was prepared and knew what to expect – and in many ways she did but in so many other ways, she hadn't – not at all.

"I don't have a fever," Jack added with a touch of frustration at her.

She just nodded and put the thing into his ear anyways, pressing the button to get a reading, before he could protest more. "If you've got an infection you'll likely have a fever," she informed him.

He sighed at her as the thermometer beeped and she pulled it back to her and looked at the reading. "No fever," she informed him, "and that's with you having just gotten out of the shower."

"Well, I don't think they look right," he said.

"Are they seeping?"

He shrugged.

"Do they hurt?" she asked.

"YES," he near barked like that was about the stupidest question he'd ever heard. She supposed it was a little base. Clearly he still hurt – but she wasn't sure that there should be a significant amount of pain at the actual incision sites at that point.

"Are they really red or hot to the touch?" she tried to rephrase.

He shrugged again. "Yeah. I guess. The one."

Olivia examined him again for a moment. She didn't want to again ignore him when he was saying he wasn't feeling well or something was off – she was still regretting that about his ruptured appendix. But she was trying to weigh how much this was related to his health versus an emotional reaction of him not liking what he was seeing in the mirror.

"Which one?" she asked.

"This one," he said a bit more forcibly and cut his hand across his navel.

She sighed again. "Jack … your waistband is likely rubbing against that one. And with you sitting and moving … that's the one that's mostly likely to get aggravated. Is it just red? Or is it opening up or seeping or hot too?"

He just glared at her and didn't give a reply.

She gazed at him in return firmly and let the silence hang between them for several beats. He was still guarding his abdomen with his arms and fidgeting. He looked small and scared again even though he was trying to put back on his teen-anger face. He still wasn't feeling well enough for him to achieve that very successful. It was probably taking a lot of his energy to pull off the look he was giving her.

"It's just … getting late, Jack, and I just got Benji to bed. If this can wait until morning … I can call your surgeon and see if we can get an appointment. Or … if it's not bad … you have your follow-up on Friday, sweetheart. You don't have a fever … and if it's not showing any other symptoms of infection … I don't know this is something we need to go to the ER for tonight."

"It's RED," he spat at her.

She nodded, trying her best not to get upset with him – not to break out her stern voice. He needed gentle mothering right now – that much was clear, not a firm hand. Sometimes that was hard, though. She always felt like it was such a dance of balance with Jack.

Dealing with a teenager was a lesson unlike anything she'd had before after so many years on the job. She'd dealt with so many teens over the years. But in different situations and for different reasons. She'd listened to Elliot rant and vent about his kids going through their teens – she'd interacted with all of them in a very limited way (maybe with the expectation of Kathleen). But, again, the day-in, day-out mothering Jack needed was different than the glimpses she had in dealing with frustrations, tragedy or criminal activity that she interacted with previously over the years.

Even the days where she just got the couple minute conversation with Jack when he called to say goodnight to Benji or the random texts he sent her wanting to know completely random things or making completely random requests or randomly having decided that he needed to let her know he'd gotten to work that day or back to the dorms OK that night (yet didn't seem to care if she knew the next night) – it all required this gentle balance of parenting and mothering that she was still trying to figure out. How she was expected to react? What he needed from her? What he wanted from her? What he didn't want from her? When he needed support and when he needed discipline. When he wanted to feel loved and cared for and when he was looking for a kick in the ass (or he needed one).

It was a delicate balance with a young adult and one she was really trying to keep out of a fear that there still might be a point where he decided she did something wrong enough that he didn't want her in his life or Benji's anymore. Part of her knew that was likely an unfounded fear at this point. But another part of her knew that until all her paperwork was official she'd still worry about it. Even after that she knew she'd worry that even though she had Benji, as an 'adult', Jack could technically decide at anytime he hated her guts and didn't want anything to do with her. She tried to tell herself that was part of being a teenager – and a young adult too. It was part of growing up and finding yourself. Jack had a lot of catch-up to do in that area and he needed somewhere to place some of his anger and frustrations. She'd basically voluntarily placed herself up for that role too.

"OK," she allowed. "Well … do you want to me to take a look at the incisions and see before we go all the way to the hospital?"

"I'm not going to let you look at my crotch!" he raised his voice again and crossed his arms even tighter around himself to the point he winced.

She snorted. He was so stubborn. Jay was persistent but she didn't remember him being the stubborn ass his son could be at times. If she didn't know better she'd think he'd some how inherited it from her and it was some sort of karma payback.

"Jack … here …" she waved her hand across her own upper pelvis, "is not your crotch."

"Whatever," he mumbled at her.

"I can assure you I've seen a men's navel region before," she tried to offer a little jokingly – doing her best to calm him.

"I don't want you looking at me," he put at her pointedly. But it was clear from the tone it wasn't that he didn't want her looking at the incisions – it was that he didn't want her looking at him specifically.

Sometimes she didn't know what to make of Jack's bashfulness. She couldn't decide if it was not having a mother around, caring for him or looking at him as he grew up? If it was something that happened between him and his sister or her actions around him or with her sex life and body image seeping over and having implications on his existence in general? If it was something that his uncle had done to him that had damaged him on some level whether it was mentally, physically, emotionally – self-esteem or body image or otherwise? Or whether it was just sexual inexperience and self-consciousness?

From little things Jack said and did she didn't get the sense that the teen was wholly inexperienced in that area. She'd be surprised if he was. Most young people didn't make it through their teens without at least some experimentation and exploring. But he had had a lot on his plate in his teens and for most of his high school career. She suspected he'd been more focused on surviving that and trying to figure out how to get out of that situation than he was on his hormones. And, unless he was living some sort of secret life in his nights (which she didn't get the sense he did at all), he definitely didn't have a girlfriend or was a player looking to party or hook-up in anyway. He was always at school, work or the apartment, it seemed. His time was spent studying, skateboarding or playing videogames – with some television watching and screwing around on his phone and the internet.

Sometimes Olivia couldn't decide how worried or relieved she should be about that. She knew though she wanted him to have as normal of life as possible at this point – and a normal college experience and to enjoy his last few years of 'childhood' and teenaged years and young adulthood before he got spat out into the real world that sent him looking for a job and trying to pay bills – things he'd already had a glimpse of and had struggled with meeting.

But it was another reminder of what a strange balance it was to parent a teenager and young adult. It was such a juxtaposition of the things she worried about with Benji. Some of the underlying themes were the same but the issues and problems she had to deal with between them seemed so different some days. Still, what she had to deal with one of them always seemed to help and inform her in some way in preparation of how to deal with the next issue with the other one.

As much as she thought she knew men – having worked with men for so long, having seen so many sorts and types come through her squad room as victims and perps and parents and attorneys – the boys consistently provided a reminder to her that she didn't know as much as she had thought. Boys were different. How they thought was different. What motivated them was different. How they expressed themselves was different. How they interacted with each other (and even her) and the situations around them and emotions – it was different.

Sometimes she thought dealing with the boys – gave her a bit of a glimpse at why she'd had so many failed relationships too. It wasn't all just the job. Some of it was her and her understanding of men and how to interact with them. Dealing with a little man and a young man was definitely giving her new insights into the gender. Some of it she was applying already at work in how she interacted with perps and victims – and even some of her colleagues. Maybe some day she'd get a chance to test drive some of those insights in a relationship too. Though when that would happen took an even bigger backseat than when she'd ever get around to decorating and organizing the apartment.

That was likely a good thing – at least for her evolving relationship with Jack. If the teen couldn't stand the thought of her knowing he had genitalia (or rather thought his crotch began around his navel), she suspected him acknowledging she had (or rather - wanted again, at some point) a dating life or a sex life was something still light-years away in their evolution as a family.

"I thought we were passed this, Jack," she sighed. "I've seen you without your shirt on before. I'm not looking at anything but how the incisions are healing."

"I don't want YOU looking at me," he stated again and an awful glare that near smacked in her face.

"Are we back to you getting hung up on me being a in relationship with your father more than two decades ago?" she spat at him in frustration before she even realized it was coming out of her mouth. But she was frustrated with him at that point.

Sometimes Olivia just felt like for every step forward her and Jack took – he'd realize it and then purposely take as many steps as possible back. It was exhausting and disheartening. It made her question why she was even trying with him. It made the whole process so frustrating – so heartbreaking, so infuriating.

"New flash, Jack," she continued to spew with an edge of anger of her own, "if you were my son – I would've had to have sex with your father then too. And if I had a biological son, I'd look at him and see … think of his father too. But that would be ALL there was to it. I'd be seeing my son. I'd be caring about my son. It wouldn't be … whatever the hell you keep turning anything I do for you or any way I look at you into."

She glared at him as her enraged vomit stopped and she saw the emotion in his eyes. It set in that she'd let that all come out – she hadn't just thought it - and it had come out in an angered tone. Another parenting fail. She sighed and looked at the floor for a moment before meeting his slightly more scared eyes.

"Sorry," she apologized quietly and a little embarrassed at letting her emotions get the best of her.

The whole process was so emotional, though. It was hard. It was so much work and so much effort to get this to work for them – and sometimes it felt like Jack just gave so little back. She knew that was part of being a teenager too but she wasn't sure telling herself that made it any easier. Sometimes with all that was going on with them – or maybe more just in her life in general whatever she tried to establish some sort of normalcy or happiness – she ended up feeling like the ball in the pinball machine. She was bounced and deflected so violently through the machine until eventually she fell down the return without having scored too many points only to be vaulted back into the chaos again to end up more bruised for the next round. It was exhausting.

She was exhausted – literally and figuratively. The court case, the adoption paperwork, work and now Jack's surgery and hospital stay. It was never-ending. She was so behind on sleep – as well as everything else in her life and she didn't know when she'd ever manage to catch up or how. There was so much more coming up for them – and her too. She didn't know how she'd manage it all – as much as she knew she'd just figure out a way to manage it all.

"I'm just … frustrated," Olivia admitted a little quietly. "All these … adjustments … they aren't always easy for me either, Jack. Sometimes … I feel like I'm reaching out to you and …" she shook her head and gave a small shrug. "You basically try to slap my hand away as hard as possible. It hurts because I really am trying. But … if you feel that you need to go the hospital, I trust your judgment. It's your body … you know what you're feeling and how much you're hurting … so just let me know what you want to do ..."

Jack gazed at her for several seconds. She thought he would likely just head for the door and start to collect his things – either to go to the hospital or to give her a real fuck-off and to try to go back to the dorms (she wouldn't let him get that far – no matter how upset he was with her in his 'I'll show you' moment. He was still too tired and too weak and in too much pain to be left on his own). But he didn't budge. Instead, he wordlessly dropped his arms and pulled his shirt up his chest.

Olivia kept her eyes locked with his for a moment but then diverted her gaze to his abdomen. She touched his elbow and stepped into the bathroom so he'd follow her into the better light. He did and she continued to look at the incisions – without touching him. She'd seen them before. If anything, she thought they actually were looking better to her than they had in the dreary hospital with the nurses fussing robotically over changing his bandages. She moved slightly to take a look at the one on his side. It looked really good to her, though, it was clear the one down his abdomen still had quite a ways to go in its healing process.

"You left the dressings on in the shower right? Didn't get them too wet?" she asked gently while she continued to look.

"Yeah," he agreed quietly. "They just got wet and starting to peel so I took them off when I was getting dry."

She nodded. "Do you want me to look at the one that's red?" she asked carefully.

He sighed but tucked his shirt under his chin and then rested his one arm protectively across himself again, before using the opposite hand to move the band of his shorts down an inch or so for her to look.

He was right. It definitely was angrier looking than the other incisions and she could see what looked like the strings of dissolving stitches sticking out the one end of it that also didn't look nearly as healed with the puckered flesh that wasn't completely drawn together yet. The skin around the whole was flushed – but at that end it radiated more outward and was red rather than just pink. But nothing was visibly rupturing open at the site. She sighed and rubbed her eyebrow – leaning back against the counter. Jack took it as a signal to drop his shirt back into place and to readjust the waistband of his underwear.

She shrugged at him. "It's pretty red," she agreed.

He just looked at her but gave no response. He was clearly deciding if he should berate her for not taking him at face value in his initial assessment.

"The rest look like they're healing, Jack," she offered. She didn't want to argue.

Olivia knew he likely wasn't happy with the incisions and the knowledge that they were going to leave scars. The two smaller ones would likely fade quickly over the next year or two, she was sure. But the one down his abdomen would be noticeable for life – without a doubt.

"I think a lot of redness of the one is likely from rubbing, sweetheart," she tried again. "Maybe wear your shorts a little higher for now?"

"So I can walk around with a fucking wedgie," he snarked.

She resisted the urge to roll her eyes. It wasn't like he was doing a lot of walking – or much of anything – at the moment. But even though she managed to keep her eyes looked with his, a little head shaky of annoyance came out.

Jack sighed. "Then it rubs here," he said and gestured at the bottom end of the large incision.

She nodded. "Lower?" she suggested instead.

He huffed at her at that but didn't say anything of substance. So she again just watched him for a moment.

"The sutures that are sticking out of the lower one – did they soften in the shower?" she asked.

Jack gaped at her a bit. "I don't know. I didn't want to touch them. I don't want to … touch any of it," he said.

He didn't need to say more. She knew that going into the surgery the scars had scared him. Part of her wanted to believe there was a vanity to that. People looking at the pool or beach - or future girlfriends asking questions. But her Little Fox's reaction to scars and his rendition of his mother having them made Olivia suspect there was something deeper to Jack's distaste of having visible scars and his fear of tampering with the incisions in anyway. She was realizing that his extended time in the bathroom looking at the marks likely hadn't been healthy. There'd likely been a lot of emotion to it. It probably explained the near cowering he was still doing around her now and it made her feel that a little bit worse for snapping at him.

"They're going to fade, Jack," she tried to assure him. "With time."

He just shrugged at her and again adjusted his arm protectively across himself.

"A lot of the redness is around where those strings are," she told him. "The rubbing it likely irritating the area. Maybe your movements are causing the dressings to tug at them a bit. If we can get them to sit a bit flatter against your body, maybe it won't feel as aggravated."

"Are they even supposed to be there?" he asked quietly. "The other ones don't have them."

She sighed and rubbed at her eyebrow again. "I don't know, Jack. But if the doctor or nurses had been concerned about it at the hospital – they likely would've done something about it then."

"Were they there then?" he asked and looked at her with wide questioning eyes. Maybe that was what the fear in him was. He thought he'd pulled or torn something in the shower or in taking the dressings off that caused the strings to come out of his body.

She could just shrug, though. "I didn't look that closely, sweetheart."

"You were sitting right there," he said with some apprehension and a touch of awkwardness.

He hadn't liked her leaving him alone – at least not when he was awake – in the hospital. But he likely also felt as a man and a 19-year-old he was supposed to be able to handle being in the hospital on his own. But she didn't blame him for his apprehension and need for company. Everything had happened so quickly and his coping mechanisms were low. He'd already been through so much. She'd noted that he wanted her there but she also hadn't thought too much of it – or rather, she'd forced herself to try not to read too much into it.

"I was trying to give you some privacy, Jack," she told him – and there was a truth to that. He was so uncomfortable with her looking at his chest now. Even though he was drugged in the hospital – she didn't think he'd want her examining his body that closely even if it had been to look at how he was healing. "They're supposed to be dissolving, though. So maybe they'll fall off as they dry out now that you've showered. If not, I'm sure the doctor can trim them off on Friday so they aren't bugging you. Or – if it's really hurting you, we can go into the ER … or I can call the doctor's office in the morning and see if we can go in and have him or one of the nurses take a look at it."

He just shrugged again.

"Well … think about it," she said.

"Yeah …" he mumbled.

She looked at him. The antibiotics and painkillers still had so many of his resources dimmed at the moment. He wasn't as strong or defiant as usual. She could see in him. There was still that fear and trepidation trembling closer to the surface than usual. The little boy rather than the young man.

"Do you want me to help you put some new dry dressings back on them?" she offered. "Maybe that will help the discomfort a bit. It must still hurt to be bending to do that."

He just gave her another shrug. "I've been beaten up worse than this and dealt with it fine on my own," he mumbled at a near whisper.

She gazed at him again and let out a sigh before looking at the ground. "You're going to have to talk to me, Jack," she said to the floor before looking up to meet his eyes. "Eventually. You're going to have to tell me what really happened on that farm. Even with just the adoption paperwork or the guardianship paperwork – you're going to have to tell me something. You … aren't going to be able to heal if you can't talk about it. Hiding the abuse doesn't make it go away. That man … your uncle … he had no right to touch you."

"He didn't touch me," Jack muttered.

She looked at him hard. "Oh? You just deal with being beaten up worse than this from … skateboarding accidents? Being kicked by a cow?"

That earned a small snort from him and the tiniest tug of a smile at the edges of his mouth.

"He didn't touch me the way you think …"

"I think he beat the living shit out of you and that he threatened you with weapons," she told him pointedly. "In the very least." He just looked at her and offered no reply. It wasn't the right time to have a conversation anyways. He wasn't well enough yet. "No one has the right to touch you, Jack," she stressed at him again.

"You're trying to touch me," he said.

She snorted at that and looked at the ceiling in some frustration. "I'm offering to help with your bandages, if you want it," she clarified. "I won't touch you – or help – if you don't want me too. I'm asking permission to touch you – in a caring way."

He met her eyes for a moment. "You touch me all the time," he said. "Without permission."

"I touch you all the time?" she put back at him.

He shrugged.

She sighed. "OK. Well, I can be more conscious of making sure I don't touch you 'all the time'," she said. She knew she gave him little touches but nothing inappropriate and nothing he'd protested against or moved away from recently. "And, if you ever told me to stop something, I would. Immediately."

He looked at her again like he was weighing that. Sometimes she had no idea what he wanted from her. Barely 24-hours ago she wasn't allowed to leave the room – he wanted her at his bedside. Now apparently she was looking at him the wrong way and touching him in ways he wasn't comfortable with. She wasn't sure her and Jack would ever be able to have a normal relationship and there were moments she wasn't sure how long she could do the dance and hold the balance for them both.

"You can help," he finally allowed quietly.

She let out some more air from her lungs and rubbed at her eyebrow. Back-and-forth in their tug of war that she didn't think either of them were winning.

"OK, you want to go into the bedroom," she suggested but saw his eyes. "It will be easier for me to do if you lie down," she told him. "Like in the hospital."

He examined the floor like he was uncomfortable with that but then exited the bathroom and she saw him wander towards her bed.

"I'll be back in a second," she told him, and disappeared to the dining room where she'd left the gauze and tape and medicated ointment they'd been sent home with. By the time she got back into the bedroom, he was laying rather uncomfortably looking on her bed, the lights still off and only the light from the hallway and the bathroom streaming in.

Olivia flicked on her bedside light and sat on the edge of the bed next to him. She gave the teen a thin smile but he was gazing at the ceiling in much the same way he had while the nurses had worked on him. So she put the supplies on the bedside table and worked a ripping off some strips of the paper tape in preparing to get him fixed up. He glanced over at the sound of it and watched her for a moment.

"Benji would likely be better at this than me," she offered him a little teasingly as she felt his eyes on her. The little boy had been pretty fascinated with the nurses changing Jack's bandages and IVs.

Jack held up his arm that had had the IV in it and his hand at various points during his stay.

"I took his Band-Aids off in the shower too," he said quietly. Benji had been decorating him with the Cars, Transformer and florescent Band-Aids they had in stock (more items that she'd never would've considered buying a few months ago).

She just gave Jack a more genuine smile. "He'll be happy to replace them for you tomorrow."

Then she ripped open one of the large pieces of gauze and worked at smearing some of the ointment around the surface of it. The nurse had showed her the recommended process for caring for the incisions and keeping them covered over the course of the week until they saw the surgeon for the follow-up on Friday. She'd actually been showing Jack but Olivia suspected she'd been paying more attention. Not that she'd ever seen herself as much of a Florence Nightingale. Though, she was definitely learning that when the maternal instincts kicked in some of that stuff just seemed to be ingrained – no matter who it was or how old they were.

She reached and gently placed the gauze over his large incision running down his abdomen. He flinched a bit as she got it into place.

"Does that hurt?" she asked a little concern.

He shook his head. "No. It's just cold. It feels a little weird."

She nodded. "Nerve-endings. That will take a while."

"So I won't feel stuff at the scars again?" he asked quietly.

She shrugged. "We'll have to ask the surgeon that on Friday," she told him and she taped the dressing into place for him tightly. "I'd imagine you'll get some feeling back with time. The scars will be pretty thin when they're done healing. It's a process, Jack. It's still early. Give your body time."

He made a sound and looked back to the ceiling so she moved her focus to readying the next piece of gauze for his side. She leaned over him and tapped it into spot and again smoothed the paper tape over its edges.

She met his eyes as she finished. "If you want me to do the last one, you're going to have to move your shorts a bit," she told him. "Otherwise …" she just tapped where the supplies were sitting next to him.

He just kept the eye contact, though. "Can you make the strings go down like you said might help?" he asked quietly.

She gave him a nod. "Sure, if you're OK with me touching you – I'll try."

He let out a bit of a breath but then lifted his hips a bit and shimmied his shorts down to expose a more significant chunk of his navel and pelvis.

Olivia just looked back to the night table while he did it, though, and focused on readying the final piece of gauze until he stilled next to her. Then she looked back to him. Being able to look directly down on that incision now with the light right there – she could see just how angry it did look on that side of the mark where the strings were hanging out of his body. He was right that it was red and she thought maybe bordering infected looking. Now that he was more dry she could also see that it did look like some crusting of a possible seepage was around that area too. But she didn't want to make too much about it to him right then. They'd just monitor in the next 24 hours or so unless he complained more or she saw some indications in him that maybe infection was actually setting in. Right now it mostly looked sore – but Jack was completely sore at that point.

She dabbed some of the ointment onto her finger directly from the tube. "I'm just going to use some of this to see if I can get them to stick down to your skin," she told him as she reached for him.

He flinched again more visibly as she tried to smooth them down with the cream and made a small noise.

"That hurts?" she asked again.

He nodded. "Yeah. It's pretty uncomfortable."

She sighed and gave a final little dab but just left it. It hadn't really worked – though maybe having the cream there might help a bit in the long run. She'd see if she could just get them to sit flat when she put the gauze of it she thought – and placed it carefully over, taking special care in settling it over that end and then pressing the tape into place along the top.

"You want to smooth down the tape at the bottom, sweetheart," she told him and guided his one hand to the spot – his eyes still set on the ceiling. She thought that particular strip of tape was getting a bit closer to his real crotch than either of them would be overly comfortable with her touching. She was a little surprised he'd let her work on that are at all but knew the fact he had likely gave her more information about how much discomfort that incision site was causing him.

She gave him another small smile as he finished and tidied the items on the bedside table and stood as he adjusted his shorts the way he wanted.

"You want some help getting back upright?" she offered as she finished but he gave his head a little shake.

"It's kinda comfy here. Maybe I'll sleep here a while."

She allowed her smile to grow a bit at that and gave him a nod. He needed his rest. She wanted him to rest.

"Good idea," she agreed. "I'll see you when you get up then. Just call me if you need something," she told him and reached to switch the bedside light back off.

"Olivia …" Jack said a little hesitantly as the room fell into the darkness of just the light streaming in from other rooms again.

"Yeah?" she allowed.

"I'm sorry," he said with a real apology in his voice.

She looked at him through the streaming light. He was looking at her – not the ceiling.

"Don't be sorry," she told him and leaned forward and grabbed the kicked bunch of blankets from around his feet and pulled them up his body and tucked them around him. "I just don't like fighting with you …"

He made a small sound and seemed to watch her as she straightened back up.

"I love you …" he told her quietly and sheepishly – his eyes still trying to hold hers indirectly in the dim light.

She felt tears stinging the back of her eyes. But she knew Jack's main rule: Don't make a big deal out of things. It was a good rule. She had a reputation to keep up. Having the boys in her life were doing enough to compromise it.

She shook her head and reached out to run her one thumb down his temple. "I love you too, Jack. Just try to rest. I'll wake you in a few hours for your next pills."

He gave her the smallest nod. So Olivia exited the room – only pulling the door halfway shut behind her, leaving it open in the same way she did with Benji. Open enough so she could hear when he needed her – so she could be there.


	157. Chapter 157

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia glanced behind her as Jack hobbled through the kitchen and into the dining room.

"You two are so fucking loud," he mumbled as her as he went by.

There was some truth to the statement. Benji didn't do quiet – any time, but especially in the mornings. Though, Olivia suspected that it hadn't been the little boy who had woken Jack. She'd realized that she'd forgotten some of her toiletries and had to step inside the bedroom door and into the bathroom to retrieve them. She thought she'd been relatively quiet about it but Jack had still mumbled at her from around the corner in the bed when she'd moved to exit. She wasn't too upset about it, though. She'd intended to wake him before they left anyways to at least get him to take his morning pills – but to just generally make sure he was OK and established for the day.

Olivia felt a little bad about leaving him alone. Part of her felt like it might still be a little too early for it. But she reminded herself that it had been nearly a week since the surgery, he was out of the hospital and he wasn't a little boy. She was sure he could handle sitting around – and probably sleeping – most of the day on his own. And, if something did happen – she was only a phone call away. Still, taking that step to leave him seemed a little off. She blamed it on the maternal instinct switches that apparently just kept flipping somewhere inside of her with each passing day.

"Hey," she said softly but sternly as he went by. "Just because you're a cripple doesn't mean the language rules have changed."

He made a snorting sound at her and glanced over his shoulder but kept moving into the dining room and she heard him shuffle the chair on his side of the table out and slowly maneuver himself into it.

"MORNING PEEDG!" Benji greeted about as loudly as possible.

"I'm right here. You don't have to scream," Jack mumbled again, as his elbows hit the table.

"You feel better, Peedg?"

"Not really," the teen muttered and stared at the little boy in a bit of a haze.

"You need more Band-Aids, Peedg? They make you feel better."

"Yeah. I don't think so," Jack said.

Benji examined him with a pucker. There was clearly some disapproval that he wasn't going to get to decorate him with the adhesives that morning.

"Want Mommy Fox to kiss your boo-boos? That make it better. It magic."

Jack snorted a laugh at that and looked at the little boy. "Yeah. I don't think that's a great idea either."

"It work good," Benji informed him with some enthusiasm.

Jack shook his head. "No thanks."

Nurse Benji made a bit of a frustrated sound at his own inability to find a treatment for his patient.

"You want staw-berry?" Benji offered next and held one out across the table. "YOU NEED TA EAT!" he recited in the mantra that had been stated to Jack repeatedly in working towards motivating him to get them the hell out of the hospital – and had continued since they'd gotten home as Olivia worked to keep some nourishment in him during his recovery.

Benji had been dipping the berries in the milk of his honey nut Cheerios while he ate his breakfast – sucking the liquid loudly off each one as he went. It had been his thing in the morning lately. Olivia really didn't get the appeal – but that was true with most things Benji. And, at least it meant he was eating some fruit other than grapes so she wasn't questioning the methods behind the madness too much.

She followed past Jack into the sitting area with her cup of coffee and two bowls. She put one in front of the teen at table and the other at her spot.

"You want to try to eat some yogurt this morning?" she suggested, as she also put his morning pills on the corner of the placement. He was really supposed to be eating them with food but getting him to stomach much of anything was still a bit of a negotiation process at that point. That was about a 360-degree turn for Jack who usually made it his mission to eat through house and home whenever he was at the apartment.

"Not really," he glanced up at her.

She sighed. "Milk?"

Jack usually would go through a jug of milk all on his own most weekends too. But so far getting him to even down a glass to coat his stomach a bit for the pills was also a challenge. He just shrugged at her but she took that as as close to an affirmative as she was going to get and went back into the kitchen to get him a glass.

"Ice cream?" he suggested as she turned back towards the dining room and looked at her with some hope in his eyes.

She shook her head, though. Giving Jack ice cream at 7 a.m. would mean Benji would also opt out of his cereal and berries.

"You aren't having ice cream for breakfast," she told him bluntly. Though Olivia thought she'd likely text him after she got the little boy out the door and tell him to go ahead. Assuming she couldn't tempt him with something else. "What about jello? Or a popsicle? Instant oatmeal?" she tried.

He sighed at her. "Popsicle, I guess," he muttered. He'd been complaining that his throat was sore. She could understand that in the day or so immediately after surgery but she was starting to get a little concerned that he was still raising it as a problem.

She handed him a popsicle as she returned to the dining room and finally sat down, only to have Benji look at her with the same hopeful eyes that Jack had given her about the ice cream.

"I have 'ick-call too Mommy?"

She shook her head and pointed at his breakfast. "Maybe as an after school snack. Eat your cereal and berries, Little Fox."

"PEEDG GETS 'ICK-CALL!" he protested.

"And when you have your appendix out you can have a popsicle for breakfast too – until then … eat your cereal and berries," she instructed.

Benji squinted at her. "I want pen-dicks out!"

Jack snorted at that. "No you don't," he told Benji bluntly.

"YeeeeeeeeeEEEEEES!" Benji interjected. "Then I have ick-call."

"You can have a popsicle when we get home from daycare," Olivia said.

"WHEN DAT?!" Benji demanded.

"Same time as always. After Mommy's done work and after you're done preschool. Eat your breakfast, Benj."

He huffed at her and glared at Jack as he worked getting the wrapped off the frozen treat.

With how fast he was going through the box Olivia was trying to convince herself that packaging wasn't that misleading when it labeled its product as '100% fruit'.

She grabbed at the jug of milk from the middle of the table and poured the teen a glass and tapped her fingers next to his pills before adding a splash of the liquid to her coffee.

"Take your pills," she reminded him and then reached for the yogurt for herself, taking a few of Benji's berries – ignoring his shriek of disapproval – and starting to slice them up into her bowl.

Jack watched her for a moment, ignoring her instructions. But then looked at the pills and fingered them for a moment, separating the painkillers from the antibiotics.

"I was thinking maybe I'll just take the antibiotics today," he directed at her.

She eyed him for a moment while she finished cutting up the strawberries. She wasn't sure she liked that idea. She'd seen how he was still struggling with the pain and discomfort at that point. She could tell when he was nearing the time to take his next dosage – he was visibly in more pain and more irritable.

She sighed at him. "I don't know, Jack. The doctor gave you enough for two weeks. You're barely out of the hospital. You're still hurting."

He flicked at the pills a bit more with his fingernail and looked at her again. "I just … don't want to get dependent on him," he said quietly and glanced at her and then shrugged. "Izzy did a lot of shit," he said like it was some sort of confession. But it was something Olivia had known from near the get-go, at least after she knew who Jack and Benji were and she'd dug into their background as much as she could. "She liked her 512s."

Jack's use of one of the pills' street names made her sigh a bit more as she eyed him.

"You not like Mama," Benji interjected though before she managed to get anything out to try to persuade him either way. Jack looked at the little boy questioningly and maybe a little uncomfortable with him having any sort of comprehension of what they were discussing. "Izzy Mama," Benji informed him at Jack's look.

"Yeah …" Jack agreed quietly.

"You not like Mama, Peedg," Benji told him again and sucked on another strawberry, making a popping sound as he pulled it out of his mouth. "Scars don't make you like Mama. Me have scar and Mommy have scar and Peedg have scars. But they not like Mama's scars. You not like Mama."

Jack looked at her in some disbelief. She wasn't sure if it was because Benji had broken some sort of confidence in revealing a bit more about their past family life or it was because the little boy had understood enough about what was going on with his mother to be able to express that.

"He told you about that?" Jack asked quietly.

She offered him a small shrug and a sad, thin smile. "He didn't tell me anything I didn't already know or suspect, Jack," she told him in case the teen was upset with the little boy. "And, I want my kids to feel they're able to talk to me about whatever they want – whenever they want."

Jack made a little noise and looked at the pills in front of him again.

"Benji's right, Jack," she offered. "You aren't your sister – and I'm monitoring how you're taking them. It's not going to be a problem for you. You aren't Izzy – and this is a very different situation from what she was doing with pill popping, Jack."

"You aren't going to be here today," he put back to her and gave her a glance.

She sighed a little at that and rubbed at her eyebrow. She felt bad about leaving him alone. But she'd been away from work almost a week at that point. She had another commitment that getting out of wasn't an option. And, really, Jack was still sleeping most of the day – at least if he took the painkiller he would be.

"I know, sweetheart," she admitted. "But I'm scheduled to testify in court today. I can't skip out on that. I'll be checking in with you during the day. And – if there's an emergency – you can call the squad room or Alex, and they'll get us in touch."

"You're going to come home after?" he asked a little hopefully.

Part of her liked the hopefulness in his voice – liked that she was wanted … needed … somewhere. But she was needed in court that day too. One of her vics needed her. And Olivia wanted to be there, beyond being required to be there, for her. It was a case – a victim – that had struck a cord with her more than any had in a while. Or at least any that weren't kids. It was the cases with children that she'd been struggling with the most anymore. The rest she was trying to focus on doing the job and separating work from family as much as possible. It was a survival mechanism – for her but also for her Little Fox and her Growling one too on some level. She couldn't bring the work home anymore. She couldn't spend all night weighed down by it. She couldn't lose out her weekends obsessing over it or checking in with victims or volunteering to supervise visitations. She had her own life and her own boys who needed her – and who's lives she wanted to be a part of. She didn't want to miss any of it. She'd already missed too much.

She knew it meant that she wasn't there as much for the victims anymore. She was still there but in a different way. She'd been starting to distance herself from some of it anyways before the boys were even on the scene – just out of her own disillusionment and questioning how much longer she should stay with SVU. Now it was a more conscious decision. She was more engaged at work now that she had outside elements in her life now – it was a little ironic, she thought. She gave more while she was there because she knew she couldn't always be there now. She didn't want to always be there now. She didn't hand out her card with her private cell scribbled on the back as often anymore. It had to be a pretty stand out case for her to potentially expose her boys to her work world.

But this had been one of those cases. Of course, she'd handed that woman her card and phone number before the boys were on the scene. It'd been back in the summer. Still, Olivia thought she'd likely do it again now if the case had fallen into her lap. The young woman – raped and carrying her rapists child to term, planning on keeping the baby. It had stuck with Olivia and she hadn't been able to let go. She'd actually probably let herself get a little too close as she dealt with her own personal demons around the woman's story. It was almost like her engagement in the case – her dwelling on it – she was now being punished by having Jack sick at the same time. It was like the universe was asking her to decide what was more important. She wasn't entirely sure. What this woman was going through was just as important as her son's recovery – the case and trail was important. But maybe the universe was trying to give her some distractions to keep Olivia from applying what was going on in the woman's life to some sort of self-examination of her own. Even that, though, was likely getting a little too philosophical about it. It was likely more that shit just happens and you've got to make do – and that's what Olivia was doing, as much as it hurt a bit to be leaving her boy Jack alone for at least part of the day.

So she shrugged. "I'm not sure how long I'll be there, Jack. But when I get out of there – I'll call. If you're doing OK, I'd like to go into the office for a few hours. There's some things going on there …"

"There's always things going on there. You're a cop. You deal with whack jobs."

She looked at him and considered that statement. She didn't really feel it accurately captured what her job entailed but she also didn't really think Jack entirely grasped what she did. He understood the basics of it but she wasn't entirely sure he'd completely wrapped his head around what working in the sex crimes – in Special Victims Unit – or being a detective meant. Maybe he didn't want to think about it much – and she certainly didn't blame him for that. She wasn't sure she really wanted him thinking about it much. But some times his discomfort with her job made her a little uncomfortable. Still, she hadn't really figured out a way to have any sort of discussion about her work with him yet. She wasn't sure what she was supposed to say … what he needed to know or what he wanted to know. Most of the questions he'd asked so far – which had been early in their relationship – had been flippant or disturbing. The kind of things that would usually make her go running from men if she was dating them. But she knew Jack was just trying to be an asshole at the time and now it was like her entire career existed behind some sort of veil for him and they didn't speak of it. She didn't like that much better – not when they were supposed to be a family.

"This isn't to do with a case," she allowed. "One of my colleagues is just … having some troubles right now."

He eyed her at that. "What kind of troubles?"

She snorted and rolled her eyes at him. "We aren't the only ones with eventful lives full of too much drama," she said flatly and finally managed to get a spoonful of her breakfast into her mouth.

"What's that mean?" he asked.

She shrugged again. "Amanda has some things going on. I just want to check in."

"What? She got some ex's kids dumped on her and one of them just out of like massive stomach surgery too?"

She shook her head at him. "No. But she's got sister drama going on right now – and I think you know what that's like."

Jack eyed her again but didn't say anything.

"Will you take half a pill?" she suggested, trying to shift back to the issue at hand. "I don't want you sitting here in pain all day, Jack. I'll worry about you more than I'm already going to be."

He sighed at her but took the spoon she'd given him with the bowl he'd refused to put any yogurt or cereal into and used it to crack the tablet in half and popped it into his mouth along with the antibiotic pills – cashing them with the whole glass of milk.

"Thank you," Olivia said quietly and looked back to finishing up her own breakfast.

"It's Shrove Tuesday," Jack stated after a few minutes of slurping on his popsicle nearly as loudly as Benji was working on his breakfast.

Olivia looked up at him again. Quiet breakfasts didn't exist anymore. Not on a typical weekday and certainly not when Jack was in the house. He was usually even more chatty than Benji at the breakfast table. But really – before the boys, she wasn't even sure breakfast really existed. She might have a glass of orange before she left the apartment. Other than that she'd grab something caffeinated on the way into work. If it was a particularly healthy day she might get a piece of fruit too. Unhealthy day – but hungry day – she'd add in a donut or a bagel.

"Mmm?" she mumbled around her yogurt but looking at Benji. He near had his face in the bowl like he was bobbing for the last few cheerios with his tongue. She poked at his arm and he looked up at her innocently while a white drop of milk dripped off his nose. "Use your spoon, Benj. You can drink the milk after all the cereal is gone."

"TOOOOOO HARD," he whined at her – like every morning but picked up his spoon to chase around the last few Os a bit more.

She looked back at Jack with that potential mess and clean-up adverted – though she had just left the milk to continue dripping off the little boy's nose. There'd be more there anyways when she did let him lift the bowl and drink out the remainder of the milk – with supervision. She'd learned that the hard way after he dumped the cereal milk down the front of his preschool clothes.

"Mardi Gras?" she clarified. "Does that mean that parade is down in New Orleans today? Maybe you'll be able to find that on some channel? Might be fun to watch."

He gave her a look like she was a complete idiot and clearly not reading his mind enough to see his point.

"Pancake Day," he clarified for her with his teenaged 'you're dumb' tone.

She eyed him again. Had he wanted pancakes for breakfast?

"PANCAKES?!" Benji had declared excitedly and looked to her expectantly. Her little boy lived on pancakes. She usually humored him on the weekend.

"Ah … I could do pancakes for dinner, I guess, if you think you're up to trying some solid food," she offered.

"''Anana chocolate chip!" Benji declared even more happily and hopped a little in his chair.

Jack just sighed at her and told Benji, "That's disgusting. No one likes that."

Benji glared at him. "I LIKE IT!"

"Well you aren't getting it," Jack told him sternly.

Olivia sighed. "JACK! Don't antagonizing him," she said sternly. She hated how Jack would go at him sometimes. It was so demeaning – if not outright mean. "It's what he likes. I'll just set aside some batter for yours before I put the bananas in his. It's not a big deal. Don't be so … grouchy about it."

"He gow-ling," Benji said and gave Jack a glare.

Olivia allowed Benji a little smile. He was right again – Jack was a little growly that morning. "He is," she agreed quietly.

"I don't even want pancakes," Jack said.

Olivia let out an exasperated noise and looked at him. "Well, now I'm making pancakes for dinner. So … they'll be there if you want them."

"Tomorrow's Ash Wednesday," he put out to her like she was still an idiot and looked again for a reaction and apparently didn't see one. "The start of Lent."

She rubbed her eyebrow at that.

"It's …" he started but Olivia held up her hand.

"I know what Lent is, Jack," she said with some annoyance. He was looking at her expectantly again. "So are we supposed to be doing something for Lent?" She sighed at him since she clearly wasn't reading his mind and reacting the way he wanted or asking the questions she was supposed to be.

He gave her a look again. "It's kind of important."

She let out another slightly annoyed breath. "OK. What important things are we supposed to do for Lent?"

"Get ready for Easter," Jack said.

"Easter isn't until the end of March," she put back to him.

She hadn't even thought about Easter yet. It felt like Christmas was barely over. She already had a giant list of things she needed to get done between then and the end of March – thinking about Easter wasn't a big priority. Studying for her promotion exam. Passing her promotion exam. Meetings with Ellis. Filling paperwork for the adoptions. Preparing the apartment for the home study. Dealing with the fucking thing. There were lots of other things that needed her attention before Easter – especially when Easter was weeks and weeks and WEEKS! Away.

"EATER BUNNY!" Benji declared and then looked at Jack. "He bring chalk-co-lick."

"The Easter Bunny doesn't exist," Jack said pointedly.

"Jack!" Olivia interjected with some harshness. She also didn't need the teen bursting any of the little boy's bubbles – wrecking anyone's fun, hers included. And she didn't want to have to do damage control or have Benji thinking she'd lied to him when she'd already promised that some giant rabbit would be bringing him M&Ms.

"What?" Jack asked like he had no idea what the problem was.

"Eater Bunny not real?" Benji asked.

"No," Jack confirmed. "Easter is about Jesus rising from the dead. Not some rabbit. That's so retarded."

Benji considered that. "Mama dead and Pops dead."

Olivia let out another breath. "We aren't going to talk about that this morning," she said and gave Jack and firm look. She so didn't even want to think about trying to explain that aspect of Christianity to her little boy and she really didn't think Jack would do a good job at it – even if he wasn't hopped up on painkillers. So instead she just looked at Benji. "The Easter Bunny is real and he'll bring you chocolate – on Easter. But that's still almost two months away, Benji."

Just what she needed too – Jack getting Benji excited about something that was still weeks and weeks and weeks away. She didn't want to go through 40 days and 40 nights of Easter just to acknowledge Lent or whatever other Christian traditions it was that Jack felt were necessary to educate the little boy in. Apparently the necessary celebrations of Christianity were only the high holidays. She hadn't heard anything about church or the faith from him since Christmas. Wading through Christmas was one thing. Wading through Easter was another. But she wasn't sure how to navigate herself out of that after having previously told Jack she was open to letting Benji learn about the religion his family had adhered to.

She looked at Benji and moved to pick up his dish. "Com'on Little Fox. Go and brush your teeth and then we're out the door."

He eyed her like he wanted to continue the Easter Bunny and people rising from the dead conversation but thankfully held his four-year-old tongue (at least for the moment) and then hopped up from his chair and went charging back towards the bathroom. So she stood from her spot and began to gather as many of the breakfast supplies as she could hold in one go.

"Does that mean we aren't doing Lent?" Jack asked as she picked up the items.

She shrugged. "You figure out what we can realistically do for Lent in a way that isn't extremely confusing for your brother …"

"Nephew," Jack interjected.

She sighed. She hated when she made that slip. But she so saw them so much more as brothers than she did an uncle and nephew most of the time. Jack was a decent big brother. She wasn't sure he was uncle of the year – though he definitely had had his moments. He'd gotten Benji out of a hellish situation and he'd brought him to her. She had to be appreciative of those things. Still, she wondered what they'd be – what they'd legally be classified as – if, and when, the adoption paperwork did get through? Maybe the bigger question was what Jack would be comfortable seeing himself as in Benji's life? Would he want to be a big brother? Or did he like being an uncle? Did it really make much of a difference? She wasn't sure. Probably not. A change in label likely wasn't going to change their dynamic.

"Why's it so confusing?" he demanded.

"Jack … you keep trying to explain it to him in terms of death. He's dealt with enough death. He's four. Death should be a fairly foreign concept to him. Telling him that Jesus died and rose from the dead makes him think that his mother or grandfather are going to be coming back or something."

"So tell him normal people don't come back. Just Jesus," Jack said.

She rolled her eyes. "Ah. Is that what the Bible says? I thought we were all supposed to come back on the Night of the Living Dead or something?"

"You so didn't listen to anything at all while you were at college did you?" he put at her.

"I was there to get a degree – not to be indoctrinated," she said and took the things to the kitchen.

She heard Jack struggling to get to his feet and by the time she got some of the items into the fridge and turned around to move to the counter and rinse out the bowls to put in the dishwasher, he was standing and looking at her.

"You said you'd raise him Catholic," the teen informed her.

She shook her head. "I never said that Jack," she said with a bit of a tone. She really didn't want them fighting that morning. She didn't need it. Not before having to go into work and not when he was still partially incapacitated. She didn't want him sitting there stewing about it or angry all day if she ended up stuck in court for the majority of it too. "I said that I was fine with him learning about religion and being exposed to different religions and ideas. I'm not Catholic. I'm not raising him Catholic."

"He is Catholic," Jack stated bluntly. "He was born Catholic. He was baptized."

She sighed and shrugged. "OK … well, I guess that will be good for his immortal soul."

"That's not funny," he pushed back.

But she just shrugged again. She knew she was being flippant and that passing on some of his family's traditions and beliefs was important to the teen. But she just didn't have it in her that morning – and she really didn't think Jack did either.

He just eyed. "So we aren't doing Lent?"

"We can do something for Lent," she stressed again, "if you come up with some way of explaining it to him and some activity that's age appropriate, Jack."

"You give up things at Lent," he informed her.

She shrugged again. "OK. You think of some ideas of what might be age appropriate things for a four-year-old to give up for Lent and then we can have a conversation about it as a family."

"Like what?" Jack asked.

But she shrugged again and put the bowls in the dishwasher. "I don't know, Jack. Reflect on it a bit. Taking some time to think about your faith might be good for you."

"Says the heathen," he put back at her.

But she just let out a small laugh and gave him a smile. She didn't care if he wanted to call her that – technically she was. She wasn't insulted in the least.

"I've been called worse," she informed him and gave him a small tap on the cheek with her hand. "Com'on. Go get yourself established on the couch before we have to go – so I'm not worrying about you as much all day."

"Why would you worry about me? I'm going to sit and watch TV and sleep. Maybe I'll see you going up on the courthouse steps. Is it a big case?"

"Never you mind," she said and nudged him out the kitchen door and into the living room.

"That's a yes," he mumbled at her.

As much as Jack didn't ask about her job anymore – not in detailed terms – it made her just as uncomfortable when he mentioned something about it. When he'd pick up on what cases she was working on from the newspaper or some news site or the nightly news. He'd ask if she was working on a case. If she gave a vague answer, he'd occasionally indicate he'd seen her in the background of some picture or B-roll. Or worse that there'd been a quote or a 'declined to comment' attached to her name in the news story. She really wished he didn't look for that kind of thing. She didn't know exactly where it was coming from. Concern for her? Curiosity? Struggling to understand?

"With thousands of movies on Netflix – why would you want to sit watching the news channel to catch a glimpse of me? I know you love me … but that sounds like a snoozier," she teased trying to divert, and grabbed the remotes off the coffee table to put on the middle cushion next to him on the couch as he settled in.

He ignored her joke and just eyed her again as she arranged the blanket over him. "So you aren't going to be home until after Benji's daycare?" he asked.

She met his eyes. "Depending on how things go in court this morning, Jack, I might try to come up here at lunch and spend some time with you. But I might have to go back down if I haven't been called to testify yet – and I really do want to get into the precinct to at least pick up some paperwork."

"Can't you just do that when you're dropping Jamin off?" he mumbled at her, cuddling down into the couch's overstuffed cushions on the recliner. She thought the painkiller might be taking hold already and sending him back into a drug-induced sleep. At that point she thought that was a good thing.

"I'll call you," she said, ignoring his statement, which had some legitimacy behind it. "I'll check in. You just take it easy."

"But we'll have pancakes for dinner?" he mumbled even more sleepily – after all of that.

She nodded. "Sure, sweetheart. I'll make up a batch of pancakes for dinner."


	158. Chapter 158

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

The smell in the apartment hit her nearly as soon as she opened the door.

"Jack …?" she called out cautiously. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah," she heard him call back from off in the direction of the dining room.

She raised a bit of an eyebrow and held out her hand to grab Benji's coat before he dropped it on the floor in his usual frenzied entrance into their home. He'd barely thrashed himself out of the clothing – that he treated more like a straight jacket than a winter jacket some days when they came in the door – when he plopped his ass on the ground of their little foyer to start pulling his boots off his feet.

Olivia watched him for a second before moving to open the closet and hang up his coat and remove hers. But she was really trying to see around the corner and into the living area – and catch a glimpse of what was going on with the teen.

From the aroma in the apartment it was clear he was cooking. But that hardly made sense. He'd been sleeping when they'd left in the morning. He'd barely sounded conscious when she called him a couple times during the day and he'd given basically one word replies to any of her texts – that was the ones he'd even bothered to reply to at all. And – beyond any of that, she wasn't entirely sure Jack knew how to cook. At least not something like she was smelling. She thought Jack's cooking expertise about ended with heating up a can of soup, slapping together a sandwich or boiling some pasta. This didn't smell like any of that. It smelled like actual food. Good food too. She thought he mouth was watering to water and her stomach growled a little with the scent of it.

She followed along behind Benji as he went tearing into the living area – toting his backpack with him.

It was Valentine's Day and he'd come away from daycare with plenty of loot: crafts, cards and some treats, chocolates and lollipops. It was enough to have him pretty hyped up about the 'special' day - and that was before adding the extra sugar to his system.

He already had more sugar than usual in his system from the class party. She'd signed the form to let him have a cupcake and chocolate – rather than just the fruit and juice at snack-time that day. She couldn't imagine denying him that while the other kids got to munch on the goodies. Though, she was sure some parents did. The administrator had told her that on years that they had more families who didn't want their kids to get the occasional goodies than not – they just didn't have the food in the class. Olivia couldn't decide if that was prudent or a little overkill. She got teaching kids about healthy eating and an active lifestyle – but if that meant that they didn't get to have a special day on occasion she thought there were bigger problems. Teaching kids about moderation was important too. She'd made some passing comment about it all at the administrator when she'd signed the form and the woman had said if she thought their rules and guidelines were bad to just wait until the fall when Benji was in kindergarten. He likely wouldn't see a cupcake again until university - at least not in a school setting.

The parents of the daycare kids had been invited up to the party if they could find the time in the day. Olivia had sort of wanted to get up there. It was the first party or community day that was generally open to the parents since Benji had been enrolled. But things were proving just insane at work. By the end of the day, Rollins had ended up in jail and in front of arraignment court. Meanwhile Olivia's vic was being examined by her accused rapist in court after some legal maneuvering to all him to represent himself. The woman was nearing her breaking point. The detective had been sure that the stress of it would drive her into labor. Not to mention the stress in the squad room with Amanda's situation and IAB on the scene had everyone snapping at each other one minute and then pooling their resources (that Olivia wasn't sure she had at that moment but had thrown her offerings into the pot anyways because she'd hope that they'd do the same for her - and really they had in the past) to ensure their colleague was able to post bail. Needless to say it had been a stressful day – in an already stressful week, in an already stressful month in what was looking like it was going to be a rather stressful year. Sometimes things just didn't get easier.

Part of the reason she'd started the day with the false hopes that she might be able to slip upstairs was because she had really wanted to get a reading on what a community day at the daycare center looked like. She wanted to see how many other cops and detectives actually managed to show up – and who had their kids there. She wanted to see what the center did at the events. Or, maybe what it really was was that she wanted to see what other parents were contributing to community days – either sending in with their kids or in terms of presence and support.

Olivia had felt a bit like a fish out of water in figuring out what she was supposed to offer up for the Valentine's gathering. With everything that was going on with Jack at home, though, she just really didn't have much left in her to get too creative. She'd ended up grabbing Benji a box of Valentine's at the drug store and a bag of Hershey's Kisses to send in for the party. Though, with the amount of time it had taken to sit with her little boy while he carefully – and proudly – scrawled out his name on each and every card to give to his classmates and teachers, she might has well have done something more creative in the kitchen or at their make-shift craft station.

She'd made the mistake of searching Valentine's ideas online before deciding to go the easy route. She'd quickly realized that some people had too much time on their hands. She actually couldn't figure out how any working mother would have the time to do some of the baked goods and handmade cards she saw popping even if she was married and had a supportive husband.

Olivia thought she didn't sleep with having the boys in her life anymore. But clearly there were some people who took that lack of sleep to whole new levels. Or they didn't work. Or at least didn't work a job with the kind of demands as hers.

Benji wouldn't be taking in cupcakes with hearts baked into them or personalized Valentines with little gifts attached. She hoped that since all the kids at the daycare came from police families, most of those parents would've felt similar ways. Still, part of her feared that she might be sadly mistaken and her little boy would be the only one wandering around the daycare handing out punch-out cards and store bought candy. Not that Benji really knew the difference.

Her Little Fox was beyond excited to get to participate at all and that he was handing out CHOCOLATE!, which in his books was about the best treat ever. It would've only been better if she'd bought him the specialty holiday M&Ms for the gathering. But she'd known if she'd done that he might not be as open to sharing.

Still, she kept fearing that maybe this daycare would end up like the other. That the problem hadn't been the administrators there or his teacher – that the problem had been her, or worse, her little boy. And all it would take to burst her little boy's current happy bubble would be one kid pointing out to him that he was different or that he was approaching Valentine's Day wrong. Olivia wasn't sure she could handle having her little boy's heartbreak added on top of everything else that was already going on at home and work. So, she'd hoped to be there to mitigate any potential disaster – to step in and protect her little boy. But it seemed he'd faired just fine without her. That made her proud – and it was comforting. It was progress that both her and Benji so badly neeed. But it tugged at her heartstrings a bit. Today he didn't need her to get through a classroom party – too soon he'd be telling her he didn't need her for much of anything. Her only condolence in that at the moment was for as much as her 19-year-old boy spat that at her – it clearly wasn't entirely true.

"Benj," she called at the little boy before he got too far. "Take your backpack into the dining room. We're going to take the candy out of it."

She heard his gallop stop at that and rounded at the corner to see him standing and giving her his best little boy stink-eye. But she just pointed to the dining room.

"To the table," she instructed again.

"MOMMMMMMMIIIIIEEE!" he whined.

"You are not eating all that candy on your own," she told him sternly. "To the table."

He stuck his lip out in a pout but she just shook her head. She wasn't having any of it. She was in much too foul of mood to be soft-touch Mommy that night. The reality was if she didn't have the boys – she probably wouldn't have left the office that night. And, if she'd just had Benji at home - and not Jack in the apartment recovering – she would've likely left the little boy in the extended care and stuck around to help with getting things sorted out for Rollins and to ensure she was available at the drop of a dime if her vic fell over the edge she was teetering on. But she had two boys at home now - and doing those things wasn't an option anymore. So they were just going to have to deal with her being tired, distracted and a little disgruntled. Maybe it was her who was the Growling Fox that night.

"If you and your backpack aren't at the dining room table when I get in there – you won't be having any of that candy, Benjamin," she informed him with a sternness and disappeared into the kitchen to retrieve a container to put the goodies in so she could then put them out of sight and reach.

The aroma was that much stronger when she got into the kitchen and after grabbing a bowl to put Benji's loot in, she opened the oven and peaked inside. It looked like Jack was baking some chicken breasts. They were sitting on top of a layer of red potatoes and some green beans while covered in mushrooms by the looks of it. It didn't look complicated at all but whatever spices and seasonings he'd sprinkled on his concoction smelled especially fantastic as they hit her in the face – drifting up her nostrils.

Olivia couldn't think of the last time someone had cooked for her. She supposed Alex at Christmas. But the last time a man had cooked for her? She supposed David likely had. Though, he usually preferred to take her to 'a great little bistro' he knew no matter where they were in the city. He'd likely made her toast or poured her a glass of wine during their weekend romps, though ... if that counted? Or picked up the phone and ordered take-out? That was more likely his definition of cooking.

It almost seemed a little strange that the next 'man' in her life who was cooking for her was apparently Jack. And it was the first time he'd cooked anything for her. He would regularly make his own food while he was there on the weekends – 'snacks' that were meal-sized by her definition. But he almost never shared with the family and there never really were any leftovers. He usually just left a mess for her to clean-up – even when she instructed him to come and take care of his disaster on his own. But here was a full meal in her oven – that she assumed was for all of them.

She suddenly felt a wave of appreciation. She really had no idea what she would've cooked for dinner. If Jack had expressed he wanted to eat when she'd gotten home – she likely would've just let him pick where he wanted to get take-out. If it had only been Benji who needed to eat, it probably would've just been whatever was in the fridge.

She was tired. She didn't feel like cooking – or even thinking about what to cook. And now she didn't have to. By the looks of it she would be getting a nourishing meal prepared by a teen who still wasn't anywhere near feeling 100 per cent and who rarely did anything to show any sort of gratitude for the efforts she was making in trying to make them a family and to be a mother for them.

Jack was setting the table when she emerged in the dining room – setting Benji's cutlery off to the side as the little boy messily emptied the contents of his backpack all over the table. The teen didn't make eye contact with her, though. It was almost like he was ignoring her.

"Are you making dinner?" she tried to ask causally as she passed him and grabbed a chair to pull over closer to Benji to begin collecting the sugar-load.

Jack just shrugged and still kept his eyes on the table. "Yeah …" he said quietly.

"Smells good," she offered and eyed him for a moment as she took her seat. But he just gave her another shrug. So she looked to the little boy. "OK, Benj. What have we got?" she asked. She didn't really care what he had though. She just started scooping up the candy off the table and putting it into the bowl.

It wasn't as much as she might've have thought based on the way he was excitedly rattling about it all the way home. But it was still more than she'd ever let him eat in one sitting – or even one week likely. So she'd have to dole it out appropriately over the next while.

"Heart lolly," Benji told her and held it up for her to examine.

"Yum," she said in the expected reaction. "It looks good."

"It good. I have one at party. I have it now?"

She could tell he had one. He still had little red triangles at the corners of his mouth from his indulgences at the party. She'd tried to wipe it off for him. She'd even let down a boundary that she thought she'd near - and had found herself giving him a spit bath. Licking at her own thumb and rubbing at his face. But the die from the candy, juice and icing at clearly stained his pale complexion. She'd have to try again to scrub it off in the bath. For now her little boy looked like a Joker in the making.

She shook her head. "Nope. You can pick one treat for dessert later. But right now – you don't want to ruin your appetite. Jack is making us supper."

Benji gapped at her and then looked at his uncle. "PEEDJ COOKED?" he said with the disbelief that Olivia had near been feeling.

"Peedj cooked," she agreed and cast the teen a small smile.

"EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEWWWWWWW," Benji declared and looked even more at the teen.

"Benji," she snapped a bit. "That's really mean."

"Peedg cook gross," Benji informed her. "YUCKY!"

"You haven't even tried it," she told him. "It smells really good."

"Eat it or starve Butt-Munch," Jack put to Benji and moved into the kitchen.

Benji sniffed at that. "Mommmmmmieee?" he whined.

"You're going to try Jack's dinner," she told Benji with a seriousness but stood from the table, taking the bowl back into the kitchen to put it up and out of the little boy's reach.

"Jack – please don't call him names," she said, as she placed the candy on the top shelf of the one cupboard. "That's really mean too."

"He's a retard," Jack muttered at her and pulled the bin of mixed greens out of the fridge and banged around, wincing as he bent to retrieve a serving bowl from a lower cupboard. He started to almost violently toss some of the leaves into it – clearly upset.

"Don't call him that either," she said a bit more softly but still with a sternness. She could see the teen was upset. "You know I don't like that. I don't ever want him thinking he is stupid."

"He is stupid," Jack said with some anger. He was clearly hurt by the four-year-old's assessment of his cooking abilities. "I know how to cook. We just couldn't afford food," he spat. "I fed him. He fucking ate. He's such a fuck."

"He's a little boy," Olivia put to him. "He doesn't know any better. I know you took good care of him and made do the best you could with what you had."

"Then how come he has to be such an ass about it?"

"Because he's a little boy," Olivia said again with a bit more firmness. "Don't let him bother you. I think it smells fantastic and it looks delicious, Jack. And, I really appreciate that you made us dinner tonight. I know you still aren't feeling very well."

He shrugged. "Someone needed to do something for you today," he muttered.

"Why? Was my crappy day that apparent in the phone calls? I didn't think you were awake enough to notice?" she teased.

He snorted and her and opened the fridge and examined the shelves in the door until he picked a salad dressing. "No. Because it's Valentine's Day and you clearly didn't get asked out."

It was her turn to snort at that. She wasn't sure if it was nice that her 19-year-old son had noticed that she didn't have anyone acknowledging her on the ridiculously commercial holiday or if it made her feel a little pathetic.

"Who says?" she put back to him.

"The Valentines you bought for us say," Jack said and gave her a sideways glance.

She looked at him for a moment. He hadn't said anything about it on the phone that day – and with how he'd been avoiding eye contact since they'd arrived home, she thought she'd made him uncomfortable. But really all it had been was that while she was picking up the supplies for Benji's party she'd wandered down the rows of cards and randomly decided to get a Valentine for each of the boys.

A little boy's Valentine with a Transformer on the front of it had jumped out at her – of course. She'd smiled as she read it. She'd clearly been watching too much Transformers and Rescue Bots with Benji to even get the simplistic humor of it. Optimus Prime was on the front with a verse stating that "Valentine's Day is a Prime time for love". Inside Bumblebee was transformed and stating, "So won't you 'Bee' mine?"

It hadn't taken much thought for her to add it too her little pile of daycare goodies with the intention of giving it to her little boy in the morning. But realizing that Jack would still be there too – and liking to try to keep things balanced between the boys as much as possible – she scanned the rows of cards again. She really didn't have any idea what would be appropriate. She knew if she went too sentimental or mushy Jack would likely shut down but she thought going with humor could be risky too. If he didn't think it was funny – he could just think it was stupid or worse offensive.

She'd ended up standing there for longer than she meant to flipping through some of the cards. She'd finally settled on a little boy-ish one that a Ninja Turtle on the front. She didn't quite understand Jack's seeming infatuation with the Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles. Maybe it was the skateboarding? Maybe it was the pizza? Maybe it was a Jack thing? Or a memory of Jay or his childhood thing? She really didn't know. But he'd definitely been trying to convert Benji who didn't have much interest. Transformers, fire trucks and Cars the movie was about where it was at with him for the moment.

The card showed one of the green cartoon characters chowing down messily on a piece of pizza (much the way Jack did when she let him order out as a treat) and stated plainly, "You hold a piece of my heart". Sentimental enough that it held some truth but silly enough that she hoped it wouldn't make Jack too uncomfortable.

But he hadn't even been up anyways in the morning. So she'd given Benji's his at breakfast – which he'd decided was about the coolest thing ever. But she'd just left the teen's in the envelope on the table – thinking that he'd eventually spot it. He clearly had. She'd seen it sitting up on top of the shelf of her secretary's desk next to Benji's in the dining room. He'd made no comment, though. So she hadn't said anything either.

When she hadn't said anymore to his comment (because what was she supposed to say? Maybe it was a little pathetic that she was buying boys, who she was trying to adopt, Valentines? Sometimes, though, she just liked trying to seize the moment and do the nice, cheesy, sentimental, motherly things that she'd been waiting so long to do and that her mother had never done for her. She did love her boys. She wasn't sure she cared if giving them a Valentine's card was a little cheesy), he just collected his 'salad' and moved back towards the dining room.

"Food in the oven is ready," he mumbled at her.

She took that as an indication that her job was to retrieve it. So grabbing some hot pads, she collected the pan from the oven, turned off it off, and took the meal into the dining room. Benji and Jack were effectively ignoring each other at the table. Though, the little boy sat up on his knees to take a better look at the food as she put it down.

"Don't touch, Little Fox," she instructed with a firmness. "It's very hot. I'll put food on your plate."

"Waz it?" he enquired.

"Chicken, potatoes and veggies," she said, putting some of each of the items onto a plate and setting it in front of Jack. She then took Benji's plate and set up a serving for him – setting it in front of her to cut up the meat on his behalf.

"I make you Val-in-time," Benji informed her while she worked at that and then held up a scrunched piece of paper that had clearly been at the bottom of his backpack.

She gave him a small smile and stopped what she was doing to take the artwork. Red imprints of Benji's hands were on the paper, stamped down to form a heart with his index fingers and thumbs. "You hold my heart," it said in the white space.

"Thank you, Little Fox," she said with a bit bigger smile. "I love it. I'm going to put it on the fridge," she added and set his plate in front of him before taking it back into the kitchen.

By the time she got back to the table, the little boy had apparently forgotten his distain for Jack's cooking was shoveling some of the little red potatoes off his plate into his mouth. She didn't comment – not wanting to distract him from his eating or remind him who had cooked the meal. Taking her seat, she noticed that an envelope had been placed next to her plate now. She recognized Jack's scrawl on the front having just written, "Olivia".

"What's this?" she asked, but didn't wait for a response before she started working at the edges of the envelope.

He shrugged at her. "He's not the only one who can do an art project."

She snorted and pulled the piece of cardstock out of the flimsy envelope. She looked at it and again felt that lump in her throat that both of her boys seemed to cause in her far too regularly. In Jack's artistic lines – he'd sketched out a fox sitting amongst the spring grass and looking up at a tree that was just starting to bloom. The branches and the buds swirled around forming a heart.

It was a simple drawing for the teen. She'd seen him having drawn projects that were far more complex. But she also had a growing collection of his random little doodles. This was far more complex than that and she was sure would've taken at least part of his day – before he started making dinner.

She knew that technically the drawing and the meal were very small gestures. But for her they held so much meaning. And, especially after a day like she just had – it was already making it fade, making her focus on her present and what she had rather than worrying about the messes that made-up other people's lives. Her life had been too much of a mess for too long. She couldn't miss the good parts – what she had now – by letting herself dwell on things that were happening outside of her somewhat dysfunctional little den.

She looked at the teen and gave him a genuine smile. "Thank you, Jack," she said. "I really love it."

He just nodded and looked back to his meal. "You going to put it on the fridge too?" he mumbled and then shoved another piece of his chicken into his mouth.

She shook her head. "No," she admitted. "I think I'd rather get it framed."


	159. Chapter 159

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"You want to go grab a drink," Olivia offered in Rollin's direction as she stood from her desk and began to pull her coat up and over her shoulders.

The younger detective glanced at her from her desk and eyed her for a moment. But then just shook her head.

"I'm just going to finish up this and head home," Amanda said.

Olivia allowed a small nod but knew that Rollins didn't have much to head home to at that point. Fin had let slip in his anger at the whole situation that Kim had almost completely cleared out Amanda's apartment in her hasty departure. So not only would Rollins be heading home to replay in her head everything that had happened over the past week - and likely beating herself up about it – she'd be heading home to sit in a literally empty apartment.

"You sure?" Olivia pressed again. "I haven't had the chance to get out in a while. I'm buying."

Olivia could read Amanda's body language. It was all too familiar. The weight she was carrying at the moment was something Olivia had gone through more than once. And, she knew the tactics too. The young detective was likely going decline any invitations or niceties offered up to her by her colleagues. Olivia had already watched as she'd brushed off Nick's offer of grabbing some dinner and Fin's assurances that she still had a place to crash with him, if she needed it. Olivia knew Rollins was likely just waiting for her to leave for the weekend too. And, she suspected her 'finishing it up and heading home' statement was likely a lie. She'd be at that desk trying to distract herself until everyone rolled back in on Monday morning - and she'd be sleeping up in the cribs. Olivia knew the methods. They'd been hers until not that long ago.

"Sure ya got things on the go with those boys," Amanda tried to allow politely.

Olivia allowed a small snort at that. Amanda hadn't said anything that made Olivia think she was disapproving of what she was doing with the boys or that she was frustrated with her changes in availability and hours. But she'd definitely been the person in the squad to least acknowledge it was happening. Nick and Munch always asked. Cragen was checking in with her more than she'd like. Even Fin would shoot "You good?" at her regularly if she was rushing out at the end of the day or if that look of 'this is what it means to be doing this job and having kids' would paint across her face at a crime scene or after they left an interview with a family or an interrogation with a perp. Amanda though? There'd been near nothing.

Even when Olivia shuttled Benji through the squad room on occasion, the detective didn't comment. Though, she sometimes smiled at the little boy or attempted to make chit-chat with him. Amanda wasn't the best with children, though. Benji seemed to almost sense that hesitance in her. So even though she was a woman, he'd often still huddle against Olivia and hide his face when Rollins tried to be friendly.

Olivia provided her a small smile, though. "I'm sure they can survive without me for an hour or two."

It was true. They'd survived years without her. They weren't likely to miss her too much while she grabbed a beer down the street and tried to get in a small chat or offering of support to Rollins. Besides, Benji loved the free-play that took up the time period when most of the parents would be trying to pick up their kids. The community room for the extended-hours care had a little toy work-bench and all the plastic tools you could ever want to go with it. Sometimes it took quite a lot for Olivia to even manage to pull him away after she did get up there. And, Jack was likely at home sleeping. Or at least she hoped he was. She'd sent him a text about 45 minutes ago advising that they'd likely be running a little late and she hadn't heard anything back from him.

She'd had Jack into the hospital in the morning for his follow-up with the surgeon. The teen had again wanted her in the room for the exam and the consult. He'd been near mute for most of the discussion and Olivia had ended up answering most of the doctor's questions on Jack's behalf. But the doctor generally felt that the teen was healing well. They'd sent him for a bit of lab work and poked and prodded around his incision sites and abdomen and with some prompting snipped the extra strings that were dangling out of the one spot. Still, the doctor had recommended that Jack stay at home and rest for another week and stressed to him that he'd had major surgery and he needed to give himself another four to five weeks to heal properly – no lifting heavy things or participating in high impact sports.

Jack had initially spat out, "What about skating?"

The doctor had considered that for a moment but had then said, "Well, you should still give yourself a couple more weeks – but if we aren't talking hockey, and you're very careful, you should likely be OK."

Olivia had rubbed at her eyebrow. "He means skateboarding," she filled in for the doctor.

"Oh," the surgeon had said and examined Jack's hopeful but fearful eyes. "That's likely not the best idea, son. You really should just be taking it easy for a while. Maybe some light jogging in another two to three weeks. Otherwise – you really should just wait."

Jack had just fallen even more quiet and examined the floor for the rest of the little discussion after that. It'd been left up to Olivia to raise some of the concerns the teen had put to her - and for her to raise some of her own. But she'd just been happy to get to sit there and hear the information first-hand rather than have Jack give her a fractured rendition of what the doctor had said later.

Still, nearly as soon as they were leaving the hospital, he'd looked at her and stated plainly, "I can't miss more school. I've missed two weeks already."

She just sighed at him. "Jack – you are no where near 100 per cent yet. I can tell that. The doctor could tell that. Just … rest. For another week."

"I'm going to lose my scholarship," he'd mumbled at her and scuffed his feet against the pavement.

It was the first time she'd had him out of the house since his surgery and he'd insisted he wanted to walk and take transit – not catch a cab. She actually thought getting some fresh air and a little light exercise was likely good for him. But she could already tell from his slower pace and slouched shoulders that the outing and the time in the hospital had taken a good bit out of him.

"You aren't going to lose your scholarship," she told him.

She'd already been into the university. She'd sent emails off to the professors she could find listed on his phone while he was still in surgery – letting them know he had a medical emergency that would keep him out of class for a bit, and that either Jack or her would be in touch to discuss the matter further and to make arrangements on how to keep him caught up. When she'd gone into the residences to pick up some of his textbooks and belongings out of the room – she'd also met with his advisor. The woman had assured her they'd to their best to accommodate Jack – as long as he was on-board with putting in the time to make up for the lost class-time and workshop time. Olivia had assured her that wouldn't be a problem. It couldn't be a problem. Both of them needed Jack to keep that scholarship.

She knew that Jack's teachers had been emailing him readings and assignments and some lecture notes. She'd told him to get in touch with some of his classmates to get better notes and to make sure he kept in touch with his profs as much as he felt able, so they at least knew where he was at and had some idea of when he might be coming back. The rest of it – the blueprints and drafting and models – it was going to have to wait. They'd work out how to get him caught up on that later. There was summer school (which she didn't want to mention yet or risk sending him a tizzy about the summer camp interview and how badly it had gone and how much his whole current situation sucked) and there was some time over the spring recess too.

At that point, though, she didn't think Jack had even cracked a book open yet. She suspected he'd barely checked his email to see what his profs or classmates were sending him. Though she had seen him on his phone a few times. But she thought was him responding to texts (not school related), checking social media and playing games – not trying to keep up with his class work. She actually likely would've told him to hold off if she'd seen him taking too much interest in his schoolwork at that point. He was too strung out on the painkillers and antibiotics to absorb much of anything. He was barely even absorbing what he was watching on television.

She'd been sitting with him the night before while he had The Voice on. She thought it was an odd choice for Jack but didn't make any comment. He wasn't really watching it anyways. He was sitting there drifting in-and-out of consciousness. But she still hadn't changed the channel – opting to just sit quietly and keep him company for a while.

Eventually, though, he'd mumbled, "I don't get this show."

She'd looked over and he was looking at the screen with eyes that were near slits. She wasn't sure how long he'd been awake he'd been so quiet.

"I'm not sure what there is to get," she said. "They sing. They get judged."

"What's with these fucking battles? Why are they picking them and then getting rid of them? Why not just pick who they want to begin with?"

She shrugged. "Because then they couldn't drag this show on for weeks."

"This show sucks," he said and nuzzled down into the arm of the recliner at his end of the couch more.

"Want to watch something else?" she offered and leaned forward to get the remote. But he'd just shaken his head and set his eyes back on the screen. So they both just continued to stare at it blankly.

So she really didn't think Jack was going to notice that she got home a couple hours later than usual – considering that had been one of their more substantive interactions (that didn't involve him eating, taking his medication or changing his dressings) in the past week. But now that she'd managed to arm-twist and coerce Rollins into joining her for a drink, with the way the woman was sitting there in near dead silence, Olivia was starting to wonder if it was really worth missing the time with her kids.

She knew that Rollins was more likely to reach out to Fin and talk at that point. It only made sense - he was her partner. But Olivia thought she could likely relate to some of what the young detective was going through a bit more than most.

"I know it likely doesn't seem comparable right now, but my brother almost cost me my badge a couple times too," Olivia tried, growing tired of the awkward silence.

Amanda glanced up at her from where she'd been looking into her beer in a bit of a daze.

"Yeah? He frame you for murder?"

Olivia shook her head. "No," she allowed. "But I've gone through that before too. Arrest in the squad room. Jail. Arrangement. Orange jumpsuit. All of it. My partner and his wife remortgaging their house to post my bail…"

Amanda sighed and looked back into the depths of her beer.

"Your apartment ever get cleaned out?"

"Broken into. Tossed. More times than I want to think about. But never had Simon decide he wanted all my furniture and belongings. Might've been a little feminine for his tastes," she tried to joke. She knew Kim was more likely to be selling or trading her sister's belongings for drugs or money or God-knew-what than she was to be using them to set up home elsewhere.

"Cleaning out my bank account count?" Olivia added. "I've handed Simon more money than I should've - and more than I should admit."

Amanda glanced at her again at that and let out another sigh, running her hand through her hair and shaking her head. "Part of me just wants her to call and tell me where she is and that she's OK. Another part of me hopes she doesn't – for my sake, and hers."

Olivia nodded with a thin, sad smile. "It's hard. If she does call you should report it, though, and you shouldn't give her money. I did that once with Simon and got myself into a lot of trouble with the feds."

"She's my sister," Amanda pushed out with an edge of anger.

"I used that line with Simon a lot," Olivia conceded. "'He's my brother. He's family.' I think there's a point where we have to let go and let them deal with their own mistakes and clean up their own messes."

"And your brother ended up in jail," Rollins said.

Olivia nodded and shrugged. "He did. For about six months. I helped him as much as I could, but he made it hard – and there was a point I had to think about more than him."

"Kim will likely do a lot more than six months when they catch up with her," Amanda mumbled and took a swig from her beer.

Olivia shrugged again. "Maybe. If you decide to help her out in getting a good lawyer – maybe not. There's mitigating circumstances. You know that. Jeff did have a record and he did have a gun."

"That will only hold so much weight until me or Tucker gets called to testify that she staged his murder and stuck it on me for insurance fraud," Amanda said and took a longer drink.

"Your sister's psych review might help her case too – and she could get the help she needs then too," Olivia offered.

Amanda shook her head. "It doesn't help. You have to stay on your meds after you leave for that to help. She won't agree to a psych review anyways."

"She may not have much choice," Olivia said. "Not if she doesn't want to go to jail."

Rollins sighed at that.

"You still cleaning up your brother's messes?" she asked.

"Simon hasn't spoken to me since I told him he'd be going to jail and wouldn't be getting married – or seeing his kids alone for a very long time," Olivia allowed and took her own drink at that.

The reality was she wasn't really sure she wanted Simon to pop up and talk to her at that point. She was still trying to figure out how to navigate her relationship with him when the home study began. More specifically, how to navigate it in a way that his past mistakes wouldn't be held against her or come back to haunt her in some way. She almost feared that he was going to appear on her doorstep again wanting help. Olivia wasn't sure she could pick him over the boys anymore.

"Those boys his mes …?" Rollins started but then stopped.

Olivia knew she was going to call them a mess but had managed to hold it in before it got completely out of her mouth – likely sensing that it wasn't the right thing to say. There were definitely messy things involved in wading through the boys' situation. But they weren't a mess she was cleaning up. At least, that's not the way Olivia saw it – and she wouldn't let herself see it that way. They both deserved more than that. Any mess that did exist wasn't of their own causing.

"Ah, no," she allowed carefully and rubbed at her eyebrow for a moment while she considered if she wanted to say more.

Olivia had noticed that Amanda was good at taking opportunities to dig for little bits of personal information from everyone. Or when something vague was offered she took the opportunity to ask more or put forward her own bits of input and advice. But she also tended to be slightly more open with her personal life – to a point – than what Olivia would've previously would've expected in their squad room. The same was true with Nick.

It wasn't like everyone was an open book – but they were certainly more open than it had ever been for the majority of her career spent with SVU. She had had to basically pull teeth from Elliot to hear about anything that was going on in his personal life – and between his marriage and the kids there was usually a lot. Not to mention she'd spent years thinking his mother was dead since he didn't want to mention she had bipolar disorder and was a contributing factor in his angry childhood. It hadn't just been his father that he'd hated. Then there was Fin – who didn't mention he had a son until it came out at the lab one day and who then got upset with her when she'd mentioned it to John. John rarely talked about his string of failed marriages. Cragen rarely talked about his dead wife or the fact he hadn't had a relationship since – to the point he started using an escort service and opened the door for the whole mess they'd all gone through the past spring. There were the other little tidbits from everyone's skeletons in the closets that came out along the way after years and years of working together. Things that they probably all wished could have stayed there.

But it was a new squad now. It was a different work dynamic - and a different relationship dynamic among all of them. They still had their head-butts and they all still had their private lives and the demons they wished stayed in the shadows – but it seemed like they talked to each other a bit more. It was mostly driven by Nick and Amanda, though.

Olivia still wasn't sure how she felt about all of that. Some days she liked it with Nick. But she'd be the first to admit that other times when Amanda had enthusiastically tried to reach out to her – especially early on – she'd been coy, if not outright rude. She wasn't used to this sharing that the younger detectives had brought into the unit. Still, she also recognized with the addition of the boys in her life and the rather public display at that point – at least of Benji – of her trying to be a mom, she could likely use the support. And, really, she was trying to offer support to Amanda at the moment and give her the opportunity to be open about what she was feeling and vent. Returning some of that openness would likely be a good place to start.

"I'm not sure who's mess they are," Olivia finally allowed herself to say. "Mine now, I guess. Jack … the older boy … he's the son of an ex. Benji is his nephew who ended up in his custody."

Amanda just looked at her with that information. It was like it was all new to her and she had to take a minute to absorb and process it.

"I assumed you knew at this point," Olivia added in the somewhat uncomfortable silence. "That Nick … or Fin would've mentioned…"

Rollins shrugged. "I got the impression that it was a don't ask, don't tell scenario."

Olivia allowed a small snort and thin smile. "Maybe. At the beginning. But it's pretty … serious … official … at this point. I'm working on adopting both of them."

Amanda examined her more carefully at that. "That's a big commitment."

Olivia couldn't help but let out a small laugh at that. It seemed like the understatement of the year. Kids are a big commitment – a lifelong one. A money pit. An energy and time suck. They destroyed your things and rearranged your entire life. Jack and Benji's circumstances just added to all of that and made it that much complicated. The commitment to even officially get to call them hers – eventually, hopefully - was intense and exhausting some days. The extra commitment to ensure that both of them were able to move beyond any of the trauma they experienced could take anything for years to a lifetime. But she just shrugged. "They are that," she agreed.

Amanda shook her head a bit – almost like she was a little embarrassed for stating the obvious in such simplistic terms.

"When Kim told me she was pregnant – I wanted to be happy for her," she let out after several seconds of silence. "It's exciting. Getting to be an aunt?"

Olivia allowed a small smile and a little nod at that. She remembered that feeling washing over her when Simon had told her about her niece too. But she remembered too how quickly she had to push that aside as he told her about his latest mess and then how she had to pretend she didn't know there was a little girl out there who was her niece now that her brother had pushed her away again.

"Another part of me was worried … Kim having a baby? It's just asking for the kid to be screwed up. So then I selfishly was angry and worried about what it would mean for me. If I'd end up having to raise it? What'd it mean for my life … my job? I was happy when I found out she was … lying about all of that too. Hurricane Kim … "

Olivia watched as Rollins just shook her head and let out the faintest, defeated sigh and took another drink.

"That's a normal spectrum of emotions to go through," Olivia tried to assure her.

Amanda gave her a small snort at that. "Seems even more selfish now knowing you're trying to adopt kids an ex dumped on you."

Olivia shook her head. "Jay's dead. Jack needed help. Asked. It was my own decision. No dumping involved."

"I don't know how you do this job and have kids," Amanda said a bit more quietly, again looking into her drink. Olivia knew the woman didn't mean it as a criticism of her choice to take on the boys. Rollins was instead reflecting on her layer of emotional turmoil about her reaction to her sister's supposed pregnancy and what that would've meant for her own career if Kim had actually come to term.

"I don't know either," Olivia admitted. "I'm still figuring that out."

"But you're doing it …"

Olivia watched her again for a moment. "You've got enough things to work through with your sister and what went on this week. I don't think you need to feel guilty about having mixed emotions about what she told you about the pregnancy. If the boys showed up so early in into me being with SVU … I likely would've just got them situated with ACS," she admitted.

It was true. If the boys had appeared in her life when she was barely a year-and-a-half into her seemingly never-ending stint with SVU and not much older than 32 – she would've gotten on the phone and maybe escorted them over to ACS. She probably wouldn't have felt that good about it but she also likely wouldn't have thought too much about it. She would've told herself it was her job and she couldn't take on every sob story that she crossed paths with. If Jack or Benji really touched her, she might've tried to keep in touch with them for a while to make sure they were as OK they could when they were thrown into the system. But she was a kid back then. She thought she knew a lot. She thought she had her whole career ahead of her. She was dating and at that point didn't even think she ever wanted to be married - and really wasn't sure she wanted children of her own. It was a lifetime ago. She was a different person. Areas where she was harder before, she was softer now. And areas where she was soft before, she was harder now.

"So what changed?" Amanda put to her with some genuine interest.

Olivia allowed a small smile at that and rubbed at her eyebrow for a moment. She wasn't used to laying her life out this openly with her colleagues – even Elliot. At least not in a shared conversation.

"I got older," she shrugged. "I'm being greedy and selfish too. I've wanted a child for quite a while now. Things just … haven't worked out. This might …"

There were moments where they so felt like a family now – that the boys felt so much like her boys – that she had to stop and remind herself it wasn't official yet. It could all still come to a grinding halt. She could again lose what she'd been working so hard to build. It was one of her biggest fears. She didn't want to think about how much that would hurt. Or how much trauma it would cause her Little Fox. The sense of betrayal it would cause in her Growling Fox.

"I appreciate how understanding … accommodating … everyone has been these past few months," was what she pushed out of her mouth instead, though, not revealing those fears in any more detail.

It was Amanda's turn to shrug at that. "That's what you do for colleagues …"

Olivia gave a nod. "It is … for us. We're lucky that way."


	160. Chapter 160

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia glanced at the television as she came back into the living room after getting Benji down for the night.

"No Halo tonight?" she commented at Jack, as she moved to take a seat back on the sofa.

She'd ended up playing the videogame with the teen the night before. She was better at it than his skateboarding game – but she still wasn't particularly talented at it. Not that she had any real desire to be talented at videogames. Though, it might be nice to improve enough that she didn't have Jack groaning at her or grabbing the controller away to do something and then handing it back to her. Or worse giving her the dirtiest look ever and informing her, "You just got us killed."

She thought if she'd fully appreciated what a shot'em up the game was, she might not have gotten it for him. But she supposed any damage had already been done. Though, she suspected the only desensitization Jack had experienced was to the game's movement, which was about making her motion sick at certain points. The teen seemed completely unfazed by it as he made his character run and whip around doing whatever the hell it was that they were supposed to be doing. She wasn't quite clear on that. She was mostly shooting at things or running in directions Jack told her to.

She'd seen the teen pull himself out of the recliner and head for the game console as she was herding Benji towards the bedroom. She'd assumed that he was getting ready for another evening of the game. But instead he was just sitting there with an unfamiliar menu screen up, indicating that Player 1 was READY TO RACE!

"Nah," Jack said. "You kinda sucked."

She rolled her eyes. "Thanks, Jack."

"You weren't as bad as Dad. But you aren't very good."

She shook her head at him. "It was my first time playing," she stressed. "I was learning."

Jack made a 'meh' sound and then just sat there for several seconds before glancing at her again. "So you gonna play or not?"

She eyed him and looked back at the screen and rolled her eyes a bit. Just what she needed – to spend her Saturday night playing videogames with a teenaged boy and being told how awful she was at it. Add it to the list of things she didn't think she'd be including in her life until a few months ago. She just sighed though and grabbed the controller he'd left sitting next to her spot on the new couch. Playing would be more interesting than watching – and if she wasn't watching, she'd be working or cleaning. Neither of those sounded like particularly good ways to spend a Saturday night either.

"What are we playing?" she asked.

"Forza. Pick a car," he said and jutted his chin at a menu line on the screen.

She managed to get the controller turned on and started pursuing the list of cars available to her. It was rather extensive. It seemed like you could race about whatever model of car you could ever imagine and then customize it down to the littlest detail. She thought it appeared to be another game that she could see certain boys and personality types drowning endless amounts of time into. From the number of choices available, she suspected Jack might've been one of them. He appeared to have 'unlocked' (jargon he'd be spitting at her in some of the other games she'd endured with him) several of the vehicle choices. Though, from the most recent available model years, she also suspected that Jack had had the game for years. The two games she'd got him at the holidays were clearly his only recent holdings. The rest of his small collection of choices appeared to have stopped after his father died. Jack had other things to spend his money and time on after Jay wasn't around to look after him and to allow him the end of his childhood and proper teenaged years.

She finally spotted the make and model she'd been hoping to find in the exhaustive list and selected it only to get an epic sigh from the opposite side of the couch.

"What?" she asked and looked at the teen, only to discover she was receiving another dirty look.

"You can't pick the Mustang," Jack informed her. "It's my car."

Olivia snorted at that and looked back to the television. "No. I'm pretty sure it's my car," she said.

"I already picked it. Pick something else. It sucks racing against the same car."

She shook her head. "When you drive one – you can have it. Until then – Mustang's mine."

Jack snorted. "That's a stupid rule – and I think you picked the wrong Ford then. The piece of crap cops drive is a Crown Vic."

"Nope," she said and started to work at figuring out the menus to soup up her car the way she wanted. "My car's a Mustang. Or was."

Jack looked at her and examined her for a moment while she continued to flicked through the menus on the screen, changing her car's color to black. "You drove a Mustang? … For work?"

She shook her head again. "No. I owned one."

"You did not," Jack stated with a certainty.

She laughed and looked at him again. "Yes, I did. Why would I lie about that, Jack? I had a 1965 Ford Mustang convertible. Black."

"You did not," Jack said again with just as much certainty in his voice.

"I did too," she nodded at him.

He looked at her again with some disbelief. "No wonder Dad liked you."

That just made her set out a louder and more genuine laugh. "I didn't have it when I knew your dad. And, I don't remember your dad caring about cars much. Motorcycles, yes."

"Oh yeah," Jack said with some real enthusiasm in his voice. "Dirt bikes. We had a bunch of little Hondas to bomb around on on the property. I miss that."

Olivia saw a bit of sadness pass over his face and felt bad for bringing up his father. Sometimes she felt like Jack didn't mention him enough – even when she knew he was thinking about him. Other times she knew that he likely just didn't want to talk or think about that loss. Not just the loss of his father but the loss of everything that went with it – his family, his security, his childhood. She liked hearing stories about Jay, though, and about Jack's upbringing – happier times for him before his dad was gone. And, she wanted him to know he was allowed to talk about his father and that he was allowed to ask her about what she remembered about him – and most importantly, he was allowed to think about happy memories.

"I've got MotoGP over there too …" he said a bit more quietly and gazed in the direction of the small pile of his games sitting on the floor next to the TV stand. "If you want to play it instead. Dad was almost decent at it."

She gave him a small smile at that. "I'm game for this one," she told him. "It looks fun."

He glanced at her. "I've got my license, you know," he stated. "It'd be cool to take it out …"

She let out another little snort of a laugh at that and a bit bigger smile. "Owned, Jack. I don't have it anymore."

"Oh … " Jack said with some regret. "Why'd you get rid of it?"

She shrugged. "Insurance costs. Paying to have a place to park it in the city. With the amount I was taking it out, it just wasn't worth it. Decided to save my money for other things. … Sold it."

She didn't think Jack would really care to hear that she'd been framed for murder and that the car had been used as part of that – and confiscated for some time as evidence. Even after she got it back, she didn't have much interest in keeping it at that point.

"What would be cooler to have than a car like that?" Jack asked with a headshake.

She snorted. "You want a real answer to that?"

Jack examined her with the near same thoughtful pucker that Benji gave her when she presented him with a decision or an option. Then he shrugged. She took that as a yes.

"Kids," she said flatly. "I was looking into artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization options around that time. It's expensive."

"Gross," Jack stated and made a face at her.

She let out another noise at him and shook her head. "Yeah. Disgusting," she said sarcastically. Jack could be so immature sometimes. He asked to be treated like and talked to as an adult and then usually couldn't handle it. "Guess it's a good thing I didn't go that route and saved my money to be able to pay to have a teenager around to tell me how gross some of my life choices were."

Jack examined her again - and again shrugged. And she just shook her head. She supposed a shrug was better than setting him off on how he didn't like her spending money on him or how he didn't take charity. She didn't want to have to list off in how many ways they were way passed that at this point – by thousands and thousands of dollars. People who say kids are at their most expensive when they're little and constantly growing out of clothes hadn't yet experienced a teenager where the value of everything they needed or wanted had grown exponentially with their number of years on Earth.

"A Mustang would've been cooler …" Jack finally allowed and flipped back into the menu system on his screen.

"Oh well …" Olivia mouthed. They were way passed that point too. And she wasn't sure she agreed anyways. Jack and Benji were a much better investment than a Mustang, she thought. Most days.

"How do you know so much about cars to have an affinity for the Mustang?"

The teen just shrugged as he continued to navigate his preferences. "My grandpa had a couple classics in the garage. A Bel Air and a Thunderbird. He'd take me out to help him putter on them and shit when I was little. Sometimes we'd go for drives. It was cool."

Olivia examined him. He looked a little sad again. He'd lost too many people in his life for his age. He didn't need that much loss and sadness in his life.

"Are they still there?" she asked a bit more carefully.

He shook his head. "Nah. Greg sold them. He's selling off everything. He doesn't care. Not about stuff like that. Just money."

She tried to what say next – to use the opening he'd set to talk about his uncle - but he didn't give her a chance.

"There … you can drive the Mustang," he said, having finished changing his options. "I'm still going to leave you in my dust."


	161. Chapter 161

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia questioningly looked in the direction of the foyer as she heard a knock at the door.

She wasn't expecting anyone. Or at least she didn't think she was. But she'd gotten rather absorbed in the racing game. She wasn't sure she would've heard the phone if it had gone off. She fiddled with the controller and then leaned forward to grab her phone from the coffee table and confirmed that she hadn't missed the phone vibrating. There weren't any messages or texts. The only thing that the phone confirmed was that it was almost 11 p.m.

Jack had drifted off to asleep – apparently playing videogames with her was a good sedative. She'd managed to turn off his controller and navigate the menus enough to figure out how to hit the track on her own. She'd been speeding around the roadways ever since then. She wasn't sure how long that had been. Probably longer than she wanted to know or admit, though.

Figuring out the controls to steer her vehicle had been a little complicated at first. Everything just seemed far too sensitive and she was constantly driving straight into walls or other cars, completely off the track, or getting into collisions that spun her around in circles and she struggled to get turned back around.

Jack had found the predictability of it humorous. But him laughing at her had just made her competitive side come out that much more. She wasn't going to let some 19-year-old boy think he was the King Shit at some stupid videogame. Hell – she had taken all sorts of defensive driving courses. She'd participated in high-speed chases. She knew how to handle a vehicle. She owned the real-life version of the car she was supposedly driving. She was going to figure out how to operate this fucking virtual one.

By about the fifth time around the track with Jack, she wasn't spinning out of control or crashing into walls anymore. She was still finishing last – but she was showing improvement. By the time he'd passed out, she'd managed to move up to about sixth place. Now just playing against the computer – or whatever the thing was called – she was slowly progressing up in the ranks. Though, she was sure she likely had it on some sort if ridiculously easy setting or easy track. Still – it was progress. She wasn't sure she'd settle until she beat Jack's time at least once. She'd have the last laugh.

So the knock at the door – likely of some delivery guy who'd come to the wrong apartment – was a bit of annoyance. It was infringing on her practice time – and likely threatened to wake Jack, who she wasn't ready to take on again yet. Still, she managed to pull herself away from the screen and wandered to the door, looking out the peephole. She considered who she was seeing for a moment but then opened the door.

"El?" she asked, some concern knitting across her brow. She wasn't sure she wanted to even begin to consider what was going on to have him on her doorstep at that time of night on a Saturday. Her mind immediately thought of his kids and feared that one of them had gotten into some trouble and he'd come to her for some help reaching into the NYPD to get it sorted. But that was likely asking for too much. That wouldn't be Elliot's style.

"You fired Mark," Elliot stated bluntly. She wasn't sure if it was a question or a statement. But she didn't much like it.

Her and Elliot hadn't spoken for weeks. Actually – probably closer to a month. She was busy – and … well … she just assumed he was Elliot. It was her who was having to put the effort in. She wasn't sure he was really returning it yet in terms of trying to establish something that resembled a real friendship outside of their working relationship now. Previously she might've cared. It would've really bothered it. And, it wasn't that she didn't care now or that it didn't bother it – it was just that so much of her time was occupied with other things she didn't have the time to dwell on it. It was his turn to put in the effort, if he wanted them to have some sort of relationship. But if this was his idea of putting in the effort, she wasn't sure she liked it much either.

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "I really don't think that's any of your business, El," she returned and positioned herself to block off the doorway. It seemed to be becoming a favorite stance for when he came knocking unannounced anymore. Really – dealing with his bullshit and attitude was optional now. She didn't have to let him into her home and endure it – especially when her boys were both sleeping and he didn't excel at quiet, respectful conversation when he was upset.

"I was doing both of you a favor when I put in that referral," Elliot said with a bit of an edge to his voice.

She didn't think that her dumping Mark was new information. It'd been more than three weeks since their court date – closer to a month. Predictably, Elliot hadn't called her to ask how it had gone. She assumed he likely got a general overview from Mark – or at least that he'd lost her as a client. Though, she supposed it'd only been a week or so ago when she'd signed the papers to officially retain Bayard and had called Mark's office to officially let him know that she'd no longer be using his services. That seemed like an appropriate amount of Elliot Time to stew about something before he exploded. Not that it was any of his business for him to have any sort of opinion on at all. But not that had ever stopped him before.

She held up a hand to stop him before he said more. "El – I'm sure he's a good divorce attorney. For your sake, I hope he is. But for what I'm going through with the boys – Mark wasn't the right choice for me."

"So who are you using?" he pushed at her with a clenched jaw.

She gaped at him. "That's also none of your business."

"If you didn't want it to be any of my business, you shouldn't have brought me into it," he spat at her.

She let out a snort and looked up at the ceiling, really trying to resist the urge to roll her eyes.

She was glad to know Elliot was OK. Not that he was really OK. He was a mess. He'd let his life and marriage and relationship with his children fall apart and he didn't seem to be in any hurry to start working on resolving any of that. She thought that was a foolish choice he was making – even more foolish than not agreeing to go through the psych review and the anger management program in the shooting investigation that likely would've let him return to work at the end of it. But part of her also regretted her choice to have gotten in touch with him when Benji was in the process of stealing her heart and she was trying to figure out how to navigate the shit-storm to get some of the things she'd longed for for so long.

She was so used to having Elliot to talk to about those sorts of things it'd been him she'd reached out to. With how their interactions had played out, though, she wasn't sure that had been a good idea. Elliot wasn't being nearly as supportive as she would've hoped. She should've expected that too, though.

"I'm sorry I brought you into it," she admitted.

There was some truth to it. Getting back in touch with Elliot hadn't really gone the way she hoped. It seemed like every encounter they had they were fighting. That his disapproval of her efforts to be a mom to the boys was so thinly veiled it might as well have just been transparent. She was sure that both Jack and Benji could sense it even in their limited interactions with him.

Bickering with Elliot. The back-and-forth and tension was something she'd grown used to in their partnership. But she wasn't as accustomed to it anymore – and she just couldn't handle it. Not for this. She didn't need his negativity. It wasn't what she'd been looking for or hoping for when she'd reached out to him. She had enough challenges in the process of creating her family. She didn't need Elliot Stabler to be one of them.

Olivia sighed. "I really don't want to talk about any of this anymore right now, El," she told him directly. "It's late. The boys are sleeping. Jack's recovering from …"

"You always do this," he interrupted her. "You get into your head you've found yourself a family and you don't use commonsense. You don't think things through. You skirt around processes to try to make things work the way you want them to. You make poor choices, Olivia. Getting rid of Mark in the middle of a court process is just your latest dumbass move. You of all people should know that days in court don't always go as expected."

She met his eyes and drilled into him at that. "Poor choices?" she repeated back to him. "Funny you should mention that because I had ACS at my door right after Mark self-destructed on me in Family Court. Someone decided to call them and say that Benji is being neglected. Any idea who might've made that call?"

Elliot glared at her. He clearly didn't like the suggestion. Olivia wasn't sure she liked that she was even thinking it. But with the way he was standing there and what he was saying to her in that moment – it seemed to make perfect sense. The fucking asshole.

"Likely someone who knows you work long hours in a high-risk job. That you have no support network," he spat out through clenched teeth. "You aren't even equipped to be raising children. You have a four-year-old sleeping in the same room as a nineteen-year-old, for fuck's sake."

She snorted at that. "Give me a fucking break, Elliot," she spat right back at him. "One – Jack is only here on the weekends. And two – five kids in a fucking three-bedroom house, El. Like your kids have never had to share a bedroom."

"They're siblings," Elliot pushed back angrily like she was the one to have the audacity in the conversation that was quickly escalating.

"That makes a difference? Jack's Benji's uncle. His legal guardian. They were sleeping on the floor of a fucking studio apartment until they came here. If I thought there was any reason they shouldn't be sharing a room. They wouldn't be."

"Legally – it makes a difference. You know that. Or you should – if you're adopting these kids."

She just glared at him for several seconds. "Did … you … call … ACS?" she asked him directly, slowly and purposely, nearly spitting out each individual syllable.

Elliot positioned his body mass to take up even more space in her doorway. It was a stance she was all too familiar with. She'd watched him use it to try to intimidate perps and suspects on all too many occasions over the years. It didn't intimidate her, though. It just pissed her off more that he was trying to dominate her that way in her own home – and to infringe on her personal life. On the life of her family and her boys.

He stared her down for several long seconds of silence in their stand-off. "Do you really think I'd call ACS to report you?"

"It wouldn't be the first time you fucked me over when I was taking a route you didn't approve of."

He glared at her. "That's such bullshit."

"Really? Who went into my desk drawer and sent off Calvin's DNA to the lab?"

"This …" he gestured through the door and into the apartment that she was still blocking his entrance to, "… is completely different than that. And, don't give me this bullshit that I never looked out for you. I put my ass on the line for you more times than I can count. I am now too."

She snorted. "Really? Doesn't feel like it. And, maybe I should start tallying up the number of times I put my career in jeopardy for you – or your fucking kids."

He just shook his head at her. That only made her angrier.

"DID YOU CALL ACS? ANSWER THE FUCKING QUESTION ELLIOT," she demanded in a voice raised louder than she should've considering she had been trying to keep him from waking the boys.

"You are getting yourself in too deep, Olivia," he put to her. "You do that. You get too involved. I saw what it did to you when Calvin was taken. If you aren't careful. This is going to be worse. Maybe whoever the fuck called ACS is right – you aren't in the position right now to be the kind of mom kids like this need."

She glared at him. "Elliot, you don't know anything about my life …"

But she didn't have a chance to finish her statement.

"What the fuck do you know about what we need?" she heard barked from behind her.

She turned to see Jack standing leaning against the wall at the entrance of the little foyer. He was rumbled looking and clutching his recovering side. But he looked flushed with anger – having clearly been woken by the conversation and not liked what he was hearing.

"Like you're fucking Parent of the Year, Asshole," Jack spat at Elliot, his eyes proving to be better daggers than even Olivia could send at the man. "Your kids fucking hate you. You should hear the shit Rich says about you. But I can see why he's saying it now. Fuck off. Leave my mom alone and get the fuck out of our home."

Olivia felt like she'd heard his last sentence come out of his mouth in slow motion. 'My mom'. He'd said 'my mom' – and 'our home'. She knew Jack acknowledged her as Benji's mom. He told the little boy as much regularly. But she didn't think she'd be the teen's 'mom' – not in his eyes, no matter what she did for him or what roles she was playing. But what he'd just said suggested otherwise. The teen's eyes, though, were still locked in a glare with Elliot and not looking at her at all. So, Olivia turned back to the door.

"You need to go now," she said to Elliot in a more hushed tone.

Elliot looked at her. She could see the anger dancing in his eyes. He hated being talked to with disrespect. He hated defiance. It enraged him. It caused problems for him the entire time they'd been partners. It'd had implications for his job and his career. And, in essence, now one of her boys was daring him to a duel.

"Now he's making your decisions?"

She shook her head. "No. I am. You're upsetting one of my boys. So it's time for you to go, El. Bye," she said simply and closed the door – right in his face, watching his slight surprise paint there as she did it. But it was time to end the confrontation. He was upsetting her too. She didn't want to deal with it. She had other things to deal with.

She slowly and purposely locked the door, deadbolt and chain. She still hadn't heard Elliot move away on the other side of it and could see the shadows of his shoes through the crack underneath. But he could stand there as long as he liked. She was done for the night. Part of her felt like she might just be done. Maybe it was her turn to retreat into oblivion for a year or more – focus on her family. Hopefully with better results than Elliot had had.

She turned towards Jack and looked at him. He was looking at the shadow of the feet on the opposite side of the door too but slowly looked up a met her eyes.

"Wow," he mumbled. "Now he's an asshole for real …"

She let out a small snort. Elliot was. Still he'd always been her asshole in a way - but an asshole none-the-less. However, that was again something she didn't much want to think about or deal with that night. There were too many emotions and baggage in all of that. They'd known each other too long and knew too much about each other. It made her go back to wishing that maybe she'd never brought him into her life again. That she'd just let him drift away like he'd wanted.

She took a step closer to Jack, though, pushing the thoughts about her former partner aside. She reached out and took his face in both of her hands for a moment, stroking at his temples lightly with her thumbs and he cast his eyes away from her clearly uncomfortable.

"Thanks for that," she told him quietly. She wanted him to know how much it meant to hear to hear those words come out of his mouth. She wanted him to know how nice it was to have him stand up for her when she'd been fighting so hard for him and Benji for months now.

He just gave a small nod and a little shrug. "He's wrong …" he said so quietly she could barely make it out. "You're a good mom."

She gave him a smile and stroked his temples once more before pulling him into a hug and pressing her lips against into his hairline. She could sense that he wasn't sure about the whole situation. He was processing it and he felt awkward. So she kept it all brief even though part of her wanted to hold him for a while. Another part of her wanted to go into Benji's room and wake him so she could get a hug from him too and then they could have a family hug together. But she thought that was getting a little too girly for any of their tastes.

"Com'on," she offered instead as she released him. "You're supposed to be taking it easy and resting." And then nudged him away from the door and back towards his spot on the couch.


	162. Chapter 162

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in.**

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"OK," Olivia sighed and took Heatwave out of Benji's restless little hands.

The little boy made a shrieking sound in protest at her and threw his weight almost violently against her chest while still reaching out in an attempt to grab the toy back from her. But she just did her best to ignore it. Most of Benji's protests were usually short lived. He usually had to be very tired or incredibly frustrated to reach all-out tantrum or meltdown point. She thought she met more of those criteria at that particular moment than he did.

Benji had huddled against her since they arrived at Ellis' office – first in the waiting room and even more when the lawyer rushed into the office and escorted them into his cluttered space. Sometimes Olivia wondered how he found anything in there – or even managed to keep himself into such high regard in the legal community amidst the disorganization. But, she supposed it just showed how busy and committed to his cases he actually was. His files were pilled on every available space. The legal books, journals and documents towered even higher – pulled off shelves for referral and seemingly never put back.

Ellis had to try to shuffle some things around for her and Benji to even have a place to sit. But he'd rather quickly given up – clearly realizing it wasn't going to work as a spot to chat with Benji. The little boy was near trembling in the mess. So, he'd suggested they move into the firm's vacant conference room.

The less cluttered space, though, hadn't done anything to comfort Benji to the surroundings. He'd still clung to her and rather than claiming his own chair – predictably crawled into her lap as soon as she sat. The little boy had then purposefully placed focused attention into transformed and re-transforming Heatwave back-and-forth from afire truck to a robot over and over and over again. Sometimes Olivia felt like she really needed to start phasing him out of carrying any of his toys with him. But some of them had become such a touchstone for the little boy, she thought trying to get Benji to leave them at home might just do more damage than good.

Olivia had let Benji's self-distraction continue initially. Ellis had been good about keeping her abreast of what was going on with the case and what his next steps would be from the get-go. But with their sit-down meeting in the early hours of the day, he was taking the time to fill her in on various progresses – or lack thereof. Throughout their chatter, he flipped through what appeared to be a growing pile of files that he'd dedicated to their case – or cases. She'd even seen a box in his mess of an office with BENSON scribbled on the side. It was clearly starting to overflow. It seemed like a whole lot work and more effort had gone into the case so far, considering Mark had told her they were going to be rubberstamped.

But as Bayard started to gently direct questions at Benji, the little boy was still set on ignoring him. That was expected to a point but Olivia also knew it just wasn't going to work for what they needed to get done in that meeting. Ellis had made clear that he needed to talk to both of the boys. They'd decided him talking to Benji first would likely be easiest – and possibly more productive than talking to Jack. Really, the conversation with the little boy was going to be used to try to leverage the teen into participating in some conversations Olivia knew he didn't really want to have. But they were discussions that needed to be had if they were going to move forward on the case. Both of her boys were going to have to get used to talking – and Benji was going to have get used to having some interaction with Ellis.

"Benj … we're going to put Heatwave here on the table," she said and leaned forward, purposely putting the toy well out of the reach of his little arms and grabbing hands. "You can play with him again after we're done talking to Bayard."

"Noooooooooooo, Moooooommmmmiiieee," he whined and leaned forward too in his efforts to retrieve the toy.

But Olivia just straightened back into her seatback and pulled him along with her.

"Yes, Benji. You can still see him. He can still see you. You're both fine," she told him.

She couldn't believe that she'd started referring to some of his toys like they were animate beings. But that was pretty much the point they were at. His Transformers, Flame and Mommy Fox stuffie might as well have been real in his eyes. Hell – even some of his Hot Wheels had names and got talked about like they were some kind of pet.

"Well, he can't see like that," Bayard said rather suddenly amid Benji's wringing and Olivia looked back to him across the table.

The lawyer reached out and picked up the fire truck. Benji made a little noise of panic and clung even more tightly to Olivia like the lawyer touching the toy had reverberated through his own nerve-endings and he couldn't stand it. But Ellis just examined the toy for a moment and then made the simple transformation to turn it into the robot form and looked at it again.

"Who is this?" he asked Benji.

The little boy examined him with some disgust and distrust. "Heatwave," he said quietly and then with just a bit more forcefulness. "Don't touch!"

Bayard looked at the plastic robot for a moment more but then allowed a small nod and set it directly in front of him.

"There. Now he can see and hear everything going on, right?"

Benji just squinted at him. Olivia wasn't sure Bayard had won any points touching his most coveted Transformer. Sometimes even she wasn't allowed to touch Heatwave – and she was certainly never allowed to be Heatwave. Even when she was ordered to get down on the floor with Benji in the living room and play Rescue Bots she was always assigned one of the other Transformers. Some nights she wasn't even allowed to have her character enter the fire station because 'DAT HEATWAVE HOUSE!". And, God forbid if she decided she wanted to hit the button to turn the giant fire truck into the mission control center. That was a good way to bring their playtime to a grinding halt. (It had actually become a useful trick for when she was ready to move him from playtime to bathtime. He was usually so upset with her that playtime was over and they had to move into something else anyways.)

"Heatwave is a pretty neat toy," Ellis allowed, ignoring the 'don't touch' demand. "Did your Mommy get him for you?"

Benji flopped his head back against her and eyed the lawyer for a moment before settling his eyes on his Transformer that likely seemed about thousand miles away.

"Santa," he said quietly.

"Santa? He's a good person to get toys from. Do you like toys, Benji?" Ellis asked but didn't seem to be waiting for an answer.

The lawyer had stood from his seat even before Benji rubbed his face against her against in a nod, not making any sort of eye contact. Ellis went over to one of the filling cabinets in the corner and opened one drawer and then another before retrieving a clear plastic bucket that appeared to be filled with containers of Play-Doh and various little presses, moulds and cookie cutters. He sat back down in his seat and began to unscrew the lid and glanced at Benji.

"Do you like Play-Doh?" he asked. "It was one of my little girl's favorites."

Benji just squinted at him and then eyed the bucket. Olivia knew that Play-Doh would get his attention. It was one of his favorite activities to do at home and just like at the previous nursery school, his new daycare was reporting that it was near impossible to keep him out of it in their craft center. Benji loved the texture of the dough and squishing it between his fingers. He was fascinated it with the point that he'd given the various colors at home and school smell tests and taste tests, despite discouragement from both Olivia and his teachers. He'd determined that Play-Doh smelt pretty good but didn't taste too great. Not that that seemed to stop him. So Olivia had just adopted an, "Eww, gross, Benj. Don't do that" stance at home without making too big of deal out it at home. Distracting him with some new modeling project suggestion was usually a better route than making him think he'd done something overly wrong or something overly funny.

"Do you play Play-Doh with your Mommy?" Bayard asked and looked at him more directly, taking some of the little containers of the clay and the rest of the accessories out and placing them on the table. Benji seemed to think about it for a while but nodded. "Would you and your Mommy like to play Play-Doh with me now?"

Benji gazed up at her and she gave him a small smile and a little nod so the little boy looked back to the lawyer. "Yes," he said at a near whisper.

"What else do you say?" Olivia whispered into his ear.

Benji looked at her with big eyes but then looked to Ellis again. "Yes, please," he said just slightly louder.

"What color would you like, Benji?" Ellis asked.

Benji pulled himself up a bit at that. As he repositioned himself, he again jammed his boney little knees into her thighs and leaned most of chest onto the table to examine the options.

"BLUE," he said with certainty.

"Blue, please," Olivia said gently and lightly patted his butt that he had almost stuck in her face at the moment. But he just glanced over his shoulder at her like he didn't know what she was talking about and quickly snapped his head back to look at the playtime options instead. Ellis handed that container across the table to the little boy and he eagerly worked at popping the lid off. Jabbing his finger into the dough and expertly fishing it out of the canister.

"Olivia?" the lawyer inquired.

"Purple," she allowed.

He held out the container, before nudging some of the accessories closer to the center of the table so they were within her reach. Benji, though, at the moment seemed intent on rolling one of his 'snakes' out with the blue dough. So they all just sat there puttering with the modeling clay for several minutes.

"What other things do you like to do with your Mommy, Benji?" Ellis asked casually, focusing on what looked like some sort of green pyramid structure that he was creating on his side of the table.

"I dunno," Benji mumbled, not even bothering to look up from his Play-Doh creation.

Ellis glanced at him. "You don't know? I bet if I asked Mommy she could tell me lots of things she likes to do with you."

Benji gazed up at her for a moment with that and rolled his head against her. "I dunno," he stated again.

Olivia just snorted at that and pressed a kiss into the top of his messy hair. "You like going to the library," she suggested.

Benji nodded. "Yeeeees," he told her and not Ellis. "We go to lie-berry and hear story and make craft and pick books and pick movie. Seven books. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven," he said, counting off on his fingers and then holding them up to show her. She just smiled. "Sunday book. Monday book. Twos-day book. When-day book. Tur-day book. Fly-day book. Sat-turd-day book," he recited. "But we can read them more then once but then they go back to lie-berry. But if you like it you can get it again later after other kids have chance to read it too. Right Mommy?"

She nodded. "Right, Benj."

"We get one movie. Only one," he dictated in his established routine and rules that he loved reaffirmed and repeated to him every Sunday. Benji was all about affirmation, repetition and schedules. "We watch it Sunday. After lie-berry we get hot chalk-lick and visit real Heatwave if him house open and he not rescuing."

Olivia smiled at him and caressed his little cheek. He looked so proud of himself listing off all those details. She was proud of him too. But she knew his next question would be predictable.

"What day it, Mommy? It Sunday?"

She shook her head. "No Little Fox. It's not Sunday. What day is it?" she asked. She did days of the week with him every day on their walk to the precinct and she knew it was repeated again at circle time at the beginning of is pre-k session in the daycare.

He rolled his head against her chest for a moment. She couldn't tell if it was out of disappointment that it wasn't Sunday or if he was just thinking really hard.

"Twos-day?" he asked.

She nodded. "Tuesday," she repeated gently, pronouncing it carefully for him.

"When Sunday?"

She looked at him. "When's Sunday?" she put back to him and then held up a finger. "Today is Tuesday," she said and then put up her next finger. "What's tomorrow?"

"When-day," he said and grabbed at the raised finger so she stuck up the next. "Tur-day," he repeated excitedly. "Fly-day," he said even more excitedly as her next finger went up. "Sat-turd-day," for the next and then "SUNDAY!"

"So how many days is that, Benj?" she asked him. "Today is one," she told him and wriggled the first finger again.

"Two," Benji said and grabbed at her fingers again. "Tree, four, five, six. SIX!"

"But the sixth day is Sunday," Olivia told him. "So five days until Sunday, Benj."

"FIVE DAYS!" Benji said and smiled at her happily and then looked back to Ellis. "FIVE DAYS TO LIE-BERRY!"

Ellis allowed a small smile at their little show – as much as the man ever smiled. "Sunday sounds like a very busy day. It sounds fun. What else do you do?"

But now Benji shrugged and grabbed at the little rolling pin from the center of the table. He looked at his snake and then started to roll the piece of plastic over it in a smiliar way he'd used his hand to roll out the dough.

"Play," he stated as the snake flattened out to a pancake.

"What do you play?"

"Play-Doh," Benji stated simply.

Olivia snorted. She knew Benji could to a better job at creating a list of things he liked to do than that. He was pretty specific about things he liked and things he didn't. He made his preferences rather clear to her on a daily basis. But getting him to rattle off a list to a strange man was likely going to be a losing battle.

"What about things you like about your Mommy, Benji?" Ellis asked instead. "What makes Olivia a good Mommy?"

Benji glanced up at that and puckered in thought for a moment. "She do Mommy things not Mama things."

"Hmm," Ellis allowed. "Like what?"

Benji squinted at him. "Hot chalk-lick."

"She makes you hot chocolate?"

Benji nodded eagerly and then looked at her again. "Hot chalk-lick?"

She gave him a small smile. "We'll get some on the way to daycare, Benj. Right now, we're talking to Bayard."

He huffed at her and retrieved the plastic scissors to start cutting his flattened blob into little bits.

"What else does your Mommy do?"

"She make pancakes and Em-ems."

Olivia laughed. This list wasn't really a glowing review of her mothering abilities.

"We buy M&Ms. I don't make them," she corrected.

"We buy Em-ems?" Benji asked more enthusiastically but with a look that almost told her 'gotcha'. It was like he'd gotten her to say the name of his favorite candy and now it somehow obligated her to make a purchase.

She shook her head against the top of his. "Nope. It's a weekday. No candy on weekdays."

He craned his head out from under her chin and squinted at her even more unimpressed. Not only was she making him talk to a stranger and miss daycare – she was now denying him M&Ms. She clearly wasn't his favorite person that moment.

"Do you want to stay with Olivia, Benji?" Ellis asked carefully.

Benji's head snapped around to Ellis at that question and fear seemed to take over his body, as he pushed himself more firmly against her, his Play-Doh forgotten. Olivia wrapped her arms tightly around him trying to offer him some extra security.

"I STAY WITH 'LIVIA!" Benji near yelled. "I STAY WITH MOMMY FOREVER."

"Shh," she soothed. "Bayard's just asking a question. You aren't going anywhere."

His face returned to its buried place in her chest and she rubbed at his back. She could feel the little tremble there. He was scared. She put a kiss on the top of his head and glanced at Ellis and he gave her a firm look. It was like he could tell she was about to tell him that Benji had had enough for one day. That she didn't think she could use her little boy as a pawn to collect information. His eyes told her that he wasn't going to take that explanation as an answer – not if she was serious about wanting to adopt the boys. Not if she was serious about him working their case. They'd barely scratched the surface even for her to put on the brakes already.

Ellis had told her that since Jack was onboard, assuming she passed her home study, adopting Benji should be relatively simplistic. There might be some resistance and lecturing from the judge about the teen asking his rights and responsibilities to the boy be terminated. But based on how the previous hearing had gone, Ellis said the judge would ultimately approve it. It wouldn't take too much argument to prove that the little boy would be better cared for by an adult than a teenager – even if Olivia wasn't blood. Olivia's indication that she'd be keeping Jack involved – and wanted to adopt him too would only add to the argument for the rights to be terminated, for Benji to officially be available for adoption and for her to adopt him. Ellis made clear that there could be some hiccups. But when he said it shouldn't be a problem – she trusted his assessment far more than Mark's. Where the problem was going to be, though, was in Jack.

Adult adoptions can be much more involved than a private adoption, Ellis warned. Only a handful had been approved in New York State in cases were competence wasn't in question. Ellis had told her getting her guardianship for up until his 21st birthday – when he came over age – would be easier. They might even be able to get her guardianship over his person and his property – hence his trust and anything else that fell into the teen's financial realm of rights. But even guardianship would be complicated with the mess of paperwork around the teen. At that point, it wasn't even clear who had taken over guardianship of Jack when his father had died. It almost appeared like nothing official had ever gone through.

The whole situation made Olivia so angry. It enraged her even more after Jack had told the judge there had been police and social workers in-and-out of their house. Surely if they'd known there were minors there without an adult responsible for them they were obligated to act. They were obligated to take them into the care of the state. If Jack hadn't had a guardian – garnering him the right of extended guardianship would be almost as cumbersome as getting him adopted.

Olivia wanted him adopted. She didn't want him to feel like he was on the sidelines of the family, or an after-thought. She wanted him to know that he had a family and a place he could always call home – and a place could come home to. She knew that in her heart all those things would still be true even if she was only legally responsible for him for a few more years. He was always going to be one of her boys now. But she wanted to make it official for their family.

She also wanted to make sure that whatever happened Jack still had access to the trust his father had left him – at least. He deserved that much. Though, Bayard had warned there might be complications with that because generally adult adoption meant giving up all ties and rights from their previous family. It could mean that financially Jack wouldn't have access to much of anything from his previous life nor from the life his father had tried to establish for him.

That wasn't the worst of the concerns, though. Bayard had said that really to mount a case for Jack – whether it was for guardianship, adoption or maintain some rights to money or property that could be his – he was going to need to know more about the young man and what had gone on on that farm. He was collecting paperwork from the village and the various bureaucracies up there. He needed to hear some of it from the horse's mouth, though, and so would the judge – he warned.

There might be the need to pursue charges against his uncle or other negligent forces in the community, he'd said. Or at least enough information might come out to mount a civil case. Olivia's initial reaction had been 'good'. She was enraged at the situation her boys had been left to flounder in on their own. She was even more enraged at the adults who had moved in-and-out of their lives and had not stepped in. Some of them would've been legally obligated to report what they were seeing going on in that house – yet somehow her boys still slipped through the cracks. She had moments where she wanted to get their uncle into an interrogation room, handcuff him to the chair and then start beating his head against the table for what he'd done to near helpless children – smaller and weaker than him, and dependent on him. But she also knew that Jack would be horrified by any of the process – to the point he might back out of it entirely.

Whereas Bayard said he could likely have Benji's paperwork through in four to six months (including her home study), Jack's could take a year or more – much more. Part of her didn't want to put him through that. She knew how the system worked. She knew what it did to victims to have things drag on. She knew what it did to them to have to repeat their stories – and their terrors – over and over again. She didn't want to do that to Jack. But she also didn't want him to hide it and live in fear of it his whole life.

There were days – and nights – where she saw how Jack was coping (or really barely was). It made her feel like he was letting his uncle win. He was letting all the people who failed him and Benji to continue on with their lackluster efforts to protect and defend children. She didn't want those dark clouds to hang over him his whole life. She wanted him to have opportunities to try to heal. But she knew even getting him to talk to Bayard initially was going to be a battle. So they were starting with Benji to see if they could piece together some ammunition to open communication with Jack - and to send Bayard and his staff digging up more of the appropriate paperwork and supportive casework. To eventually get them the outcome that Olivia wanted – an official family with two boys, not just one.

"It's OK, Little Fox," she said, putting her attention back on the little boy. "You're fine. I'm right here. You're safe. Bayard is trying to help us."

Ellis let her hold and reassure Benji for about a minute more but it felt like all too soon, he threw out, "You don't want to go back to the farm?"

"NOOOOO!" Benji yelled against her and shook his head hard, pushing even more of his weight into her with all his little might.

"Hmm. What about Jack? Should he go back to the farm some day?" Bayard asked next.

"NO!" Benji yelled even more angrily. "Peedg at forever home too!"

Ellis just nodded. "OK," he allowed and looked back to his Play-Doh like the conversation was over and he was ready to go back to his project.

He reached across the table and took a little mould of a turtle. He examined it for a moment and then began packing some of his dough into it. Olivia just watched him silently while she continued to rub at Benji's turned back. She wasn't sure if she liked these tactics. She wasn't sure it was getting them anywhere. The only thing she was sure of was that it was getting her Little Fox upset. She knew that Ellis used a firm touch. But if this was any indication of how the meetings that included Benji were going to go – she wasn't sure he was going to be up for them. She could feel him shaking against her.

The minutes ticked back and Bayard quietly worked at creating quite the little bale of turtles – packing the dough into the mould, tapping it firmly on the table until the figures fell out and then arranging them in a semi-circle around his phone, which Olivia could see was recording their meeting. She didn't think any had been said yet that was really worth having any sort of record of.

In the quiet of the room, with only the sounds of Ellis 'playing', Benji slowly pulled his face away from her chest and glanced over his shoulder to see what the lawyer was doing. Bayard didn't even acknowledge the little boy's movement. But the lack of acknowledgement seemed to be enough to encourage Benji to turn around a little bit more and after a few more minutes, he was forward facing on Olivia's lap again and picking at his bits of dough.

"What didn't you like about the farm, Benji?" Ellis asked after awhile.

"It bad," Benji stated simply and pounded his fist into his Play-Doh.

"What was bad about it?" Bayard asked.

Benji didn't answer and Olivia reached and stroked at his hair a bit. The pounding on the Play-Doh seemed to give her some of the answer that she already knew. Fists had definitely been involved in that home. She'd known that anyways from comments from both Jack and Benji. It'd only been confirmed while Jack was in the hospital and the doctor had pulled her aside and advised her that some of the xrays had shown the teen had healed fractures in his ribs. Olivia knew if that had been from skateboarding injuries, Jack would've mentioned or even bragged. Hoping it was from a fall or other sports was just wishful thinking. She knew it was from his uncle. She hadn't said anything to the doctor. The hospital already knew she was his guardian – and he was technically an adult. Still, the doctor had gently suggested that, if the teen hadn't had one, he should likely go in for a full exam and physical at some point in the near future – that he might there might be more unseen injuries and that he might be in some pain and perhaps things hadn't set or healed properly that could cause him problems in the future. She'd left that battle for the moment. Jack had hardly coped in the hospital when he was completely strung out on drugs. Getting him to see a doctor when he wasn't under sedation might actually lead to World War 3. So she'd focus on getting him recovered from surgery before opening that door.

"Did your Uncle Greg ever hit you, Benji?" Bayard asked, still eyeing the little boy has he pounded the dough into little sand dollars – and then continued to beat at it even when it couldn't get any flatter.

Olivia wrapped her arms around Benji again and put her mouth close to his ear. "We need to talk to Bayard, sweetheart," she whispered, "and tell him the truth." She then pressed a kiss against the side of his head.

Benji shook his head. "No. He grab," he said and pounded his fist into the Play-Doh again. "Grabbing bad. You don't grab." It was a lesson she'd been trying to teach him – but only in terms of him grabbing toys from other children - or her or Jack's hands.

"Grabbed?" she asked. "Can you show me?"

Benji gazed at her for a moment but then reached a wrapped his little hand as much as it would go around her wrist and squeezed it tightly and then yanked at it. She was almost surprised at the amount of strength he'd found in his little hand. She thought there was likely going to be white marks on her wrist when he released her. But she knew that the hands of a grown man – the yank of a grown, angry man on a little wrist and arm – likely hurt far more than whatever marks her little boy might leave momentarily on her wrist. It was much more likely to near dislocate a shoulder or wrist, she thought. But before she had a chance to consider it too much, Benji had suddenly bounded up on his knees in her lap, his face inches from hers – if that.

"YOU BAD! SHUT UP! 'TUPID FLAW-YUK-ING BAT-TURD! GET HELL OUTTA HERE SLUT!" he screamed at her with such an intensity that spittle flew out of his mouth and hit her in the face.

She gazed at his glassy eyes and swallowed hard. His competence was flushed red but his eyes looked so empty as he screamed in her face. It scared her that her Little Fox could look that way. She lifted her free hand and stroked his back and then the back of his head.

"OK, Benj. OK, Little Fox. Thank you for showing me," she tried to sooth him. She could almost feel his heart pounding through his back. Her own heart was beating just as loudly and her eyes glassing just as much. Hers though were with tears that were threatening to drip out of her eyes. Hers for her little boy, who slowly slinked back down to her lap and looked blankly at the table.

"Mommy a bat-turd too," he said quietly, reaching for the Play-Doh again.

She let out a small snort and reached up and swiped at her eyes – trying to ignore that Ellis was watching them both, but she suspected more her. She didn't want to cry sitting in his office. But those words coming out of her little boy's mouth and knowing they'd been things he'd had screamed at him while he was still in diapers – screamed so often and so loudly that it was seared in his little, scattered, juvenile brain still – had hit her very core. As she dropped her hand away from her face, though, she allowed a thin, small smile and rested it against the back of his head.

"I am," she agreed. But it just added another layer of sadness to her that she'd had discussions with her four-year-old about what that word meant and had had to reassure him that it was OK … she was an illegitimate child too. But that had never been screamed in her face by someone that was supposed to be looking after her. For all the things her mother did to her and said to her (or didn't do for her or say to her) – that hadn't been one of them.

"Where you ever scared on the farm?" Bayard asked, examining the little boy, who was clearly trying to self-sooth by squishing his fingers into the Play-Doh like he was fascinated by the feel of the doughy texture under his hands. He likely was – another touchstone, Olivia thought. But still the question managed to get a nod from the boy. "What happened to make you scared?"

"Grag yell. Mama yell. Peedg yell. Things go …" he said and suddenly pounded on the Play-Doh again.

"Did your uncle hit your Mama or Peedg?" Olivia asked but Benji just shrugged. "You're allowed to tell us, Benji." But he just shrugged again, which really was enough of an answer. She knew the answer. Part of her hoped the shrug meant that maybe at least Benji didn't witness Jack or his mother being struck. Not that that made the abuse any better for either of them.

"What'd you do when you were scared?" Bayard pressed.

"Hide," Benji said.

"Where did you hide?"

"Under bed and in cupboard," he said. "Peedg put me in closet and he say 'STAY HERE' and he close door."

Olivia felt her heart breaking more. It made Benji's distaste of closed doors and being left alone that much clearer. It put light on why he she'd find him sitting under the dining room table with his toys, huddled and playing quietly. But it made her want to really let those tears start running down her cheeks and hold him tight.

"Did anyone ever help you?" Bayard asked.

"Nana and Peedg," Benji said quietly. "But then Grag make Nana go live away because her 'crews loose. Then Peedg leave and Peedg say, Mama sick or Grag yelling you go in closet and STAY! But then Grag lock door and it dark."

"Greg locked you in a closet?" Olivia asked with some horror and looked down at him, involuntarily pulling him even tighter to her.

Benji shrugged. "Peedg say closet safe but Grag say I can't come out becuz I in way and bat-turd. Bat-turds in the way and not loud in house."

Olivia shook her head and looked harder at him. "What do you mean you weren't allowed in the house, Benji?"

She'd known the boys had gone through a lot. She'd known that their living conditions had been less than ideal. She'd known that Benji had seen and experienced some things that a small child shouldn't have to see or experience. He had that sense and knowledge and air about him that already pained her. He was a little boy but there were moments where she could see some of his innocence had been taken from him. Some of his comments. Some of his fears. She knew he'd be traumatized. But now she was wishing she'd pushed Jack harder earlier to hear the details of what they'd gone through.

She hadn't wanted to push him and Benji away by asking too much. She'd trusted her gut – and her years of experience on the job – to let her know enough to be able to navigate with the boys and to offer them the support they needed. But hearing the fragmented details from a four-year-old's mouth and memories – her little boy's, not some victim sitting in the children's interview room or a hospital room at work – just made her feel so unprepared to deal with it in her own child. She wanted to know more now – and she simultaneously wished she'd known more sooner. Guilt and regret were washing over her. She wished she'd known before Benji or Jack had had to endure any of it. She feared that she wouldn't ever really be able to truly heal the wounds for either of them. That they were going to be scarred for life no matter how much love, affection or support she gave them – no matter how much help and counseling she was able to get them.

"Bat-turds not allowed in house when Mama not home," Benji stated like this was a common known fact and it was shocking that she didn't know the rule.

"What does that mean?" she tried again.

He looked at her. "Peedg take me to barn. It good there."

She felt her heart sink and tried not to gape at him. "Jack took you to the barn?"

Benji nodded. "Mama not come home to sleep so bat-turds not loud. So Peedg say it OK becuz we have barn and evyone loud there."

"You slept in the barn?" Olivia asked, trying not to let her shock or upset creep into her voice or show on her face in a way that might scare her Little Fox. But that statement just took everything to a whole new level for her.

Benji nodded harder. "It good. There no yelling and we pet cows and horseys and Peedg get blankets and London and milk and we throw hay and climb and then we sleep."

She just held him tighter. She wanted to apologize to him – to apologize for not knowing before she even knew him. To apologize for all the people who had failed him. She felt like she'd failed him now. She should've known. Greg might not have struck Benji but the abuse and neglect had been real – whether her little boy was able to understand that or not.

"But then Peedg leave so Grag say bat-turds have to stay upstairs and he lock door. But then Peedg come back. Peedg take a long time," Benji said sadly. "Peedg come back when Mama not come back but Mama not ever come back now, right Mommy?"

She shook her head and gave him a sad smile. "No, sweetheart. Your Mama isn't ever coming back. She's in Heaven with your Popa."

"Becuz Mama and Pops dead."

She nodded sadly. "Mama and Pops are dead."

Benji nodded all too knowingly for his young age and looked back at his Play-Doh again.

"I make star now," he said and pointed at the cookie cutter shape.

Olivia reached out and retrieved it for him, briefly meeting Ellis' eyes and looking again at his phone that she could still see recording the conversation. It likely wouldn't be any use in a court setting. Testimony from small children was notoriously unreliable. But at least it was being documented. At least maybe they could use it to access other information buried in files somewhere upstate to prove how badly the system had failed both of the boys – to get Jack away from any strings still attached to him and maybe to get them both some sort of justice or compensation for what they'd been through. Olivia knew no matter what they were able to do for them – it'd never be enough. It never was.

Benji held up the star at her as he took it from her hand. "Stars in space," he informed her.

She gave him a little smile. "They are. You're right, Little Fox. So smart," she encouraged.

"Buzz a Space Ranger," he told her only causing her to smile more through the tear-glazed eyes she still felt hovering there and the sadness that had settled deep in her chest – like a nagging cold that wouldn't quit.

They'd gotten through the first two Toy Story movies. She had the third one on hold but it was a long waiting list. She thought they might better off for her to just go out and buy it. Though, she might be more eager to see the end of the trilogy than Benji. He was pretty oblivious to there being a third part to the story. He'd likely be happy just watching the first one over and over again. Jack too had warned her she didn't want to see the third one.

"It's beyond depressing," he'd told her. Though he hadn't revealed more when she'd indicated she didn't want him to ruin the storyline for her. She wasn't really sure what in an animated movie could be so depressing. Not any more depressing than what she dealt with at work. Not more depressing than the renditions she'd just heard out of her Little Fox's mouth.

"Buzz is a Space Ranger," she agreed.

"TO EFFINY AND BEYOND!" Benji declared with an underlying little boy joy to his voice that she wanted to know how he was able to tap into after just talking so mutedly about some of what had occurred on that farm. "Transformers from space too, Mommy," he added.

She snorted and smiled a little bit more. Everything always came back to Transformers. She nodded. "Their planet is Cybertron," she agreed, again amazed at the random bits of fictionalized information she was absorbing from watching the shows with Benji.

Benji nodded. "But then they come home to Earth to rescue us from the bad guys."

She allowed him another small nod. "They did."

"Becuz stars in night sky," he said.

She didn't really quite know how that applied. But she didn't pretend to always understand how his little brain worked. Though, after sitting through that meeting she definitely wanted to understand more about what was going on in there. She wanted to make sure he had all the support he needed to grow up healthy and balanced. For him to know what love and security and support was and to never have to worry about or experience some of the things he had ever again. She wanted him to be OK. She wanted to try to make what he'd gone through fade into the background as much as possible. She couldn't erase it for him. But she was going to do everything in her power to make sure it didn't ever engulf him – that it didn't define him. There was more to her Little Fox than what had happened to him in those first four years of his life. He still had years and years to grow up. She had years and years to try to make it better and to give him a childhood. She hoped as normal of one as humanly possible.

"Stars are in the night sky," she agreed.

"So you ask night sky to send rescue from bad guys and it send it," he stated but it sounded like a question to her.

So she nodded. "You can ask the night sky for whatever you want, Little Fox."

"And it hear you?" he posed again.

She leaned forward and put her lips on his forehead and then stroked his hair and looked him in the eyes. There was such a little boy in there and such an old man too. The innocence and the knowledge colliding together in his mind and soul and speaking volumes to her in his still babyish intonations and his pooling blue eyes.

"It heard me," she told him. "Did it hear you?"

He nodded hard and then looked at Bayard with a seriousness. It was about the first eye contact he'd made with the man that morning. "Mommy Fox tell night sky she want Little Fox becuz she lonely. So night sky find Little Fox and say Little Fox go to forever home with Mommy Fox. Peedg go to forever home too because he fox too. He Gowing."

Bayard allowed his own thin smile at that. "I see," he said.

Benji nodded like he'd just imparted the knowledge of the universe and then took the star cookie cutter and pressed it into his Play-Doh. Carefully he peeled the shape off the table and handed it out to Olivia.

"Stars in the night sky," he informed her again. She just took it from him unquestioningly and smiled at the blue chunk of dough, leaning forward and putting another kiss against his temple and meeting Ellis' eyes. She thought she might have to put some more requests out to the night sky – for all their sakes. Bayard might need the dough reminder – the touchstone – of how important this was to them more than her though. She held it across the table.

"Stars are in the night sky," she offered and handed it off to his waiting hand, as Benji cuddled more into her chest, glancing over at the lawyer too.

She pulled Benji tight to her and joined him in eyeing the man across from them, as Ellis looked at the cut-out. Her little boy felt almost limp against her body – like he was exhausted from their conversation. She hoped it wasn't that he felt defeated from him. She wished that she could just will his pain away. That she could somehow absorb it if she continued to hold him tightly enough, if she pulled him close enough, if she hugged him long enough. That somehow it wouldn't hurt. That somehow he could forget. That somehow it could go away. She knew that it wasn't that simple. If it was – she'd likely be out of a job.

She had to trust Ellis. She had to hope her previous requests to the night sky were still reverberating and that Ellis would hear them just as much as Jack and Benji had. That he was hearing her now. That he was seeing what she wanted – what she needed – and what her two boys wanted and needed just as badly as her. This working out wasn't optional anymore. Too much was at stake. She had to trust that he understood that more than Mark and trust that he would pull out all the stops to bring her boys to their forever home and to keep them there – with her. Because she needed that forever home just as much as they did.


	163. Chapter 163

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"So how'd it go with the lawyer?" Nick asked, as they waited at a traffic light.

She glanced at him from the passenger seat. She'd been staring rather blankly out the window. She really hadn't felt like she'd left the meeting with Ellis – she was still running through everything Benji had said in her head so much. It hurt even to think about. Part of her really hadn't wanted to come into work after it. She'd just wanted to hold her little boy and tell him it was alright, that he was going to be alright. She was going to make sure that nothing bad was ever going to happen to him – as much as you could ever promise that.

Benji, though, hadn't seemed any worse for the wear from having talked about it all. By the time they were leaving, he was trying to claim Ellis' Play-Doh set to add to his Transformer Play-Doh set at home. Her and the attorney had to convince him it was best to leave at his office for the next time Benji was there. The little boy hadn't thought that sounded like a reasonable compromise at first but he'd eventually relented when Olivia had distracted him with a reminder that she'd promised him a hot chocolate on the way to daycare. Apparently that was enough to get him to put down the Play-Doh and make a beeline to getting his coat, hat and mitts back on.

She'd thought Benji might protest going into daycare after the emotional morning meeting. But he hadn't done that either. As he sat in the coffee shop sipping at the hot chocolate and working at eating through a giant Black and White (which he hadn't been happy about her breaking off a piece to have with her coffee and even less happy about when she'd taken half of the cookie and wrapped it up in a napkin to save for a snack for later), it was actually him who'd asked if, 'We go to daycare now, Mommy?'

"You want to go to daycare, sweetheart?" she'd asked, almost surprised that there wasn't a protest. She'd be preparing in her head how to explain to Cragen that she'd be taking yet another unplanned day off. She was starting to wonder how much longer he'd let her push those limits.

Olivia knew they were likely reaching the point that she'd either be called into his office or ordered to take a lunch break with him – so he could tell her they needed to come up with a better way to deal with her having the boys in her life. She thought we was balancing things as well as could be expected. Munch seeming happy on nights and Amanda seeming happy with weekends (that Olivia knew through hearsay was related to her wanting to avoid temptation of sports matches and betting) – made things a bit easier. She'd really only been called in a handful of times in off-duty hours since she had her new responsibilities and commitments at home. Nick had been a bit of a lifesaver in that area too. His access to his mom meant it was easier for him to go in in the middle of the night and Zara spending some weekends in DC with Maria meant he was more amendable to taking the calls too – sometimes getting her off the hook. Though, now that she had access to the off-hours services in the NYPD daycare – that should make the unexpected – but expected – circumstances that arose with the job easier to handle. She'd always have somewhere to take Benji and know he was safe and cared for.

So she was making the effort to keep getting all her ducks in a row. Still, she had been taking time off – some with little notice and little explanation. She didn't put in as many extra hours and she didn't always immediately answer her phone. She knew that was putting added weight on everyone's caseloads. Olivia still felt like she was doing her share, though. She was just not doing all the extras that she used to do before. But even then – she could feel a lecture and chat in the offing, likely approaching faster and faster with each hour and day she took off.

Benji nodded though. "We goin' on a bear hunt, Mommy," he informed her. "I need ta make knockulars."

She smiled. Benji was really good at making her smile. Even after she'd seen something at work that she thought had pretty much robbed what little was left of her heart or soul – she'd get home to him and he'd remind her that they were both still there and he was helping her heal and rebuild the parts that were missing. He was four. He'd already been through too much for someone his age – and some days she really thought it was him who was helping her more than she was helping him.

"It went," she was all she told Nick though.

She really didn't want to talk about it. She really hadn't discussed with her partner exactly how damaged her boys were. Though, she suspected he had some inklings since he'd gotten to spend some time with Benji (and had reports from his mother about Benji's behaviors, anxieties and fears during her babysitting service). Still, she didn't feel the need to fill in all the blanks for him. Not yet. Not now. Maybe someday. But not then – not in the car. She thought she was likely still barely holding it together.

Olivia had dropped Benji off at daycare after having breezed through the squad – just letting them know she was there. She really wasn't that late. She'd purposely scheduled the meeting with Ellis as early as possible in the morning to avoid getting in too late. There was too much going on at work – at least in the eyes of 1 PP. As far as she was concerned there was always too much going on at work. But when there was a case that involved high profile celebrities – suddenly the standards they were being held to were placed under that much scrutiny. It was just what she needed lately – another high profile case in the media spotlight for Jack to look at and ask her about with a mix of curiosity and horror.

Cragen had pointed at her as she walked through. "You're riding with Nick," he said. "The vic is backing down. Go talk to her."

She'd just nodded. "Sure. I'm just taking him upstairs. I'll be back in five."

She shouldn't have been more than five minutes. Benji was eager to get to his class and get on his 'bear hunt'. She wasn't entirely clear what that entailed – but he seemed pretty excited about it. She actually hoped he hadn't missed it. He'd barely stopped long enough after they got buzzed into the entrance to wait for her to sign him it and give her a goodbye kiss. He was down the hall like a shot. It hurt a bit but it was reassuring. He'd survived the talk with Ellis and he was doing better at the new preschool – much better. He actually was looking forward to something in his class. He was adjusting to his life with her – or his life in the city, or to his new life. That was important – after everything he'd been through.

But it was that thought – everything he'd been through – that got to her again (still). She'd bypassed the elevator, trotting down the stairs back to the squad and as her feet hit the one landing – her open hand smacked the wall. And then smacked it again and again and again until her palm stung red.

She let out a noise that choked back the scream and the sobbing tears that she wanted to let out – but couldn't. Not at work. The screams and swearing and yells and endless tears that would have to wait until that night when both of the boys were asleep and she'd still have to hide and muffle them in the dark of her apartment. The thought of having to hide it – of not knowing the who, how or where to express it – just made her beat against the concrete even harder until she felt her energy sapped and she rested her head against the cool brick and still held her mouth open in a silent, hidden cry.

It was so unfair. It hurt more then she could've imagined to know what her boys had gone through – and she thought she was prepared for it all. That she'd know how to deal with anything that was thrown at her – or them. That she'd seen and heard so much over the years that nothing could shock her. But none of it had shocked her. That made her sad and made it hurt even more. But where the agony was coming from and striking to the core was that it was her boys – little, helpless boys who had needed someone to look after them – and they'd been left alone. Her boys. She hadn't been able to protect them. She should've been there to protect them, to help them, to save them from it. And, she hadn't been. And she knew she didn't even know the half of what they'd truly been through. The pain of that was screaming through her being.

Olivia saw Nick watching her out of the corner of her eye. He was doing that concerned look that he seemed rather good at. Sometimes it pissed her off – especially on days like today when she really just wanted to be left alone to her thoughts. If not that – then she wanted to be left alone to get herself in the headspace necessary to go and try to talk calmly to a young woman who kept putting herself in the way of danger and letting her asshole 'boyfriend' get away with hitting her around – manipulated by promises of money and fame and a 'better life'. She was afraid. She wasn't thinking straight. She wasn't making good choices. She was being motivated by the wrong things. Olivia just wasn't sure she was in the headspace at that moment to try to help someone who didn't want to be helped. She needed to get herself there before they got out of the car and walked up to this girl's fancy hotel suite to try to convince her that she deserved better, that she needed to take care of herself and she needed to set an example for other young women.

"Ellis going to be able to help you out?" Nick pressed.

She just nodded. "Yeah. I think so."

Nick started to accelerate the car again as the light changed – and apparently decided to respect her silence. The danger of silence was starting to mean more to her, though. It was something she lectured victims on. But now – it was seeping so much more into her personal life.

Olivia had experienced the need for silence – the fear and the stigma that promoted it – following her own assault. And, now she felt like she was letting it take over again. Who did she tell how fucked up her kids were? How did she get Jack to even admit how fucked up his past few years had been? Could she even break the silence with her boys as a family? Was she setting an example? Or was she just doing the same as them?

"How many of our victims do you think ever really recover?" she asked. She didn't know if she was really asking Nick – or if she was asking herself. Maybe it was really was meant to be complete rhetorical. She thought she knew the answer pretty definitively.

She was always telling her vics that the worst was worse. They'd said no more. And now they could get help. Now they were in control. Now their perps couldn't hurt them anymore. That with lots of counseling – it was going to get better. That they were going to heal. That they still had a life to live.

At the moment, though, Olivia was just feeling like that was what she had to tell them. She couldn't tell them the truth. She wasn't even entirely sure she wanted to accept the truth.

Some victims able to move on. Some of them were able to heal – to a point. The ones with lots of support – family, friends, access to services. They were the ones that did the best. But even them – they weren't who they were anymore. How could they be? Pieces of them had been taken that they'd never get back. It wasn't just a matter of scars. It was gaping wounds that never really would able to heal. She'd seen that in her mother. She'd seen it in so many people who'd sat next to her desk or in the interview room over the years.

Olivia had kept in touch with enough of her victims to know that it didn't always get better. It didn't always get easier. Sometimes with the ones who'd been children – she'd seen them grow into adults. Not healthy ones. Recluses. Untrusting. Afraid to leave the house. Never having normal relationships. Self-medicating. Or completely out on the street. Broken and afraid - even years later. Even children who had had supportive, loving parents to help them – it didn't always end up OK for them. They didn't grow into healthy, achieving, fulfilled young adults with their whole lives ahead of them.

Sometimes Olivia thought she really didn't do that much to help the victims. She helped get their perps behind bars. She told them that standing up for themselves and standing up to their attacker would empower them – that it was something that their assailant could never take away from them. But another part of her knew she was just throwing them into a never-ending bureaucracy. To a legal system that likely wouldn't ever give them justice in quite the way they wanted, needed or deserved. The guilty had too many rights. Sometimes too many of them.

It was all on the long list of reasons she'd considered other offers she'd had – to go to a rape crisis center, to get into advocacy, to go grass roots or go political. But that all came with its own bureaucracy, its own red tape and its own ineffectiveness and never-ending merry-go-round of heartbreaking stories and shattered people. She wasn't sure she'd do anymore good there than what she was doing with the NYPD. At least with SVU she knew she was getting some of the predators off the streets. But for every one she managed to cuff there were 10 more waiting in the shadows and 10 more who'd never be reported and 10 more who'd never get caught and 10 more who'd never get charged and 10 more who'd never see trial and 10 more who'd never get a guilty verdict. More and more and more.

There were days that humanity just felt like a deep cesspool of waste. The unimaginable things humans were able to do to each other and somehow justify it. Eighteen years surrounded by – nearly fifteen of them with SVU. Really 44 years surrounded by it considering what she'd seen growing up with her mother – and what that had done to her own self-value and psyche.

She was never going to understand it. She didn't want to ever understand it. If she understood it – that would be when it was going to be time to give up. Now, though, she had two people at home who likely understood some aspect of it more than they should ever have to. More than she'd ever want a child of hers to have to know. And, somehow, that felt like her fault.

"Some of them, I guess," Nick allowed half-heartedly.

"Did you ever recover from your dad hitting you?" she asked, looking out the window.

"Sure," Nick replied rather unconvincingly – and as far as Olivia knew, he'd only been hit … or seen his mother hit. Not that that was good. She knew what even verbal and emotional abuse did to the human psyche and self-worth. But at least neither of them had been left to sleep in the barn or locked in closets – and God knows what else at that point.

"Seemed pretty angry when you talked about it," she said.

"How am I supposed to feel about it?" Nick asked with an edge of anger to his voice then too.

But Olivia just shrugged and looked at him and gave him a small smile. She wasn't going to think about it anymore for the moment. She had to tell herself not to. And she didn't want to put Nick in as awful of mood as she felt clinging to her. Not when neither of them had their little people there to cheer them up.

"What's Zara want for her birthday?" she asked, trying to change the topic.

Nick shook his head. "You don't have to get her anything. Just show up with Ben and have a good time."

She snorted. "We aren't going to show up to your daughter's birthday party empty-handed."

Nick sighed. "Honestly … you don't have to bring anything. She's getting so spoiled right now with me and Maria battling for her affections. I don't even want to think about what Maria is going to get her. Zara wants an iPad Mini. I'm sure Maria is going to win this gift-giving round with that one."

Olivia looked at him. "Maybe now, Nick. But when she's older she'll remember that it was her dad who throw her great birthday parties and played with her every other day of the year. She's not going to remember who bought her some piece of obsolete technology."

Nick allowed her a thin smile at that. She wasn't sure what was going on between him and Maria lately but she could definitely see a new level of sadness and frustration in him. She hadn't pushed him on the subject, though. She figured when he was ready to spill – he'd spill.

"Really, though, there's going to be like thirty kids there. If everyone brings a gift – she's going to have more than she could ever want or need."

"You think I'm going to let Benji miss out on parading in there with a package for his favorite princess?"

Nick suppressed a small laugh at that. "OK … well … don't spend too much. I'm not even sure I'm going to get into opening the stuff at the party when there's so many people around. And Zara hasn't been very good on her manners lately."

"What five-year-old is?"

"Six – as of Saturday," Nick corrected.

"Oh … well then …" Olivia said with a smile. "You're in trouble…"

Nick shrugged. "Got to teach them young…"

"Not too young," she added. "They grow up too quickly as it is …" Too, too quickly. Some far faster than others, she thought.

"Tell me about it," Nick said with a touch of wistfulness to his voice. "I can't believe she's going to be six on Saturday. Six more years, she's twelve. Six more after that, she's eighteen and likely leaving home. And it's all just gone. Can't believe it's been six years already. Seems like she was just a baby the other day."

Olivia wished in so many ways she had those memories of Benji. She thought it would make it easier for him – she knew it would've. If she'd just always had been a part of his life. If she'd been able to hold him and care for him and love him and protect him from day one. Instead she'd missed four years - and on his sixth birthday she would've barely had him two. She'd be wondering where two years went and likely still wishing she hadn't missed those first four. She was sure she always would. That absence of a nurturing adult for him had been a failure for him in so many ways – that she feared might have implications his entire life.

"Is Maria going to be there on Saturday?" she asked.

Nick shrugged. "Yeah. I couldn't bring myself to tell her not to come. But the good thing about a princess and knights party … I'll have lots of dragon slayers there, if things get out of hand …"


	164. Chapter 164

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia poked her head out of the door of the boys' bedroom and found Jack standing with the linen closet door open – the light from the bathroom dimmed to about the lowest possible level. He was clearly trying to be quiet and discrete but she'd still heard him creeping around and then the closet door open and him ruffling through the shelves. It'd been loud enough to rouse her.

"What are you doing?" she asked, flipping on the light switch in the little hallway.

Jack peaked around the door and gaped at her in some shocked embarrassment. He clearly hadn't wanted her to hear him.

"Nothing," he stuttered.

"What are you looking for in the linen closet at 3 a.m., Jack?" she asked again.

He shook his head at her and shrugged, closing the door and crossing his arms. "Ah. Nothing," he said again.

She gave him a funny look and rubbed her eyebrow – trying to process it. But her just awoken mind wasn't coming up with any possibilities. She was actually surprised she'd managed to fall asleep. She hadn't been doing much of that the past few nights. She'd been so hung up on worrying about the boys, she'd had a lot of restless hours. It actually probably wasn't that surprising that Jack's movements had woken her. She tended to stir when either of the boys were up anyways. But she really doubted that she was in a very deep sleep at all, even though her eyes had clearly managed to drift shut.

"Are you OK?" she asked still trying to process why he was over on that side of the apartment and why he'd need towels that early in the morning. She stifled a yawn. She thought if she lay back down really soon she might be able to drift off again.

"Yeah. Sure. Night," he nodded and moved to head back to her bedroom and the space she'd assigned to him for his recovery.

She looked at him for a moment but then followed him. "Jack …" she said. She could tell something was off. Or at least off more than usual with him.

"I'm fine," he spat over his shoulder. "You don't need to like … tuck me in." He stood in front of the bedroom's doorway, clearly blocking her access to enter even if she wanted to.

She eyed him for a moment but then found herself looking past him to a pile of sheets on the floor. It looked like a pair of his sleep pants and some washcloths were tossed on the top of the pile. It only caused her to eye him again, almost hoping he hadn't noticed her eyes drift from him.

"Are your incisions OK?" she asked carefully. She couldn't see anything that looked like blood from where she was gazing into the dim-lit room. She really doubted that the way he was acting it was related to his recovery at all. If his incisions had torn open – he would've been in a panic and had her awake on his own – he wouldn't be lurking in the dark at the linen closet and making a beeline away from her when she got up to help. But still making sure that particular area was the status quo was her first line of concern.

He huffed at her. "Yes. I'm fine."

She allowed a small nod and rubbed at her eyebrow again. "The sheets for this bed are in the closet in this room," she said and watched as he's head spun around realizing that the spoiled linen was within her view from the door. His head fell and his eyes examined the ground but she could feel and see embarrassment flushing his cheeks even in the dim light. "In the small closet – not the walk in. You want me to show you?" she offered.

He let out a sound but just shook his head.

So she allowed herself to nod and take a step back. "OK – I'll see you in the morning," she said and started to move away.

"I didn't wet the bed," she heard him say quietly behind her. She glanced back over her shoulder and saw him still standing there looking completely embarrassed and ashamed. She was actually feeling a little badly that she'd gotten up and then had followed him to the bedroom. The last thing either of them needed was to add some extra layer of awkwardness to the relationship – that she really felt wasn't warranted in this case but could understand that Jack likely did.

She nodded. "I know, Jack …" she said. She definitely didn't think he wet the bed. There was an odor in the air that was definitely radiating from the pile of laundry – but it wasn't urine.

Jack, though, just sighed again and continued examining the floor. "I didn't …" he again allowed at a near whisper "… in your bed."

She snorted and rubbed her eyebrow at that. She knew he didn't mean for it to be amusing and her letting out the restrained amused sound likely wasn't the best reaction. But his awkwardness about it and his attempts to even clarify and justify what had happened was just awkwardly humorous too.

It had already more than occurred to her in the past that Jack was spending enough time at the apartment that things she wasn't going to spend any time reflecting on had likely occurred in the bedrooms, beds and the bathroom. He was a teenaged boy. End of story. Jack, though, clearly thought she was oblivious to that reality.

"Jack, I know what happened," she put bluntly. "It's fine. I don't feel the need to talk about it. I don't think it's something you want to talk about either."

He gave her a small glance.

"Bedding – top shelf, left side," she said. "Morning … you know where the laundry card and detergent are. Ever happens again and you aren't going to be around in the morning – put the laundry in one of the bathroom hampers so I see a load needs to go through. That's all we need to say about any of it."

"It won't happen again …" he whispered.

She shrugged. "OK …" she allowed. "That's not my understanding of how it works. But you know better than me."

He made another sound. "I think I'm going to just … pack and go home …"

Olivia did let out a small laugh at that and looked at the ceiling a little frustrated.

"Now you're being ridiculous," she said, as she brought her eyes back down and examined him where he was still looking at the floor and refusing to look at her. "We're taking you back to the dorms on Sunday. You aren't going back now … at 3 a.m. in the morning. This is home. We're a family. We live in close proximity to each other. Things happen. That's it, Jack. You're making a big deal out of this. Not me. And it's a big deal out of … nothing."

He glanced at her. "I just … don't want you thinking … I'm a perv …"

She rolled her eyes. "Jack … I think you think I'm way more sheltered and oblivious than I am. Remember what I do for a living, OK …"

"Yeah, exactly," he mumbled. "You deal with perverts all day."

She watched him at that. "I deal with rapists and child abusers most days, Jack," she clarified. "A wet dream does not make you a pervert – and it definitely isn't a sex crime."

Jack was so screwed up about his sexuality. She knew he was shy and bashful before but watching his interactions with the doctors and nurses and even with her since his surgery, it was clear it ran deeper than that. She didn't think Jack had been sexually abused. Some of the telltale signs of that weren't present in him. She trusted (she really hoped) that after all the years on the job – she would've picked up on that. But the past few days she'd been questioning everything about her abilities and her gut instincts – at least when it came to her own children. Maybe she was letting herself be too blind. Still, she refused to believe she'd be that blinded to something as serious as that. She thought it likely had more to do with being exposed to his sister's apparent hyper-sexuality and the lack of presence of his father while he was progressing through his teens and while he should've been being a normal teenaged country boy – chasing after girls, necking at bonfires and hooking up in the back of pickups. Or whatever teen did when they lived on a farm outside of a village with a whooping population of 6,000.

Still, she liked to think that Jay did the puberty and birds-and-bees talk with Jack before he'd died. Even if he hadn't, Jack had clearly managed to get through puberty – and work through the majority of his adolescence. She wouldn't say he survived adolescence unscathed. But the scathing didn't have anything to do with body changes or raging hormones in his case. Either way, she really didn't think she needed to be having a conversation with him about his body and what was 'normal'. Not at nineteen. She wasn't exactly sure she really wanted to. He was awkward and embarrassed and though she didn't exactly feel embarrassed or awkward about it – she didn't want to do anything to make their growing relationship more complicated. They were finally making some progress. She didn't' want to upset that by stepping into any sort of gray areas or crossing any sort of boundaries – that constantly seemed to be moving with Jack.

In some of her interactions with Jack over the past months, it had occurred to her that if she'd gotten to keep Calvin in her care, she would've been dealing with puberty and a teenager by now. She hadn't put a lot of thought into that in the bit of time the boy had been living with her. She wasn't sure how she would've dealt with it now. What boys want to have any of those sorts of conversations with a grown woman? Especially one who's supposed to be taking some sort of mothering role with them?

She'd thought she'd likely avoided most of that with Jack. But lately she wondered. Not so much sitting him down and telling him flatly, 'your body is changing' – but having some sort of conversation with him about her job and what it meant, what she actually saw and did. Talking to him about some laws and his rights and responsibilities to make sure he was operating within them. Talking to him about some behaviors among college-aged kids and things he should be aware of – actions he should avoid, situations he should keep away from. Making sure he had some concept of what good, healthy, normal sexual behavior and experimentation was – because she suspected being surrounded by his sister's indiscretions and going through his teens without his father – he didn't really. Not to mention, she had enough interaction with teenagers and college kids she was often generally horrified by what they thought was acceptable behavior and the sort of situations they got themselves into or the things they did to each other. Over the almost 15 years she'd been with SVU it had definitely gotten worse - and the internet, social media, handheld technology, smartphones and all the changing morals that went with it when placed into the hands of young people who didn't have all their synapses firing quite right yet definitely hadn't helped matters at all.

Opening any of those doors of conversation with Jack, though, was about as complicated as the 10 others ahead of it. All of them seemed to be equally as pressing and she was trying to just open them up in sequence – as needed. She wasn't sure this was one that needed to be opened now. Not at 3 a.m. with semen soaked sheets sitting on the ground no more than ten feet away from her and an embarrassed teenager trying to disappear into the woodwork of the bedroom door.

She rubbed at her eyebrow again and looked at him. "You know what Benji did the other day?" she asked.

He glanced at her and shrugged. So she just put her shoulder against the wall and looked at the teen.

"I had him in the tub. I'm sitting on the toilet seat dealing with some messages on my phone while he's playing after his bath. The splashing and babbling stop – so I look at him. He's giving himself a pretty thorough examination," she told Jack and he let out a small snort. "So, I say, 'Benj, what are you doing?'"

What had actually gone through her head was 'what am I supposed to say?', 'what am I supposed to do?', 'how do I react to this situation?' She had a brief moment where she'd wondered if it was normal behavior – even though she knew it absolutely was. She really hated to admit that her initial reaction on seeing it had been wanting to try to bat his hands away or to tell him to stop or to not do that. But she was glad she'd stopped herself before any of that had come out of her mouth.

In thinking about being a mother she definitely hadn't put much thought into how to deal with a boy's fascination with penis ownership. That hadn't even appeared anywhere on her pros-and-cons list of motherhood. But there were all sort of little things that came up in daily life with Benji – and even Jack, like what was happening at the given moment – that probably should've occurred to her but was just such a mundane reality that it hadn't registered in her thought processes at all.

There were moments where she again questioned what the hell she was getting herself into and if she was even equipped to deal with it – having not grown up with a father or brothers, having not had much of anything that resembled a long-term relationship with a man, having mostly dealt with perverts, assholes and abusers when it came to males she was exposed to at work, and beyond Type A machos when it just came to colleagues. What the hell did she know about boys? Or raising a boy? Really .. what was involved in raising a man? But she managed to put that aside.

She told herself with Benji she was going to get to shape and raise a young man that hopefully she'd be proud to see a girl dating and eventually marrying. A good man. The kind of man she would've hoped to have found for herself. She told herself that even with Jack she could help direct him a bit still. She may not know everything about boys or men. But she thought she had a pretty good idea of what made a good one – and she could help them see and understand that and provide them with the support and love to help get them there too. That was the important part. She just wanted healthy, happy, stable boys – and she thought she could manage that. She knew she could … most days.

"So Benji looks at me and informs me completely matter-of-factly, 'Playing with my balls'," she said and did earn another glance from Jack and could see a smile pulling at the corners of his mouth no matter how much he was trying to stay in his embarrassed funk. "So I suggested to him that maybe that's likely something he should do alone in private time and he goes to me, 'OK – leave.'"

Jack laughed at that and shook his head. "He's such a retard."

She shrugged. "No. He's just a boy."

"He shouldn't have needed very long," Jack comment somewhat sarcastically.

Olivia just shrugged again. "No. He didn't. You know how Benji is with being alone. I'd barely stepped outside the door when he informed me he was done playing with his balls."

Jack snorted again and she could feel him rolling his eyes even though he was still gazing at the floor of the doorway.

"I didn't think he was a pervert either, Jack," she said flatly.

"Yeah … but he's four …"

She shrugged. "And you're 19 – stuck here with not a ton of privacy and recovering from major surgery," she put bluntly.

She actually really should've clued into this becoming a possibility. The doctor had directly stated the previous Friday, "No vigorous activity for six weeks – that includes sex." Jack had gone bright red and had taken an even bigger interest in the exam room's floor than he was of the hardwood in the doorway at the moment. He was probably wishing that he hadn't told her he wanted her in there at that moment. He likely regretted telling her he wanted her in the consultation even more when the surgeon had followed it up with, "Should avoid masturbating for about two weeks too – until the incisions have healed more."

Olivia hadn't really reflected on the comments at all – anymore than to hope that Jack would have the commonsense to stop something that was uncomfortable and would definitely stop something before he tore open stitches. That would be a ridiculous hospital trip if he didn't heed that advice. She hadn't bothered to reflect on the comment long enough to consider that a change or halt in any of Jack's habits that neither of them wanted to publicly acknowledge could result in other situations that neither of them wanted to publicly acknowledge. She likely should've thought to point out where the bedding was for her bed. But she really hadn't ever had any reason to think about nocturnal emissions as more than a passing acknowledgement that they were something that existed and a reality or annoyance for men at certain times in their lives. At least she hadn't had to think about them anymore than that until that exact moment – and she really would've been fine ending the acknowledgement at pointing out where the sheets were in the bedroom.

"Jack … I know you're a boy. I know you're a young man. I'm not … that stupid. I don't have that many blinders on. Something like this …" she gestured through the door, "… doesn't make me think any differently of you. It doesn't disgust me. I don't think it's abnormal or that you did something wrong. It's not going to make me push you out the door. It'd be me with the problem – not you – if I had those kinds of reactions. The only thing I'm thinking about right now, Jack, is whether I can manage to get in another couple hours sleep before Benji wakes up. That's all you should be worrying about too, OK?"

He gave her a small glance and a little nod.

She allowed him a small smile. "OK … you'll be fine making up the bed on your own?"

He nodded again. "Yeah …"

"OK … " she said. "Night, sweetheart. See you in the morning. Go to bed. Don't stress about some dirty laundry."


	165. Chapter 165

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Ben-jam-in," Nick greeted them with a smile, as they got down the steps and into the reception hall of the church, Olivia yanking off his hat while Benji flailed his arms out of his jacket. "Look at you."

Her partner shot her a smile. She actually hadn't seen Nick look so genuinely happy and surprisingly relaxed in quite a while. But who ever could look that happy or relaxed while they were at work for the job they did? Still, it as nice to see. And it was nice to get the sort of approving but teasing look he was giving her.

She'd bought Benji an outfit for the party. Part of her felt like it was a little silly. But with the event being in a church hall and being a little girl's party in the city, she thought that there was a reasonable possibility that the kids would be in more than jeans and joggers. Especially when the theme was a princesses' tea party. Not that Nick had said anything that indicated to her there was an expectation that either her or Benji be dressed up in any way. Glancing around the room, though, she was glad she had put her little boy in something nicer than jeans and his Cars hoodie. There were hordes of little girls already there and prancing around in party dresses – most of them with fancy little baby doll shoes, plastic jewelry, crowns and wands by the looks of it.

Her eyes drifted around the hall. Nick had decorated the place with various hanging banners that looked like they'd come straight out of a castle. Balloons with various incarnations of Disney princesses were floating in the air at various intervals around the room – weighed down by colorful streamers and ribbons. A few plastic murals that looked like they were supposed to be tapped to a door was tacked up along the one wall – each showing a different princess. Some of the little girls seemed pretty excited to be taking their photo ops with Cinderella, Jasmine, Ariel and Snow White, though. There was a pennant string at the far end wishing Zara a happy birthday, strung above a table of food. She could see the piles of pink and blue plates and cutlery waiting over there – apparently to compliment the piles of pink food. Even from where she was standing she could make out what looked like little bowls of strawberry yogurt with pink wafer cookies in them. There was a giant bowl of pink popcorn, what looked like pink cookies and then some healthier choices of strawberries, watermelon and by the looks of the finger sandwiches that you'd expect to find at a high tea. The tea, though, by the looks of it was also a bright pink juice that she couldn't decide from that distances if it was likely Kool-Aid, fruit punch or a lemonade. The centerpiece of the whole table was a giant cake made to look like a castle. She could tell it was homemade and she wondered if it had been Nick, his mother or one of his sisters who'd gone to all that effort. It looked like it would've taken hours to bake and decorate by the size of it. But based on the number of people already milling around, she supposed a cake that size might be needed.

She couldn't believe how many people were there actually. She supposed she should've expected it. Nick had said that they'd invited about 35 kids and that wasn't including his family and not taking into consideration that many of the kids' parents (and by the looks of it some of their siblings) were staying for the party. She thought she was going to have to watch Benji even more carefully than she'd already intended to. Dealing with strangers and new people was challenging enough for him – add in a crowd and it definitely increased the possibility that something could potentially set him off and send him to meltdown.

For the moment, though, he was still happy and excited to be at the party. Probably about as excited as her. She knew Nick had really just wanted an extra hand for an adult he knew he could ask to do a bit more than mingle. Or at least that's what he'd told her. She didn't believe that was the entire truth. He was trying. They both were. That was the truth. Nick was proving to be one of her biggest supporters in adjusting to having a family. He was providing her with opportunities to experience some of the happier and more normal things that came with being a mom of a little boy. And, he was allowing her to be part of his family and community. It wasn't lost on her that those were things that Elliot had never allowed her. More than 12 years of being his partner and she'd never been invited to any of his kids birthday parties. Not Eli's first birthday. Not any of the girls' Sweet Sixteens. Not even his 40th – years and years ago. Part of her understood. Another part of her didn't – and she wasn't sure she ever would. Especially now – now that she had a child of her own and knew that if she threw a birthday party for Benji, Nick would be invited. Munch and Rollins and the Captain likely would too. Even Fin. They could decide if they didn't want to come. She wouldn't take offence if they weren't interested in a child's party but she'd let them know that they were enough part of her life that they were welcome there. And, not now that she'd seen how different her partnership with Amaro was. They hadn't even been partners two years and in so many ways he'd already let her more into his life than Elliot ever had his.

"It my armor," Benji informed Nick happily.

The little boy was pretty thrilled with the grey knit sweater she'd bought him. It had a little chevron crest on each sleeve. But it had been the red, fire-breathing dragon stitched into the front that had been the big seller for Benji. He'd had it on since she'd pulled it out of the bag the night before to show it to him. She was actually surprised that he hadn't managed to spill something all over it before the party. She fully expected him to at the party – and thought she'd then have her own battle with a dragon to get the sweater off him and cleaned up.

"That is fantastic armor, Ben," Nick said and gave her another smile.

She just shook her head at how teasingly he was looking at her. She didn't think there was anything he should be teasing her about considering the amount of effort he'd clearly put into throwing his daughter a princess party. She'd just made sure her little boy fit the theme appropriately.

"Hey," was all Olivia said, ignoring his look, and handed him her and Benji's coats.

"Hey," he allowed and tossed the jackets into a pretty mountainous pile just sitting on a table behind him inside the door. "Like my coat check?" he gestured.

She snorted. "Yeah. Looks like it's made for royalty." She actually thought it was going to be a disaster when everyone was trying to leave at the end and find their coats. Likely meant that her and Benji would just hang back and help out with some clean up to avoid that mess. "So what's the plan?" she asked, as Benji started hopping around a little restlessly next to her. He was clearly ready to party.

"Ah …", Nick said and glanced around. "Well, Zara's over there …" he said and pointed. She followed his finger. She wasn't sure what the girls were up to but there was a group of them holding hands and skipping in a little girl. Zara was dressed to the nines in her puffy princess gown. She was wearing a pink slash declaring, PRINCESS, across it and a gold little girl necklace, though it'd been complimented with the plastic beads and the giant jeweled rings that most of the other little girls in the room also had on.

"Looks like a princess," Olivia informed him with a smile.

He nodded. "She's that," he agreed. "Umm … gift table is over there," he said with a nod at the package Benji was clutching closely to him.

"WHEN ZARA OPEN PRESENTS?" he demanded.

Nick snort. "Ah … not until later, bud."

"Zara need to play with my toy now," Benji informed him.

Nick nodded. "Sorry, Ben. I think we're going to wait until a bit later to open the gifts. You might have to come over for a playdate another day so you and Zara can play with her birthday toys."

Benji squinted at him – clearly unimpressed. Olivia just shook her head at nice and gave him a small eye roll. She knew that Nick deciding to hold off on present opening at the party would be a tough sell with Benji.

Picking a gift with her Little Fox for Zara had been a bit of an adventure. Olivia actually ended up sort of regretting that she'd taken Benji along on the shopping trip. But she had wanted to include Benji in the process – so he'd feel the satisfaction and the excitement of picking something out for his playmate. She also just really wanted to get him used to the concept of gift-giving and interacting with other children in that capacity. Giving rather than receiving. Thinking of others – and their wants and interests – and not just his own. But teaching that to a four-year-old wasn't exactly easy – especially one used to having nothing and especially when he was supposed to be picking something out that a girl might want and that little girl liked just about everything that Benji thought was 'YUCK!'

She'd initially ignored his suggestions that Zara wanted a Transformer. Zara definitely did NOT want a Transformer, she'd stressed to him – and they were supposed to be thinking about things Zara wanted, not things Benji wanted to play with. Or things he wanted to try to force Zara to play with. Zara was a stubborn little girl. She wasn't going to start playing Transformers with Benji even if she suddenly had her own personal Transformer.

So Olivia had dragged him over to the section of girl toys to look. She had hoped that he'd see something similar to toys Zara already had – maybe something that he had enjoyed playing with at their house – and decide she needed that. A My Little Pony, a Teacup Piggie, a Littlest Pet Shop animal, a Barbie, a tea set, a princess. Something a six-year-old girl would like – not a four-year-old obsessed with Transformers and fire trucks.

But instead Benji had become transfixed by some dolls that pretty much looked like they were from the Night of the Living Dead as far as Olivia was concerned. She had no idea how that kind of product had become popular among little girls but based on the shelves upon shelves of them apparently they were best sellers. But she sure as hell wasn't buying one for Zara. She didn't think Nick would approve – let alone what Maria would think when that got opened.

"This?" Benji has asked picking up one of the boxes and holding it up at her.

It was labeled as the Headless Mistress of Monster High. The doll came with a horse but was literally missing a head. What six-year-old girl would want that, she wondered and just set it back on the shelf. It was at that point she resigned to going over to the boys' toys section – because she didn't think they were ever going to reach any sort of agreement on what would be a good gift out of a girls' section based on that selection.

They'd barely been in the boys' section 30 seconds before Benji had managed to find the Cars diecasts and had rifled through some of the little display packages on the lower shelves until he found a blue car and held it up at her.

"IT SALLY!" he declared happily. "IT PER-FICK! THEN ZARA WILL PLAY CARS BECUZ SALLY A GIRL TOO!"

Olivia had taken the box and examined the little car, letting out a small sigh. It wasn't exactly what she'd envisioned taking to Zara's princess birthday party. But she also didn't want to push it with Benji. At least he was almost thinking about Zara and things she MIGHT like in picking it out. At least the little girl had expressed some sort of interest in the toy at some point – though that was likely long forgotten and the addition of the diecast to her toy collection would likely go unnoticed when it was heaped against all the other more feminine toys she was bound to get at the party.

Her and Benji, though, had managed to reach a compromise – and had gone back to the girls' section and picked out a little dress-up accessory set that included a blue Cinderella purse and some various bracelets, bows, necklaces, rings and gloves. While they were working on wrapping the gifts, Benji had ripped Sally out of the box and declared it should go in the purse with everything else.

"Becuz then it a sup-pize MOMMY! And way better 'hen dis," he informed her and held up the plastic ring with an extremely unimpressed look on his face. Based on the number of dollar store rings she saw on the little girls fingers at the party, though, she thought Benji might be sadly mistaken in that analysis. Still, she'd thought his insistence that the car should be a purse accessory was cute and let him put it in. The diecasts had definitely become an accessory in her purse anymore. She didn't even want to know how many of them were in there if she actually started to big around in the depths of the now massive bag she lugged around with her everywhere.

But she knew that Benji would be itching at Zara opening the present and finding the car – and then playing with him. So she'd have to work on mitigating that and distracting him.

"What can I help out with now?" Olivia asked, gripping Benji's shoulders a little bit before he could make a dash for Zara and demand she open his gift right that second. Olivia wasn't really sure Zara would be giving Benji much of a second look at the party. Not when she was the center of attention of so many people and when there were so many other little girls there for here to play with. Olivia had gone into that expecting it too. Nick had assured her, though, that there'd be lots of other activities there that Benji would likely enjoy – and other little boys who'd likely be happy to play with him. Nick didn't really get that Benji and playing with other kids didn't usually seem to click that well. But at least she was there to try to wrangle and co-ordinate some playmates for him for the next two hours of the party.

Nick gestured at one of four long tables set up in the center of the room. It had a blue tablecloth covering it while the middle table had green and the two closest to the food had pink.

"That's the knight table," he said. "Got some crowns and shields there for the kids to decorate. Want to make sure the ones there are doing OK? Will likely start some games in maybe half-an-hour after more people have arrived and the kids have had a chance to do the craft. Play some games, hit the piñata, feed them, let them dance with glow wands, goodie bags, send them home."

Olivia snorted. "Good itinerary …"

Nick gave a little shrug. "Gotta aim high to please a six-year-old girl."

She gave him a small pat on the shoulder and started to nudge Benji in the appropriate direction. "OK … just let me know if you need a hand with anything else …"

He nodded. "Have fun. You too, Ben. Thank you for coming."

"HAPPY BITH-DAY!" Benji cired at him.

Nick smile and Olivia just nudged him again. "You tell Zara that, not Nick. Thank Nick for inviting us …"

Benji glanced over his shoulder. "Tank you, Nick …"

"No problem, Ben … go get your crown and shield ready. You're going to need it to ward off all the princesses with armor like that."

"NICK! Knights fight dragons not princesses. Then dragons eat princess."

Olivia snorted and shook her head. "Sorry …" she mouthed.

"Good thing we didn't invite any dragons …"

Olivia rolled her eyes. "Yeah … good thing …"

"Mommy say Flame could not come," Benji added to that.

'Because he is a dragon," Olivia clarified for Nick, in case he wasn't keeping track of Benji's toys.

"Yep. No dragons allowed," he agreed.

Olivia patted Benji's butt and took the tightly gripped gift out of his hands. "Go pick a seat at the blue table, sweetheart, and check out the crafts. I'll be right there."

The mention of crafts sent Benji trotting over. There were four other little boys at the table already and it looked like one other mom was already there helping them with the simply activities – sticking foamies, stickers and little gems on foam shaped crowns and shields. It looked like the green table had crowns and wings available for decoration while the pink tables had crowns and wands sitting out. The fairy table actually looked rather popular and some of the little girls were flipping between them both – making their wings before claiming a pink crown to decorate. But Olivia would likely be fine with a blue crown and a shield. It actually probably didn't matter what he was decorating since it appeared to involve stickers. That would be enough to keep his attention for a while. It didn't matter what he was sticking them to.

Olivia took the gift over and set it on the gift table. She was actually a little shocked about the pile of gifts after she got over to it. It was heaping almost as high as the table Nick was tossing people's coats onto. It was ridiculous. She was starting to understand what he meant by spoiled and his suggestion that she not bother bringing a gift. Zara certainly wouldn't have noticed. There were so many presents she likely wasn't going to have a concept of who had given her what or much of an appreciation of it. Not to mention unless it was something extra special or that she really wanted – she probably wouldn't even remember it or have much use for it. She didn't know where Nick was even going to keep all those gifts. His place wasn't that big. Though, she supposed he could send some of the toys back to DC with Maria for Zara's toy collection there on her visits.

She thought his insistence that they wouldn't be opening presents at the party was suddenly making a lot of sense. Just opening up the gifts probably would've taken up the majority of the two-hour event – not to mention creating a bedlam of its own. It almost made her want to implement a 'no gift' policy if she ended up holding a party for Benji in the fall. Though, she'd never invite as many people to her little boy's party as Nick had in that room at the moment – and apparently he was still expecting people to trickle in over the next 30 minutes or so. She knew Nick had been trying to take a modest route in terms of party organization. It made her wonder what excessive looked like in the city anymore.

Benji held up a foamie dragon at her as she returned to the Knight's Table and pulled out a seat to sit next to him, glancing at the other mother there and giving her a small smile. Everything seemed under control with the boys there at the moment.

"LOOK MOMMY!" Benji near screamed at her. "Nick did evite dragons!"

She snorted and took it from him to examine the little orange figure. "You know, Benj, I actually think you're supposed to put this on the shield so the dragons know you're coming to fight them." She pulled one of the grey shield shaped foamies over in front of him. "Here … why don't you stick it on there?"

She watched as he excitedly worked at peeling the white backing off the foam sticker and picked a place to smack it down on his shield before reaching for more of the decorations. He didn't need a lot of instruction. It was a fairly simple craft and Benji had become a bit of an expert at navigating craft centers after all their Sundays at the library's circle time and his activities in the pre-k program at daycare.

"I didn't know you were coming," Olivia heard some from just behind her and glanced behind her shoulder to find Maria standing there – her arms crossed and glaring down at her.

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow. "Hi," she allowed. "Nick invited us. Zara looks really beautiful today."

Olivia wasn't sure how she felt about Nick not mentioning that they'd been invited. But she also really doubted Nick had let his wife go over the guest list or consulted her on it in anyway. He was organizing the party – and apparently trying to prove Maria wrong in her expectations that he didn't know how to organize a fun gathering for his little girl. Those kind of comments just mad Nick angry. If anything, Maria would've prompted Nick to do even more than he had already intended to.

But Olivia also really didn't want to have any sort of confrontation with Nick's ex – or soon to be ex. She'd seen Maria's temper up close in the squad before. The party didn't need to see that sort of tantrum from Zara's mother. And, Zara didn't need her mother saying or doing anything to distract from her special day. Not to mention, Olivia wanted the day to be as easy as possible for Nick. Organizing a party was stressful enough. Having Maria there just added to it. And, really, he deserved to get some enjoyment out of watching his little girl turn six and play with her friends. He didn't need to be playing ringmaster the whole afternoon.

"I didn't know he would've had a reason to invite you," Maria commented.

Olivia just looked at her. She didn't even want to think about what the woman meant by that or might be implying. But she thought it was entirely inappropriate. "Well, we've been partners for a while now …" was all she allowed.

"I meant I didn't know you had a family," Maria said and looked at Benji, who thankfully was too absorbed in adding multiple dragon stickers to his shield to even care she was standing there. "Nick never mentioned."

Olivia just shrugged. "I'm sure there's a lot of things about work that Nick doesn't mention …"

Maria snorted at that and gave her an even dirtier look, crossing her arms tighter. "No kidding."

Olivia had to really resist the urge to roll her eyes and force herself to bite her tongue. As far as she was concerned, Nick should've told Maria to stay the hell away that day. And, if Maria was going to be there, Olivia hoped she knew enough to just … let everyone have a nice day. But this interaction was making her think that the woman wasn't willing to do that. Olivia didn't really want to be involved in it at all, though. She was there for Nick. She was there for Zara. And, mostly she was there for her Little Fox – and to give him normal little boy and childhood experiences. She wasn't there for Maria and she really could care less about what Maria thought of them being there. So she just turned her attention back to her little boy – ignoring her presence.

"I hope you manage to do the job better with a family than he seemed to," Maria added with a clear tone of disapproval.

Olivia looked over her shoulder and met the eyes of the wife that Nick was separated from – from the woman who had hurt him, from the mother of the child he'd been left to raise mostly on his own, from the wife who had taken a job away from the city to allegedly get away from him and the damage the job was doing to their family, from the individual he suspected was cheating on him. Nick was a nice guy. He had his problems – and Olivia knew that he hadn't always been there either. His work undercover had meant that his mother had done a lot of the raising of Zara. But Nick was there now – and he was trying. That was more than Olivia could say for Maria at the moment.

"Seems to me Nick's here and doing an OK job," she allowed. "He's a good cop – and he's a good dad."

There was a crashing sound followed by cries and Olivia looked back over to the front of the room where Zara and a group of little girls had been playing moments ago. Zara was flat on the floor gripping her knee and crying – clearly having taken some sort of tumble in the game they were playing.

Olivia glanced at Maria again. "Maybe you spend less time worrying about me and my boys – and focus a little more on your family. Because my family … we're doing just fine."

Maria gave her another dirty look but then hurried over to where her daughter was. She didn't get there soon enough, though. Nick was already at Zara's side, scooping her into a hug and swiping her tears away, while working at dusting her off, straightening her dress and getting her back up to play with her friends again. He was being a dad … and likely the Mr. Mom she needed too in that moment.

Olivia looked at Benji and spiked at his hair they'd done up for the party. He gazed at her with his big soulful eyes. He was alright. They were alright.

"Mommy when we fight dragons?"

She snorted. Seemed to her they just did.

"Every day, Benj. But first lets finish that shield."


	166. Chapter 166

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia looked up from her phone as she walked into the squad. It was barely 8 a.m. and Jack was already texting her about how destroyed he felt after his first day back at school and how he didn't think he could pull his ass out of bed for the next day. Apparently he had enough energy to pick up his phone and complain at her, though. She fully intended to ignore it. She was his cheerleader and his ass kicker. But sometimes he needed to kick his own ass – and he knew it. Not going to class wasn't an option. He'd just spent the past two weeks stressing to her about how far behind he was getting and what it was going to mean for his grades and scholarship. She didn't need to give him a pep talk. He knew he needed to get the hell up and she wasn't going to send him back a message telling him as much.

As she glanced up though she caught site of Cassidy storming out of the interview room – Nick and Munch trailing behind him. He was clearly upset. The way he was pulling on his leather jacket and the look on his face and how he snapped at Fin and Rollins when they did little more than try to say hello. He just breezed right by them – not even pretending to stop and be interested in two seconds of small talk.

He saw her and she met his eyes. She could see the anger dancing in them. His jaw was tight with tension. It almost felt like whatever he was pissed off at suddenly just got transferred to her.

"Cassidy," she tried to greet and defuse whatever his glare was about and the watchful eye that Nick was casting towards their direction. Munch, meanwhile, had a composure that clearly told her something serious was going on and he was disappointed by it. Either that or he was just wishing the Captain wasn't away on holidays and he was stuck working days and dealing with whatever this was.

"Hey Liv … long time no see," Brian said to her, actually softer than she expected. But then he moved to push by her and continue his rapid retreat out of the squad.

"Hey," she said and reached out and grabbed his elbow before he could escape too far. He gave her a questioning look. But she could tell he just wanted to be left alone and to get the hell out of there. "Ah, I've been wanting to talk to you …"

He removed his elbow from her light grip and shrugged, clearly slightly unimpressed. "You've got my number," he said and started to move again.

She sighed and back step caught his eyes. "What's going on?" she asked.

He shook his head at her. His annoyance radiating. "Nothing. What do you want?"

It was her turn to give him an unimpressed look – pulling her lips back slightly. But she managed to just shake her head, reaching and rubbing the back of her one knuckle against her eyebrow with the same hand that was holding the coffee she'd just gotten from the coffee truck outside.

"I wanted to know if there was some way I could get your mother to make two more of those fox hats," she said at him a little flatly, since he clearly wasn't interested in speaking to her for once. It was a bit of a change of roles, since so far it had been him who was pushing for the uncomfortable chit-chat in the squad that she'd rather shy away from and keep out of sight. "Benji really wants me and Jack to have them too."

He shrugged. "I'll ask. See what she can do," he said, already moving again.

She watched him. "OK … good to see you …" she mumbled at the back of his head and then looked across the squad at the rest of the unit, who was staring at her. "What?"

Munch just shock his head and looked at the file he had in his hand while Fin made an "Mmm" sound and sat down at his desk. Olivia watched as Nick stormed in his own brooding way over to the coffee station and followed after him.

"Nick … what's going on?" she asked him quietly.

"You should ask him," he said flatly, not even looking at her as he prepared his coffee.

She gave him a look. "O-K," she said somewhat annoyed and started to move away.

Nick was in a mood that week. The weekend hadn't quite gone the way he wanted. Maria had been nitpicky at the party – and she got the sense that had continued into Sunday until she'd headed back to DC. Whatever time they had tried to spend as a family and whatever Nick might've wanted to try to talk to her about or work through clearly hadn't gone well. Olivia had seen how the woman was picking at Nick at the party and fussing at Zara in such an overbearing way that it was even making the little girl temperamental and teary. It had taken a lot to bite her tongue and to just stay out of it. She'd really just wanted to tell the other woman to leave her husband and daughter be and to just try to let EVERYONE enjoy the party. It'd been hard. And, she knew it must've been even harder – and that much more miserable for Nick. But she really didn't think he needed to be taking that out on her for the next God knew how long until he calmed down about it.

"Why are you two always fucking whispering when he's in here?" he demanded on her.

She spun around at that. Now really annoyed. "Give me a break, Nick," she spat at him. "I talk to Cassidy when he's in here because I worked with him before. He's a friend. He's another cop. He got fucking shot in the line of duty and he's trying to put his life and career back together. Whispering? I move out of your fucking earshot when I'm speaking with him – because I KNOW how you feel about him. And, what I am talking to him about – is NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS."

She stormed away, though, she could hear Nick behind her, clattering his mug and spoon around. Clearly tossing them in his own annoyance. Let him be annoyed. She might've pissed him off. But he was pissing her off. For as much of a good guy he could be – he could be just as annoying and obnoxious as the rest of them. And, he could be a moody, brooding little fuck at times – justly.

She stuck her head into the Captain's office that Munch had taken up residence in. He looked up at her.

"What the hell is going on with Cassidy?" she demanded.

"Can't talk about it," Munch said.

"Can't talk about it?" she spat at him. "Is this about you advocating for him to come back to SVU?"

Munch shook his head. "Can't talk about it."

"John," she huffed growing more annoyed. Brian was clearly upset. Nick was acting cagey and now John was acting like one of the MIBs he hated so much. Something serious was clearly happening and she despised that she wasn't privy to it.

"I-A-B," he mouthed near silently.

She looked more seriously at him. "IAB? What's IAB want with Cassidy?"

Munch shrugged. "Can't talk about it."

She shook her head. "Fuck you, John," she mumbled completely exasperated with him. Sometimes she hated when Cragen was away and John was left in charge. As much as she loved the man – he could rub her the wrong way. More reason to get promoted – it'd be her who was giving the orders and John could see how he felt about that. For the moment, though, she again moved through the squad, glad she hadn't taken her coat off.

Cassidy was halfway down the block by the time she got out of the precinct. "Brian," she called after him and made the jog down the block. "Cass …" she called again as she got closer and he glanced over his shoulder and sighed. "What the hell is going on?" she asked again.

He stopped and looked at her. The anger she'd seen in him in the squad are starting to look more like annoyance and defeat. Either way, she could tell he still didn't want to talk about it – definitely not with her.

"What? Now we can talk publicly?" he said. "Not afraid someone will see us and think we might be friends or something …"

She sighed. "Brian, stop it," she said and held up her hand. She didn't have the patience to play games with him. She was genuinely concerned about what was going on – and she knew how Cassidy was. He didn't ask for help. He didn't know when to back down. And, he was horrible at defending himself. If something was going on now – he'd let himself fall in a ball of flames rather than admit he needed some aid. "What's going on? Munch said the IAB are involved?"

"Fucking Munch …" he mumbled.

"I already told him that on your behalf," she allowed. "What's going on?"

He shrugged. "Just a lynch mob. Organized by Ganzel. He handed Amaro the rope."

She sighed and shoved her hands into her pockets. She hated how much Cassidy and Nick hated each other. Though, she sort of understood the reasons from both ends. But she wished they both could just fucking get over it and move on. It was almost as bad as the tension between Elliot and Fin and that had dragged on for years before they finally came to some type of resolution. She supposed at least with Nick and Brian she didn't have to listen to it on a daily basis. At least not yet. If Cassidy did end up back in SVU – that'd be another story.

"How about we be a little more specific than that?" she suggested. Sometimes she felt like she was dealing with Jack when she talked to Cassidy. He needed almost as much management as the teen he had at home. She was more forgiving and tolerant of it with the teen. He wasn't in his 40s.

He looked at her. "I'm being framed for rape," he said flatly but with a seriousness and regret that she rarely heard in Cassidy. Even 14 years ago when they were in SVU together – it was a tone she rarely remembered hearing out of him.

She gaped at him as she processed that. "Rape?" she heard herself say. She didn't even know why she needed to repeat it.

"Yeah," Brian mumbled and looked at the ground – clearly not wanting to see the look of shock and disgust that was painting across her face.

She shook her head. "When? … WHO?"

His head snapped back up and he glared at her – the anger dancing in his eyes again. "I gotta say Liv, I think you're asking the wrong questions here."

She watched him. He was upset with her. He clearly hated that she felt she even needed to ask. He hated that she'd mentally taken him off an IAB victim listed and just almost automatically catalogued him into a suspect who needed to be investigated and interrogated.

"OK …," she sighed and looked down for a moment before meeting his eyes again. "So how about you tell me what questions I should ask?"

He looked at her then and his eyes softened a bit but then he just shook his head and examined the ground for several long seconds of silence. She let him. Joining him in the examination of the packed down and slush that really hadn't been cleared from the sidewalk in front of the building nearly as well as it should've been.

"You got Ben into the daycare?" Brian finally asked quietly.

She looked up at him and allowed a small nod. "Yeah. I did. Thank you for telling me about the space."

He gave a small shrug. "How's Jack?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow and eyed him. "He's OK."

"Heard his appendix burst …" Brian added mutely.

She watched him again but allowed another nod. She knew that Brian had been in going over testimony with Barba for Ganzel's case. He might've heard it from him. Though, she doubted it. She didn't think the ADA was capable of thinking of much more than whatever case he was working on at a time and how to keep his conviction rate up. Brian had more likely run into Alex while he was at the courthouse or passing through the ADAs' offices. She hadn't mentioned it – but they also hadn't talked for several days.

"It did," she said. "He's doing OK now. He started back at school yesterday." But then she sighed. "Brian … why are we talking about the kids?"

He just shrugged.

"Cass … this is serious. You can't just … wait for it to blow over. You've got to get in front of it. Have you talked to your union rep yet?"

"Those fucking ass wipes. They've done me a whole lot of good – letting me rot in a corner on disability until Ganzel can come up with this bullshit to just blow up my career even more," he snapped at her.

She sighed. "What does Barba say?"

"The prom queen?" he spat. "That if I was framed, 'IAB will figure it out.' That guy …" he let himself trail off. He clearly wasn't a fan of the new ADA but Olivia couldn't exactly see Brian and Barba's personalities coming anywhere near meshing.

"He's a good ADA, Brian," she said quietly. She didn't want to upset him more.

"Yeah … well … he'll do his job then. That doesn't mean he has my back."

"He's just … following procedure," she told him and met his eyes. "Nick and Munch. That's all they're doing too. That's all we're all doing. It's what we have to do. Even more so now, Bri. We're still under the microscope."

"Sure," he said. "So great time to make me the sacrificial lamb … again … for Ganzel and for fucking One PP."

She shook head and looked up at the sky, placing her hands on her hips. She knew he wasn't entirely off-base. A little paranoid. But he'd been through a lot – and if Ganzel was involved again … there was a credibility issue. He was right. He was likely being framed. She knew Brian would never rape anyone. She had to believe it. She wouldn't have slept with a rapist. She refused to believe that.

"I wouldn't exactly call you a sacrificial lamb," she said.

He looked at her. "Goat?" he suggested.

She snorted at that and allowed him a small smile. "That does work better with …" she said and waved her hand generally in the direction of his ragged looking face. He looked tired, rough and generally defeated that morning.

He shook his head. "Yeah … I thought you'd like that better …"

She smiled a little but looked at the ground. "Talk to me. Talk to Munch. We can get you through this … get you out of this mess … You've got to let us help you, Brian."


	167. Chapter 167

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia glanced at her watch. She was hoping to catch Cassidy but with how long he was taking to come out of the courthouse, she wasn't sure it was going to happen. She'd been leaving Benji in daycare later than she wanted to every night that week and she was going to missing out on her Saturday with him. So she wanted to make sure she got in all the Friday night time she could with him and to attempt to calm him into the concept that he was just going to have Jack for the day. She knew they'd both be fine. But she also knew Benji would likely throw a fit about it – and with Jack's coping mechanisms still depleted, she wasn't sure how well he'd handle a pre-schooler spazing out at him.

She sighed. She was likely the last person Brian wanted to see anyways. He'd done his best to completely ignore her the past two weeks, even though she'd made sure to find away to the courthouse near every step of the way in the lubricious charges against him. Some of it had been hard to listen to – not matter how much she told herself he was innocent and that he was being framed. There was a plausibility to what was being said that rubbed her the wrong way. But she knew Brian. He was Brian – and he came with lots of faults. She refused to believe, though, that he was a rapist – or even that he coerced a woman who was basically a sex slave into sexual intercourse while undercover.

She'd talked to him a couple times over the course of the week. Though, the conversations had pretty much revolve around him spitting at her, "HEY LOOK! I DIDN'T DO THIS," with a tone and attitude that she didn't much like directed her way. Only worse was that she felt the need to repeatedly ask him, "So what did happen in that bedroom?" A question that she never really wanted to have to ask one of her colleagues – let alone a man she'd once had in her own bed.

Brian was looking at her in a way that said he knew that she was assessing everything she knew about him. It made him angry – likely justifiably so. Still, she didn't much like the way he was talking to her – almost as much as she didn't like the things she was thinking about him. He'd repeatedly asked her if she'd believed him and she'd repeatedly said she did. And, she wanted to believe that she did. But somehow saying it – she wasn't entirely sure.

They'd both grown and changed so much since their first year in SVU together. Since they'd ended up in bed together after a night of drinking. They weren't the same people. He wasn't awkward, slightly naïve, almost goofy Brian anymore. She didn't really know him anymore. But she didn't like to think that so much had changed in him that some of those annoying but redeeming qualities in him had disappeared and been eaten alive by the job. That he'd gone so deep undercover that he'd stopped doing the job and become the perps he was supposed to be investigating.

Still, she wanted to make sure he got out of it all OK. She felt for him – cared about him, as much as she really didn't want to admit it. Even as much as she really didn't want to let herself care. She had other things to worry about. Other things to be concerned about. More than enough. But she also knew what it was like to be alone. To feel like you just had the job. And then to feel like that entire world was being pulled away from her. She'd experienced being framed before – under different circumstances. She'd experienced what it was like feeling like the career you'd built your life around was just falling apart. She'd felt that way a few times – but she'd felt it even more when Elliot had left. What Cassidy was going through was different. But she thought she could understand on some level – and, she also thought he was more likely to self-destruct than her. He had anger issues. He didn't seem to have anyone to lean on. The whole situation just seemed messy – and as another cop or maybe as another single adult who'd been slogging through her middle age on her own – she wanted him to know he shouldn't just call it quits yet and that there were still people out there who had his back, even if he didn't feel that way most of the time.

She supposed she hadn't hidden her take on the whole situation that well. Munch had kept her well off the case that none of them were even supposed to be on, talking about or even know about. Fin and Rollins had taken over most of the grunt work. They knew Cassidy the least – and had had the most limited amount of interaction with him in the past, supposedly giving them a bit more objectivity. But it had still been Olivia who had managed to finally get the real story out of Cassidy's accuser and to set the wheels in motion for this meeting he was in that would hopefully result in all the charges dropped against him.

She finally saw him coming down the steps but he didn't look happy. The defeated look she'd seen in him the past two weeks – really, since the shooting – seemed to crease his face even more.

"Hey," she called at him, trying to garner his attention.

He glanced her way. "Hey," he said weakly but closed the gap, actually coming to meet her. "That little prick DA, he interview Heather, Heather's boyfriend and also his friend that was there that night – he dropped the charges."

She smiled a little. "So you're free," she tried to assure him. She felt a weight lift off of her. Something that had managed to resolve itself with relative ease despite the stress and anxiety that it had caused the entire squad – and, she was sure Cassidy, over the passed days.

"Yeah," Cassidy near spat back at her. "I'm free to work the night shift at Bronx courthouse. Com'on. My career is over."

She sighed and looked down. "Brian, you don't know that. You said you were going to write the sergeant's exam. Play the bump game. You still don't know what might pan out."

He snorted and shook his head at her like she'd just said the most absolutely ridiculous and most delusional comment he'd ever heard. "Yeah … you know, I'm just going to stick it out. Sit in whatever corner they put me in. Night shift. Desk. Disability. Get my twenty. I'm damaged goods, Liv."

Hearing him say and seeing the look in his eyes hurt her. She said it too often about herself. She hated to see someone else feeling that way – especially now that she knew, that's not the way you needed to feel. Things could still change. They could still work out. They'd still hurt and be challenging – and likely not go as planned, or how you envisioned them. But your damaged goods – they might be exactly what some other people needed, and when they suddenly needed that, you didn't feel quite so damaged anymore.

"Brian … you didn't do anything," she told him again. "You still have friends who have your back. You still have Munch. You still have Cragen. You still have me. There's still SVU."

He shook his head and looked down examining the stairs for what felt like an eternity. She gripped at his elbow, trying to give him some type of reassurance that it was OK and there really were people who were there for him.

"I'm not coming back to SVU, Liv," he finally said. "I'm not coming back anywhere. I'm not a detective anymore. Once accused, always under suspicion. Even from you …"

She was about to shake off his comment until he threw her into the mix and she found herself looking at him with some disgust. "From me? What are you talking about? I believed you," she retorted – even though they both knew she'd struggled with maintaining that belief in him. She wasn't ready to admit that, though. She wasn't sure she ever would want to. She she'd been able to admit it to herself, it really might've cast her from suspicion and into belief. And, if it was something that she believed Brian was capable of – she wasn't sure what that said about her or her judgment or any of the other men she'd surrounded herself with over the years.

"I wish I could believe that," he told her blankly and started down the steps, leaving her where she was standing. Alone.

"Brian," she protested and followed after him. "Com'on. What are you saying?" He didn't answer. All his pursuit of her 13 years ago and in the past nine months – and now it was him just walking away like there was nothing more to talk about. Not as friends, not as colleagues, not as something more. Not now and now ever. "That's just it?" she demanded.

He glanced at her – his departure stopping, meeting her eyes but then sighing and looking away to the cars on the street. "I don't know," he mumbled.

The pain of that statement washed over her and she was sure it painted on her face. It wasn't that she wanted a relationship with him. She didn't even know how to have a relationship at that point in her life. She had the boys. She was making a family. The amount of time and dedication that took drained her on a daily basis – and that didn't even take into consideration balancing work and trying to address all the boys' emotional needs. That was just the day-to-day routine and the paperwork and legalities she'd been slowly wading through. She didn't want to add a man to the mix. She wasn't ready for it and the boys sure as hell weren't either. But Cassidy being the one to seemingly official make that decision on her behalf - it hurt. Especially when he seemed to be placing the blame of it on her. Somehow it always seemed like it ended up being her fault – no matter what the relationship with the man had been … friend, lover, partner. It always seemed like it was her who was the problem.

He must've seen the look on her face, though, as he stopped examining the traffic and the pedestrians and again met her eyes – while she stood on those steps trying to figure out what she'd done wrong this time. While she told herself it didn't really matter because she wasn't interested anyways – and because she had two beautiful boys to go home to that she cared about far more than what some one-night stand from nearly 14 years ago thought of her.

"You want to go get a drink somewhere …" he asked gently, "… and not talk about it."

She let out a small smile and a little snort. He had a way of defusing situations. It at least made her stop focusing on that pain that had washed over her – for the moment.

She shook her head and gave a small shrug. "I can't," she allowed.

Cassidy just nodded – a look like he was sorry he'd even tried painting across his face that time. "OK …" he whispered.

"How about … you walk me back to the precinct instead," she suggested. "It's late, Brian. I need to pick up Benji from daycare … get him home."

He perked up a bit at that and caught her eyes again. "Can I see him?" he asked.

She nodded. "Yeah … you can see him."

A small smile pulled at his lips and he started down the last few steps, her following after him. She'd barely reached the sidewalk when he hand came out and grabbed hers. It startled her for a moment and she wasn't sure how to react. She was a little surprised that it didn't feel strange. It almost felt surprisingly good in that moment. Still, she allowed it a small squeeze and gave him her own little smile, before they both let the grip fall away.


	168. Chapter 168

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"NOooooooooo!" Benji screeched at Brian and batted at his hand, grabbing the Transformer he was reaching for before the man could get it. "Mommy Bear-cade! Not you!"

Brian made a noise and looked at Olivia who just shrugged. She wasn't going to pretend to understand all the rules for playing Transformers. But there were clear rules. One of them was that she was Barricade – the police cruiser. The other key one seemed to be that Benji was Heatwave – the fire truck. So she hoped that that wasn't the toy Brian reached for next. But it was.

"NO!" Benji shrieked again. "Heatwave mine!"

"OK …" Brian said. "How about you tell me who I can be then?"

Benji squinted at him – clearly unimpressed that he didn't seem to know the rules - or worse, was questioning them. But then looked to Olivia.

"Mommy. Little Transformers."

She sighed and dug around in her purse more. She thought she had too much crap in her purse before she had Benji in her life. His addition had taken it to a whole new level. It was at the point that finding anything in the bag was a struggle. She really needed to dump the thing and sort out all the crap that was now inside it.

"You know," she said, as she plopped the one Bot Shot down on the table and went back in to grab the other she thought she'd caught sight of, "we could follow Mommy's rules and not play Transformers at the dinner table."

Benji hopped up on his knees in the booth and put his face almost directly in hers. "Mommy Fox. This is not the dinner table."

She caressed his cheek – the heel of her hand resting on his chin and her fingers wrapping up the length of his little skull – and met his eyes. "It's a table we are going to eat dinner at," she clarified for him.

She wasn't sure how she'd let Brian talk her into joining him for dinner. She supposed it was partially that damaged puppy dog look he had about him. Or maybe more that she didn't want to think about what sort of self-destructive behavior he'd be participating in that night after they did part ways – unless her and Benji could manage to cheer him up a bit. He was free and his career would work out. He needed to focus on that at the moment – not the rest of it.

But she was really telling herself the real reason they were sitting with him in a Chinese restaurant was because she didn't much feel like cooking on a Friday night. It'd been a hectic week. She was tired. There weren't any leftovers in the fridge at that point in the week. There really weren't many groceries at all. This way she could just get home and work at getting Benji spooled down and to bed - and hopefully then have some downtime herself. Or study time. The promotion exam was coming up far too quickly and she hadn't put nearly enough effort into ensuring she was prepared.

"NO!" Benji informed her.

"You aren't going to eat dinner at this table?" she asked.

"No," Benji added again.

"Hmm. Are you going to eat?"

"Yes."

"What are you going to eat?"

Benji thought about that for a moment. "Thai-nese."

She snorted. She wasn't sure what to make of that mispronunciation. She hoped he wouldn't be too disappointed that they were having Chinese and not Thai … or Thai-nese, whatever that was. Not that she really thought Benji had a sophisticated enough palette to know the difference. They ate out and ordered out – but not enough for a four-year-old to have that much of a preference in international cuisine. Chicken nuggets and pizza were still Benji's request if she sought any input from him before ordering. Either that or peanut butter, pancakes and hummus. Not necessarily together.

"And what's that?"

He pucked in thought again but then stated with some confidence, "RICE!"

She smiled at him and glanced at Brian who was clearly just as amused by the exchange. "And what's that?"

"Food," he informed her.

She laughed at that and shook her head at him. "You are so silly, Little Fox. It's dinner."

"NO!"

"Then what is it Benj?"

"Tupper!"

She rolled her eyes and shook her head at him. "Well then maybe we shouldn't be playing Transfomers at the supper table either."

"That's OK, Big Man," Brian interjected, pulling some chopsticks out of the wrapper and handing a set to Benji before opening his own. "Chinese gives us toys at the table." He tapped his own set of sticks on the table. "Drum sticks."

That caught Benji's attention and he immediately seemed to forget about the Transformers and dinner table versus supper table debate – grabbing at the sticks bestowed on him and beginning his own tapping on the table in front of him. Brian keeping a much better beat for the little boy's near violent banging on the table.

Olivia shook her head and rolled her eyes. Brian thought he was good with kids. She thought the real issue was that there were parts of him that hadn't quite grown-up yet. She glanced around the rather heavy occupancy in the Friday-night sitting at the restaurant. It was clear that other patrons felt about the same way as her from the dirty looks they were getting from the surrounding tables.

"Let's not play with the utensils either," she suggested and reached to still Benji's beating hands – giving Brian a stern look that he better not challenge her on this one, or make her out to be the bad guy. "It's rude."

But apparently he didn't know her looks. Though, she didn't think they were that hard to read. Brian just tapped on his plate more and than reached across the table to tap on her water glass.

"Mommy's no fun," he stated and gave her a look as he moved to tap her glass again. But without looking, he knocked it over and the water went gushing out all over the paper placemat in front of her and began making its way towards the edge of the table, readying to spill over onto her pants. "Oh … shit …", Brian exclaimed and leaned forward to right the glass. "Sorry."

But it was too late. Benji had already looked at the clatter of the glass and the spill of water and let out a gasp and threw his back into the very corner of the booth and began to cower, pulling his knees up to him. Brian glanced at him with the noise.

"Sorry, bud," he apologized to him too.

Olivia just gave Brian another look as he began to throw all their napkins on top of the sopping mess in a somewhat futile effort to clean up. He started to glance around the restaurant, clearly trying to attract their server, who didn't seem in too much of a hurry to come to their aid – likely after witnessing the foolishness that had caused the spill.

Olivia scooted down the bench and stroked Benji's hair again but he refused to make eye contact. With the way he way eyeing the floor, she suspected he was planning his escape to under the table.

"It's OK, Benj," she assured. "It's just water. Brian's cleaning it up. You didn't do anything wrong." But she saw a little tear streak down his cheeks. "Shh …. Shh …"

Brian looked up from what he was doing and watched them for a moment with some concern knitting on his brow. "Did I get some on him?"

She shook her head. "No," she allowed quietly. "Com'on, Little Fox," Olivia pressed again and reached out for him. "Come sit on Mommy's lap. It's OK."

The little boy let her pull him to her and Olivia settled him onto her lap. As she did so, his thumb went to his mouth. She sighed. She'd been trying to breaking that habit – one of his self-soothing behaviors. She thought they'd been doing pretty well with stopping it. It was happening few and far between anymore. But she still hesitated for a moment – not wanting to agitate him more – before she reached and gently moved his hand down to his lap, keeping her hand loosely around his wrist to keep it in place.

"Com'on, Benj. You don't need to do that. I'm right here," she assured him again and put a kiss on the top of his head and rocked him gently. She could feel the slight tremble in his body and somehow he felt colder.

She could feel Brian quietly watching them. She could also feel some regret and guilt in the acknowledgement that he'd spurred whatever was happening – though, he clearly wasn't quite sure what was happening. She finally looked up from her little boy and met the eyes of the man across the table. For the first time in two weeks, he didn't look quite as angry or self-absorbed in his own shit.

"Is he OK?" he asked.

Olivia just shrugged but then shook her head. "I don't know," she admitted quietly and rested her chin on her little boy's head. He'd gotten so quiet.

It was true, though. She really didn't know anymore. Sometimes she thought he was fine. Sometimes he seemed like a fairly normal little boy. Whatever normal was. But then there were the moments – or the minutes or the hours or the days – where he wasn't. When he'd say or do things that made so clear to her that he wasn't 'normal'. That he'd been through things that a four-year-old shouldn't have to go through. That he knew things a four-year-old shouldn't have to know. That he wasn't as much of a little boy as she wanted him to be. Some of his innocence had been robbed from him.

And, she really didn't know if he was OK. Or if he would be OK. … and she didn't really have anyone to talk to about it. To scream at about it. To cry to about it. So she instead waited until Benji was in bed and he was asleep and then tried to force herself not to think about it. Sometimes she could. Sometimes she had other cases to pollute her mind with. But more often than not, she found herself wiping at her own silent tears and trying to ignore they were there. More and more the tears for other children – other victims – were becoming tears for her son. And that brought a whole new level of pain to it all too.

"He's just been through a lot," she allowed herself to say to the man sitting across from her.

It almost surprised her. Yet somehow saying it out loud felt nice too. A relief. To admit it to someone. To have someone else know. Though, she didn't know how much more she'd let herself tell him. She wasn't sure how much she wanted anyone to know yet – or ever. She hadn't even revealed the extent of it to Alex yet … or Nick. It was private. Their private family business.

"More than I thought," she shook her head.

"Mommy … I morning helper today," Benji mumbled quietly against her.

She looked down at him and allowed a small smile. "Yeah?"

He gave a little nod. "I put 'ticker on cal-in-deer and I do weather wheel. It cold but sunny. And I hold number of da day. Five. Zero plus five equal five. One plus four equal five. Two plus three equal five. Three plus two equal five. Four plus one equal five. Five plus zero equal five."

She smiled at him and gave his little hand a squeeze. "You are getting so good at math, Benji."

He nodded like he really agreed despite just rattling off of the simple equations in almost sing-song memorization. "I tell teacher that Five Monkeys a five thing. Teacher knows Five Monkeys too, Mommy. So we sing Five Monkeys."

She smiled at him a bit more broadly. "Really?"

"I help teach evey-one. We sing Five Monkeys now, Mommy?"

"Mmm, I think we should save Five Monkeys for bedtime, Benj. We'll sing it then."

"No more monkeys jumping on the bed," he told her quietly and rubbed his cheek against her chest, still trying to calm himself in his low whispered babble.

"No more monkeys jumping on the bed," she agreed, rubbing her face against his soft hair again and smiled a little, casting Brian another look.

"I hold letter of da day too, Mommy. It E."

"E is a good letter," Olivia allowed. She allowed that for every letter he came home and informed her was the Letter of the Day.

"I tell teacher dat Bumblebee an E word," her little boy said, stressing the e-sound at the end of the word. "But she say it a B-name like Benji. It end in E, though, Mommy."

She nodded. "It does end in E. Bumble-b-EE. It sounds like you had a very busy day and did a really good job at being morning helper. I'm very proud of you."

"It a lot," he added for her.

She smiled at little more and put another kiss in his hair. "It is a lot."

"He seems OK …" Cassidy provided, apparently feeling the need to get back in on the conversation.

She snorted at him and stroked at Benji's hair. He was calming. She could feel it in his body. Him even talking was a sign that he was settling. But he was still huddled against her and his eyes were downcast. "This seems OK to you?"

"Kids don't like spills," Brian said.

She shook her head at him. "I had to get him out from under a table at preschool a few weeks ago – and take him out of class for the rest of the day – because a little girl's dad tried to help him clean up a spill."

"He a police officer," Benji whispered against her and rubbed his face across her chest again.

It was a statement that she'd tried to stress to him. That all his classmates had a parent who was a police officer and some of them would be in-and-out of the classroom to visit their little girls or little boys at special visiting times too. He couldn't get so upset about it. He was still safe.

"He is a police officer," she again agreed.

She looked up as their server came over and scooped up the wad of soggy napkins off the table, giving Brian another look of disapproval. But she then wordlessly set out new napkins, refilled her glass of water and set their plates of food and rice on the table before providing them each with an empty plate in front of them.

"Thank you," Olivia said to the woman, who just gave her a curt nod. She looked at the food and rubbed Benji's back. "Smells good, right, Little Fox? What do you think you want?"

"Nutin …" he mumbled.

She bounced him a bit. "You're not hungry?"

He just shook his head against her again.

"Hmm," she nodded. "OK. Well, I'm hungry. So I think I'm going to have an … egg roll," she said and put it on her plate within his reach. She'd specifically ordered them for him and she knew he'd eventually be tempted. "And, how about … some chicken fried rice and lo mein," she suggested, putting the little scopes onto her plate.

When they'd ordered, Brian had made some comment about her tastes in Chinese having changed a lot since they were in the same squad room. She'd forgotten how much Chinese they'd gone through in that first year. It had seemed like Brian and John lived on it. It still showed up in the squad on occasion – especially if Munch was left in charge of getting take-out for everyone. But they'd mostly moved onto other things – debatably much more healthy.

What had really jumped out at her about his comment, though, had been how much he didn't actually understand kids. She wasn't ordering for herself anymore. Sure, she'd talked him into adding chicken in black bean sauce to the order – but otherwise, she'd been ordering with Benji in mind. Benji wouldn't come near eating a full serving of anything – and as experimental eater as he was, there were things he just wouldn't like. She was conscious of that. She ordered food and meals that were appropriate for him and then they split the plate. What she wanted to eat anymore really sort of took a backseat to a point. It was about getting healthy, filling food into him.

Olivia just started working on eating the bit of food she'd put on her plate. She knew he'd be tempted and start picking at the food too. But she saw Brian looking at them from his own heaping helping.

"He's really not going to eat?" he asked.

She shrugged. "He'll eat when he decides he's hungry."

Brian eyed her like he wouldn't exactly take the same approach. But she didn't particularly care. She wasn't going to force-feed her kids. She knew them. They were both good eaters. Jack was picky but he ate. Benji picked at food and was picky about texture and freshness – but he ate. She wasn't going to lecture him in the middle of the restaurant when she knew his reluctance was more a part of his calming process. So she was letting him calm.

"So what happened to him?" Brian asked, as he started shoveling his food into his mouth.

She looked at him at that. She wasn't sure she really liked that question. With Brian's reaction so far, she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to talk about it anymore. She wasn't sure he understood. He didn't seem to be getting it. And she didn't get the sense he'd provide her with the support she needed. She wasn't even sure if that was in him.

She pushed her food around her plate for a moment. "Neglect," she allowed.

Brian nodded but still eyed her like he was expecting more. When she didn't say more, he said, "Well, at least he's got you now."

She gave him a thin smile and then glanced down as she saw Benji slowly reach out and take the egg roll off the plate and bringing it to his mouth to gum and nibble at. She knew he wouldn't be able to leave it sitting on the plate for long.

"Sometimes, I don't know if I'm enough," she said quietly.

"Someone told me that having my mom was enough," he put to her. "More than a lot of people."

She gave a small snort but just shook her head and looked at her plate. She wasn't much sure she liked that comment either. And, a grown man versus a little boy was a bit of a different story. She was pretty sure Brian's childhood versus Benji's was a rather significantly different story too.

"He has Jack too," Brian added.

She did let out a small laugh at that and looked at him. "Jack has his issues too."

"Teenaged attitude and anger management …" Cassidy said and brought some more food to his mouth.

"No. Post-traumatic stress," she said seriously. She didn't like Brian belittling the significance of Jack's challenges. He'd been through a lot. She'd seen kids who'd been through more. But it didn't negate the fact that Jack had experience more than most kids his age – and some of it had really damaged him.

Brian looked at her more at that. "You going to tell me how you ended up fostering these kids?"

"Guardianship, not fostering," she said and looked back to her plate.

"Guardianship? Doesn't that mean you're related to them somehow?"

"Not exactly," she mumbled.

"OK … whatever …" Brian said. "How did you end up with these kids, Liv?"

"Mommy Fox ask the night sky for Little Fox," Benji didn't exactly tell Cassidy, but managed to mumble around his mouthful of egg roll.

Her phone rang, though, and she didn't have to bother answering Brian's interrogation efforts. Or rather, she didn't have to bother weighing how much she was ready to let Brian in yet. Instead, she reached to retrieve her phone from her coat pocket and looked at the call display before answering.

"Hi Jack," she said into the phone, handing her fork to Benji, to see if he'd take some interest in something on her plate that was a bit more substantive than an egg roll.

"Peedg," Benji said softly and flopped his head back against her again, this time throwing the fried rice he'd picked up on the fork all over himself and her. Olivia barely reacted and just brushed some of the mess off herself – and him while listening to Jack.

"I wasn't expecting you to be home until later tonight, Jack. I thought you were working," she said with a sigh. He was a little worked up. He could get like that. In some ways Jack was a lot like Benji. He liked his routines and schedules and if something changed from that, he could get a little moody – much like her four-year-old.

She rubbed at her eyebrow and watched Benji pick away at the rice, giving Brian a glance. He was watching her carefully while eating his meal. She really hadn't touched hers yet and she was starting to think she wasn't going to get much of a chance to.

"Why'd you leave work early?" she asked and then sighed. "Jack, you need to be careful with that. Gecko has done you a lot of favors and you can't take advantage of his understanding and generosity. You'll leave him in a lurch."

He rambled angrily at her a bit more. "I'm sorry you're tired and I understand you still don't feel 100 per cent yet. But you've got a job, Jack, and Gecko is trying to still be very accommodating to you and your recovery." He barked at her again. "OK …" she sighed and then shook her head. "We're just over at Eden Wok … I know there's not much food there right now, Jack. … Well, I was going to have you and Benji go out and pick up some groceries tomorrow while I'm in at work." Jack apparently didn't like that idea. "Jack, we've talked about this. You're part of the family. You're at the apartment a lot. You're eating the food. You're leaving laundry. You're contributing to the mess there. So, I'd appreciate if you started contributing a bit more to some of the chores and errands around home."

She saw Brian eyeing her again at that. Part of her didn't really care. She was starting to get used to parenting by remote and having people around watching, listening, judging. She just had to ignore it and do what was best for her and for the boys. She didn't really care what they thought. But somehow having Brian sit there watching and listening to it felt more like he was judging her – or at least measuring her mothering abilities – than what she'd come to expect from others around her. Maybe it was more, though, that he was still just trying to piece together the puzzle of what she was doing and who these children were. She'd been vague with him. And, as much as she wanted to dump the full story – to vent to someone – she wasn't sure he was in a position to handle it. And she wasn't in the position to manage anyone else's questions, needs or emotions. Managing her own and the boys was more than enough.

"I know you've got schoolwork to get caught up on. Doing some groceries isn't going to take very long. … He's your nephew. We're a family. Sometimes you're going to have to watch him when I'm at work. … Jack, I haven't had to work a Saturday for quite a while. It's only going to be a few hours. … Because you told me you weren't going to be working and that you'd be home." She shook her head. "OK. Jack, this is your warning. I don't like the tone and the attitude you're using on me in this conversation …"

It was enough. He near stopped mid-sentence in his continued tirade about how unfair it was that she had just 'expected' him to watch Benji on 'his' Saturday and how he did lots around the apartment. She wasn't really sure how much she agreed with him on that. Jack did little things – occasionally. And, he generally did things when he was asked. But he usually had to be asked and she usually had to take a bit of snark before he complied. Still, whenever she let him know she was nearing the end of her patience – anymore, he'd just shut-up.

She almost felt bad about pulling that card too often because she thought what him shutting up really meant was that he was afraid she was about to call it quits or walk-away from him. That wasn't the case. At all. She just refused to negotiate with a teenager. Especially her teenaged son who she was bending over backwards to accommodate most of the time. The least he could do was put his dirty socks in the hamper, empty the dishwasher, clean the boys' bathroom and occasionally watch Benji or pick up groceries for the family. At least that was her perspective on it.

She took his sudden silence as a moment to try to offer a calming truce.

"Would you like to come over and join us? I'll order some General Tso for you." She nodded into the phone again. "OK … we'll see you in a while then."

She sighed and put her phone down on the far corner of the table – out of Benji's reach and hopefully out of the way of any spills, that she suspected were more likely to come from Brian that her Little Fox.

"He coming?" Cassidy asked.

She shook her head. "No. He'll eat leftovers when we get home."

"What makes him think there will be leftovers?"

She looked at him and then looked at the massive amounts of food that were still on the table. In her opinion they'd ordered far too much for two adults and a little boy. So she'd expected she'd be taking part of it home for the never-ending stomach that was a teenaged boy.

"It's Chinese. There will be leftovers," Olivia said flatly. She hoped Brian didn't plan to eat it all - or that he planned to claim all the leftovers when he was done with his helping at the table.

He just snorted though and looked back at his plate and pushed things around a bit. "He OK tonight, though?"

She nodded. "Yeah. He's fine. He's just … tired. He's struggling with getting caught up after being out sick. He's got himself worked up about it."

Brian gave her a thin smile. "Sounds like he keeps you as busy as this one," he said and gave a small point of his retrieved chopsticks at Benji.

Benji saw the wagging sticks and buried his face against her again. He clearly was done with his infatuation with Brian for the night. Any Transformer points he'd earned had been overshadowed by his spill tactics and ill-advised language. Right now he was just another man that her little boy wasn't too sure about.

Olivia rubbed his back a bit, trying to get him to continue to calm and to just focus on eating his dinner.

"They both keep me busy in different ways," she allowed.

"You seem like a good mom," Brian said a little more gently.

She snorted and reached to claim one of the unused forks on the table to try to get a bit more of the meal into her before they called it quits for the night. With how Benji was acting at the table and how Jack had been acting on the phone, she thought that should likely happen sooner than later.

"I don't know about that …"

Somehow Brian giving a commentary on her mothering abilities didn't seem to hold much weight. What did he know? What had he even seen? He'd just had a handful of very limited interactions with her and the boys. It was a platitude. He was just trying to be nice. Or trying to butter her up?

"You do," he pressed. "They're lucky to have you."

She met his eyes a bit more at that. No one had really said that to her yet – and the wound from her latest argument with Elliot was still stinging even though she'd shut the door in his face weeks ago now. She wasn't really sure that there was much weight to it coming from Cassidy. He didn't really know what was going on. He didn't have enough information to have any kind of opinion, as far as she was concerned. He hardly knew her anymore – let alone had enough contact with her and the boys to gauge her abilities as a parent or if any child would be lucky to have her.

Olivia actually wasn't so sure that a child would be so lucky to have her. She came with her own baggage. Her own hectic schedule. She was patient but she thought she could be a little strict. She was having to remind herself to relax a little on a regular basis with both Benji and Jack. To have fun. To not sweat the small stuff. To be silly and not care who was looking or listening. It was a learning process for her. It didn't come as naturally as she might like. But she was trying.

Still, Benji and Jack entering her life – and joining it, as a family or as sons – it wasn't like she could provide the ideal nuclear family or even the ideal mother. She was single. There was no daddy figure on the horizon – despite the soft looks Brian was giving her across the table. There weren't aunts or uncles in the picture – unless Alex and Nick and Munch … and God forbid, Simon counted. There wasn't a grandmother or a grandfather. There really was just a lot of sadness if either of them started scratching below the surface and asking more about her. And, she knew that would come.

Benji she might have a while before it came. His questions would come after he started measuring himself against other kids at school. Or as they read books or watched movies and his little mind tried to process and relate to those fairy tales and apply them to his state of life. But with Jack – it could come at any time. Sometimes his questions surprised her. Sometimes they were obnoxious but other times they were curious, shy and sincere. His questions and concerns though were often trying to measure his past life against now while also trying to understand things that had been lacking or missing in his childhood. She didn't know the answers to most of his questions. She still tried, though.

"You know how to deal with these things … neglect, PTSD," Brian offered.

She shrugged. "It's different … when it's your kids. You can't just hand them a card or a list of telephone numbers," she said.

"You know what to expect," he suggested.

She snorted and shook her head. "That's what scares me. What does a four-year-old forced to sleep in the barn look like as an adult? What does a 19-year-old without a mother, a dead father and an abusive uncle become? Will them being with me really change any of the outcomes that I've seen before?"

"I think so," Brian told her.

"Then I don't know what to expect, Brian," she said flatly.

He sighed and looked at his plate for a moment.

"I sleep in den not barn," Benji added for her.

She smiled and let out a small snort and looked down at him. He was gazing up at her with his big pools of blue. She put her one cheek back on the top of his head.

"You do sleep in a den," she agreed.

Brian poked at his food. "Thought you moved into a two bedroom?"

She let out a bit of a laugh at that and gave him a half-smile. "He calls his bedroom a den. Foxes sleep in dens."

Brian gave her a funny look, like he thought was sort of ridiculous but maybe that there was some cuteness underlying it. Cuteness that he clearly didn't expect her to have in her – or to be accommodating.

"Peedg make it a real den," Benji said.

She nodded again. "He is," she agreed and looked back at Brian. "He's painting a mural in the boys' room. A woodland forest. It's cute."

It was more than cute. It was fantastic and she'd already fallen in love with it even though it was no where near finished yet. She thought she actually might like it more than Benji, who was pretty enamored with the sketches of the foxes, raccoons, squirrels, black bears, deer and owls gracing the walls hiding in amongst trees, grassland, rays of sunlight and falling leaves.

Jack was ridiculously talented with his drawing and sketching abilities. She wished she had even a tenth of the talent he did. And, secretly, there was a small part of her that hoped that maybe it was genetically ingrained and that some of that raw talent had been passed on to Benji too. Her little boy was creative and definitely had an overactive imagination. He loved his craft times and his Play-Doh but she wasn't sure she'd yet seen the signs of a budding artist, graphic designer or architect in her Little Fox. Not like in Jack. It was clear that there were reasons he was pursuing architecture. He had an eye and he had a gift.

She'd been a little surprised when they'd come home one night while Jack was still recovering to find him having drawn in pencil all over the wall of Benji's room. Benji had been excited, thinking it meant he got to draw on the walls too. But she'd managed to put a kibosh on that pretty quickly and so far had managed to keep him away from the walls with his crayons, markers or watercolors. She suspected it would only be a matter of time before she didn't get them all put out of his reach when he wasn't supervised and he ended up turning a wall into a canvas. If it was on Jack's masterpiece, though, she thought he'd likely face a greater wrath from his uncle than any timeout or consequence she provided him.

As much as she liked Jack's mural, though, she'd tried to gently suggest to him that she'd appreciate if he could have it completed before their home study began. She didn't really want the apartment to be a renovation project – or any sort of work in progress – by the time the social worker walked through the door.

Ellis was in the process of narrowing down some of the agency choices that would be best for her to get the needed outcome this time when she went through the home study interviews and visitations. She'd basically just told him she wanted the best and she needed to pass. That's all there was to it. But the hope was she'd have an agency worker in the apartment within the month – at least for the first visit. The sooner she got through the process – the sooner she could at least get the paperwork for Benji finalized. Jack's was going to be a whole different story - and the clock was ticking on the guardianship she currently had over him.

Getting ready for the home study was just adding stress, though. She had her own things she needed to do around the apartment and in preparing the boys – not to mention herself. Jack's art project only added to that. Her trying to urge him into not turning it into the never-ending project was likely stressing him out a bit when he had his other school work commitments now. What had started out as him trying to do something nice in a moment of boredom had now turned into a job for him and he didn't seem to much like that.

Brian, though, didn't seem to really care about the mural. Though, he likely didn't grasp all the intricacies behind it. Instead, he just kept looking at her.

"You know you can talk to me, if you want …" he said.

She nodded. "I know."

"I can help," he said again.

She gave him a smile. "I think you've got enough on you plate."

He snorted and shook his head. "I don't think I have much of anything on my plate – not after all this."

She looked down. She didn't want to drag him into depressive talk about the state of his career and what he'd do to just wait out his 20 again. She hoped as he moved away from the court fiasco and he had time to settle and think more clearly – he'd start to see other options and opportunities. That his situation wouldn't look as dark and dismal to him.

"Liv, I get it. I heard you. This," he said and pointed back-and-forth between them, "it's off the table. But it doesn't mean we can't be friends."

She gave him a thin smile again. "I could use more friends."

But she wasn't sure she believed him that that was all he wanted now. And she wasn't sure it was all she wanted either.


	169. Chapter 169

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"You stuck on something?"

She looked up at Jack questioningly and shook her head. "What?"

"You haven't turned that page in like 10 minutes," Jack told her.

She looked back down at the practice test book. She actually wasn't really looking at it at all. She'd been so distracted she really hadn't absorbed any of the explanation on how to approach the question nor had she bothered to read the question and attempt to come up with an appropriate answer. She'd just been sitting there, staring blankly at the pages in front of her while her thoughts were off on an entirely different wave length.

She was home but she wasn't all there. She was still reliving the conversation with Avery Jordan as she gathered her bags to flee the state and having to let her rapist anywhere near her son. "He's never going to be OK," she'd insisted. Olivia had tried to assure her that he would. That some day her infant son would understand. But Avery had been persistent in her stance that they were never going to be OK – not while his biological father was still in the picture and still raping her, continuing her trauma, with each forced custodial visit.

It'd caused Olivia to pause in more ways than one. She'd spent so much time lately thinking about if her Little Fox would ever be OK. If Jack would ever be OK. And she didn't know the answer to that. Not the real one. The real one may well be that they never would – not really. But her interactions with Avery had just thrown her more into her own self-examination. Questioning she'd done most of her adult life. Questioning that had even been there in her own childhood in its own way. The questioning wasn't new but watching a case that rang so true and so deeply personal to her in so many ways had pushed her thoughts in all kinds of directions.

Olivia told herself she was OK. She told herself that she understood why her mother was the way she was as a mother. She told herself that part of the reason she did her job was to get justice for her mother – to give meaning and justification to her own life and existence. But she wasn't sure any of that ever made her OK. The actions of some unknown man had scarred her from the get-go. It didn't matter that she was in her 40s now – there were still question marks and scars and pain. Some of it never was going to go away. Some of it defined her in more ways than she wanted to admit. And some of it made her still question her self worth or why her mother hadn't gotten an abortion. Or at least given her up for adoption so she didn't have to look at her.

Even though Olivia knew her mother had loved her in her own way – she'd grown up with a broken woman, who was reminded of the most awful and traumatic moment in her life every time she looked at her child. Anger and resentment that didn't have anywhere to go but onto her had piled on over the years. Her mother had never been OK. Her inability to ever truly recover or heal had eventually been the death of her – under the guise of alcoholism. And, because of it, Olivia and her mother had never been OK either. Their relationship had never been normal. It had never been right. The pain of it was pallable for as long as she could remember. And, now she wasn't OK either. As functional as she was, Olivia knew she had her own issues, her own problems, her own failings and flaws. She wasn't sure she was a whole person – or that she ever would be. She wasn't sure she'd ever have a normal, healthy relationship – she never really had. She wasn't sure she could trust and sometimes she wondered if she really knew how to love the right way. To let down enough walls to let anyone in. And, yet, now she was tasked with raising two boys – on that still needed a lot of raising and another who needed a lot of healing – and she wasn't sure they were OK either or that she was the one to get them to anything that resembled OK. How could she?

Maybe Avery had it right. None of them would ever be OK – and it was better to leave, to start a new life, to hide. To try to build something better under different circumstances. It was such a different route than her mother had taken. Even Olivia had never been able to truly remove herself from the city. The place where it all began and it seemed the place it would end.

She shook her head and let out a small sigh. "I'm just … distracted," she admitted.

"You want me to quiz you or something?" Jack offered.

She looked up and allowed him small smile. "No. I don't think I'm ready for that."

She thought it was rather pathetic actually. Both of them sitting at the dining room table doing homework on a Saturday night. Part of her really wished Jack was out with friends or a girlfriend – drinking, partying, getting into the tiniest bit of trouble, acting like an immature college student. But he wasn't OK enough for that. She wasn't sure he ever would be and she feared that his whole college career would fly by before he'd let himself experience any of that. At the same time, though, she knew he wasn't OK enough to participate in any of it. Jack's pain and insecurities festered so close to the surface. He was a walking mark – a victim. And it wouldn't just be the gruesome perps that would sense that. College kids – supposed friends, classmates, dorm mater and colleagues – would see it and take advantage of him. She wasn't sure he'd know how to back out either – not when it was clear that more than anything, Jack just desperately wanted to fit in and he wasn't sure how. Not with the burden and the baggage he was carrying and refused to cope with. He wasn't ready for that yet either. So maybe it was best he was at home, taping away at his laptop and paging through a textbook.

"Isn't your test in like a week?" he asked.

She nodded and rubbed her eyebrow looking back down at the documentation in front of her. "Yeah …" she mumbled.

"And you aren't ready to be quizzed yet?"

She snorted. "I've still got a week. I'm a good tester …"

"You were a good tester," Jack interjected, "like a quarter century ago."

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at that. There was something about him putting it that way that was oddly terrifying. It'd been almost that long since she really had to do any sort of test of any meaning. Jack hadn't even been born. She was nearing a half-century of life. But he didn't need to rub that in her face.

"Aren't you funny," she put back at him.

He smiled like he was proud of himself but then looked back to his computer.

"I was thinking that tomorrow afternoon maybe we could go to a movie," she offered. Though, she hadn't actually been thinking about it at that moment – she had previously been thinking about it. If she spent her Saturday at work and her Saturday night studying – she thought she could get away with take advantage of Sunday to do something a bit more fun. Or at least something that wasn't looking at textbooks, legal documents, NYPD manuals and test prep.

Jack glanced at her and snorted. "Wow. You really are trying to avoid studying. I thought you said you were a scholarship student too?"

She shrugged. "I was."

"Can't tell now with that attitude."

"Don't nag me," she told him a little annoyed.

"You nag me," he put back to her.

"That's in my job description."

Jack rolled his eyes. "What's in mine?"

"Go to school. Do your homework assignments. Keep your scholarship. Go to work."

"That's a shitty job description," he informed her.

She just shrugged again. "There's that new animated movie out. Escape from Planet Earth or something," she said.

Jack looked like her like she'd lost her mind. "I don't think so," he said.

"I thought you liked science fiction. Walking Dead."

"That's horror. Zombies. Not science fiction. Or an animated kids movie," he spat at her.

She shrugged. He was always so difficult. "We could go to the IMAX. One at the Natural History museum? Look at dinosaur bones too?"

He gave her an incredulous look.

"I'll buy you popcorn," she suggested.

"So you're going to take Benji to the stupid library thing in the morning and then go to the movies all afternoon? Are you trying to fail?"

She rolled her eyes. "I don't need to spend every day of the week studying to pass this thing."

"Oh – but you aren't ready to be quizzed yet," he said like she was being insanely immature and stupid. "Are you ready for your physical fitness thing?"

She looked at him. He really did sound like he was nagging her. But he also sounded a lot more interested in her promotion test – and how she did on it - than he might've expected.

"The Job Standard Test?" she asked.

Jack shrugged and glanced at his textbook. "Whatever …"

"I don't know," she allowed.

She didn't know. She'd been practicing some of it as time allowed. But really the only time that allowed was if she got a lunch break or if she decided to leave Benji in daycare late so she could hit the gym or go for a jog. Much like the book work of studying – she hadn't gotten to put as much time and effort into it as she may have wanted to. But she told herself she also likely wouldn't have ever bothered taking the test previously. And, really, the physical fitness part was just to boost her score. It didn't matter how she did. Though, she didn't exactly want to embarrass herself either.

"When's that?"

She sighed and looked at him. He was sort of annoying her now – and really making her feel more unprepared than she already did. "Thursday," she allowed.

"Then maybe we should go for a jog or something and not be sitting on our asses watching movies and eating popcorn."

She snorted. "A jog? With you … and Benji? That sounds like it'd be a productive workout."

"You're just afraid that I'd be about half a mile ahead of you," Jack stated bluntly.

"Yeah. Because I'll be stuck watching Benji while you strut your stuff …"

Jack shook his head at her.

"What are you working on?" she tried changing topics. She really wasn't that interested but at least engaging in conversation with him had briefly pulled her back to the present and her own reality rather than dwelling on her past, reflecting on her life, and measuring it against the words of another.

"Meh. It's this exercise to figure out the weight a column can bear in these different situations and different types of materials. It's pretty math-y. This shit is hard."

"Architects need to be good at math," she said flatly and looked back to her own book again.

"And physics. And that's hard too."

She glanced up at him. "Do you need extra help in that course to get caught up?"

Jack just shrugged.

She watched him, a little concerned. It was the first time he'd ever expressed that something in his program was actually challenging for him. She'd never really taken the time to consider all the different foundations of his bachelor level of his education. He didn't just get to draw and play with models. There were science courses and math courses and physics courses that Jack needed to slog through too to get to what he wanted to be doing. It was clear he was more interested in the social and political aspects of applying his architectural degree as he phased into urban design and planning. But that was still a couple years down the road. He needed to get there first – and she didn't want him to have to struggle more than he had to when he was already at a disadvantage with being out with his surgery.

"Maybe you should talk to your prof or your academic advisor?" she suggested. "Think about a tutor to help you get through the course?"

He just shrugged at her again. Jack admitting he needed help to that extent would be a big step. It'd be admitting a failure – or at least a shortcoming, which she knew he was loath to do. But she hoped he'd realize any shortcomings before his scholarship was on the line.

He looked at her from over the top of his computer screen and she met his slightly downcast eyes. She wanted him to know he was allowed to talk or allowed to say he needed help in his courses – or anything for that matter. She wanted one of them to prove Avery wrong – that one of them could be OK … sometime.

"Work made you distracted?" he asked cautiously.

It was her turn to shrug at that. "Yeah," she allowed.

"Because you had to supervise some sort of visitation?"

"Yeah," she allowed again.

He looked back to his screen for a moment. "Why don't they have some sort of social worker do that?"

She sighed. She struggled so much with talking to Jack about her job. As much as she wanted him to have some sort of comfort level with it – she wasn't sure how to talk to him about it or help him get there. She just really didn't want him to know too much about what she did. At least not the specifics or enough to glean what cases she might be working on. It just wasn't things she wanted him to think about. He had enough to think about. She wanted him to be OK. She wasn't sure him knowing too much about her work would help him get there.

"It was a special case," she said, trying to be honest. "It was a first visitation – so we oversaw it."

Jack punched at his keyboard again and then looked up, just enough that she knew he was trying to see her out of the top of his line of sight without really having to look at her. "It was that sportscaster lady wasn't it?"

"Jack …" she sighed.

"What?" he said a bit more harshly and looked at her more directly. "Like cameras were all over her last month when she was going into court. You were in the fucking newsreels. She looked like she was going to pop. She must've had the baby by now."

"I just … really wish you wouldn't …"

"Watch the news? Read the papers?" he put back at her.

"Try to deduce what I'm working on at work," she said. "I can't talk to you about specific cases. And, Jack, you really don't want to know the details. You really shouldn't … be reading the filth they put out there to try to sell papers."

"I don't buy papers," he mumbled. "I read it online."

"Well, that's likely even more distorted."

He made a sound and punched at his keyboard a bit more, clearly upset with her. "So what? Did it suck being around a baby or something? I thought you liked kids? Or it just made you wish you had your own baby rather than us?"

She gaped at him at that. "Jack, that's not how I feel at all. You know how thankful I am to have you and Benji in my life and how glad I am you're both here."

"Then what's so distracting about having to spend a few hours with some baby?"

She sighed again and rubbed at her eyebrow. "It was just something she said, Jack. That's all."

"What'd she say?" he asked and looked back at her, clearly more interested than even before.

"That her baby isn't ever going to be OK," she told him honesty.

Jack scrunched his brow questioningly at that. "What's wrong with her baby?"

"Nothing's wrong with her baby," she sighed. "He's a healthy, seemingly perfect little boy."

"Then why's she think he won't be OK?"

"Because his father's a rapist," she put to him.

Jack looked like he needed to really process that. "Yeah … but … that's doesn't have anything to do with him."

"It has everything to do with him," Olivia said. "It's why … how … he came to exist. And, it means his mother is not OK."

"What's wrong with her?"

"She was raped, Jack," she said, slightly exasperated. Some of it was clearly so outside of his frame of reference or his ability to understand and comprehend.

"But … she'll get over that?" he suggested.

Olivia shrugged. "It's not the kind of thing you 'get over', Jack."

"But she'll move on," he pressed.

"She'll try to. She's trying to," she allowed.

"So her and the baby will be OK," he said like it was a statement of absolute fact.

Olivia sighed and looked down. "Jack … if your sister hadn't died … if she was still alive and raising Benji … do you think Benji would end up OK?"

Jack seemed to gaze at her in silence for an eternity at that. She knew they both knew the honest answer to that. If Benji wasn't OK now, Olivia didn't want to think about what sort of child, teenager and adult her Little Fox would've grown into surrounded by his unstable, promiscuous, drug addicted mother and punished by his neglectful and abusive great uncle. Greg might not have struck Benji as a toddler. But she was certain he struck Jack and with the teen out of the picture and Benji growing up, it would've only been a matter of time before his anger got directed on the little boy instead.

"I'm glad Izzy died," Jack said at a near whisper. He'd said it in different ways – but the same sentiment before. Olivia believed him. Jack had so much unresolved anger and hurt towards his sister. But she knew somewhere in him there was love too – and that he missed her, or long ago memories of her from when she might've actually acted like an older sister to him, rather than a burden to the entire family.

What really struck Olivia, though, was that it was Izzy's death that had proven the escape for Jack and Benji too – much like the private airplane that Avery had taken Theo too to escape Purcell's involvement in their lives. She wasn't sure though that Jack and Benji's escape had provided them with all the solutions the teen had hoped for. It hadn't taken away the pain or erased the memories. It hadn't resolved all their problems. But she supposed it had given them a new start. It was still to be seen if they'd be OK – but Olivia knew that it wasn't really going to be that simple. It never was.

Olivia just allowed him a small nod, though. "And, just like having his mother wouldn't have made Benji OK – that baby, having a damaged mother isn't going to ensure that he's OK either," she told him.

"You're dad was a rapist," Jack added again quietly. It came across as more of a statement than a question. She found herself a little surprised by it. She'd told him as much. But it had been months ago and he'd never said anything about it since. He'd actually been so upset that she wasn't sure he'd really heard or absorbed it at all at the time.

"Yeah, he was," she allowed.

"That's why her saying that stuff upset you," he again provided as a blanket statement.

She nodded. "Yeah." It wasn't the whole reason. It wasn't the only reason. But it was more than reason enough.

"But you're OK now," he pressed again, and it again came out as more of a statement of fact than a question.

She shook her head. "I don't know if I am, Jack," she told him honestly. "I struggle with it. I struggled with it as a child and I still struggle with it now. There's all that conflict and questions about where I am from – why I'm even here. But I think you know what that's like."

He met her eyes briefly at that but then looked down. His gaze meeting more of his lap and fidgeting hands than it did his computer screen or textbook. She knew thinking about his mother made him sad – if it didn't make it made. She saw how it nagged at him – especially now that his father was gone and he had all these unanswered questions. Now that he'd been flung out into life and was trying to find his own place and to find a sense of belonging and home and community when he felt so scared and alone.

"I like that you're kinda screwed up too," he said quietly again and gave her a small, brief glance. "It … makes me feel … not so shitty about it." He shook his head and sighed. "That came out wrong …"

She smiled and gave his foot the smallest nudge under the table and he glanced at her again.

"I know what you mean," she told him with a sincerity.

He just shrugged. "I just meant it makes me feel like … it's OK … like it's allowed."

She knew even that small admission from Jack was a big step for him. It was progress. It was acceptance of their situation – or even their relationship. And it was a verbalization of it. It was more than she expected from him on even his best days. She certainly hadn't expected it from him that night. But it helped her feel more OK too.

"Honestly, Jack, I don't know if any of us are OK. But I think we can work together on it here – and I think we are going to keep doing the best we can. That – and knowing we love each other, that we're here for each other – I think it will at least let us be OK together."


	170. Chapter 170

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia shook her head as she walked into the living room and found Jack passed out in front of the television – the movie he'd been watching still continuing to play and him having missed who-know's how much of it. He'd been doing that a lot lately – especially since he'd gotten into the habit of sleeping on the couch in his first bit following surgery. Now it was like he just didn't have the commonsense to be able to tell when it was time to put himself to bed. Though, she supposed she shouldn't judge him too harshly. She'd spent years using the quiet background noise and nightlight effect of the television as one of the only ways to lull herself to sleep … eventually. Benji seemed to have cured that for her, though. Most nights she was definitely exhausted by the time she actually had the chance to lay down and try to get a few hours sleep.

She wasn't sure how long Jack might've been asleep. It had felt like he'd left the dining room table – leaving her to study alone – hours ago. But seeing as his movie was still playing, it mustn't have been that long. Though, she supposed he could be on his second movie. Enough time had passed, though, that she'd decided that enough was enough with her studying. At that point, she just really wanted the exam date to get there and for it to be over with. She really didn't want to spend another week stressing about it and studying – or rather, trying to find the time to study and stressing that she wasn't finding nearly enough.

Maybe Jack was right – she had been a good tester and a good studier, a quarter century ago. Now it didn't seem quite as easy or like a very good use of her time – even though she knew the ultimate outcome, if she got the promotion, would be. She'd just much rather be spending time with the boys – or at that point, sleeping – than pouring over books, documents and sample test questions.

She walked over to the couch and grabbed the afghan off the back of it. Jack never seemed to claim the blanket on his own and always seemed to be a perpetual state of cold that he refused to do anything about. So she shook it out to unfold it and leaned forward slightly to lay it across him but the teen startled awake and looked at her with wild eyes, jumping and backing himself up on the couch a bit. She could almost feel his heart pounding out of his chest.

"Hey, it's OK," she tried to sooth through the dark room. She wished she'd turned the light on. Only what was being cast from the TV was available to give his sleep-numbed mind any indication where he was and who was standing above him. "It's just me."

It must've clicked and he settled a bit. She could see some of the tension in his body relax and he let himself lower back into the cushions from how he'd jerked himself upwards. He mumbled something at her that she couldn't make out and she saw his head lull towards the TV, checking on the plot of his movie.

It looked like one of the Bourne movies to her. She had no idea which one but Matt Damon was on the screen – and it seemed like an appropriate choice. Jack's main requirements in movies seemed to be guns going off and shit blowing up. She was sure that movie choice would've met the qualifications. Though, she wasn't sure how anyone would sleep through that, whether because of the action or just the noise of the special effects. But he did have the volume turned down low.

Olivia settled the rest of the blanket on top of him and he made no comment. His one arm came above it, though, and tucked it in around his side. She again resisted the urge to roll her eyes. He could've pulled it down from the back of the couch ages ago and adjusted it around himself – but he'd basically waited to get tucked-in in a way not too dissimilar from her Little Fox.

"I'm headed to bed," she informed him. "Maybe you should too. It's late."

His head had again lulled against the padded armrest, no longer looking at the television. Apparently the movie wasn't holding his attention even now. With the dancing light from the screen, she could just barely see that he'd closed his eyes again. He'd likely just continue to sleep on the couch – rather than mustering all the effort it would take for him to walk the few feet to the boys' bedroom, strip down to his underwear (if he even bothered to do that – he seemed to sleep in his clothes a lot too) and to fall into bed. So Olivia reached for the remote and clicked off the squawking box. He didn't protest – apparently the background noise and light weren't the sole reasons Jack slept in front of the TV and on the couch. If it wasn't that – she wasn't really sure why he did, other than just not knowing when his body was ready to sleep. But it was likely more due to years of not feeling like he had a safe place to sleep and forcing himself to stay awake while also being ready to jump up and get out of the way and out of sight, if he did let himself to drift off and the safety of his situation changed in those sleeping moments.

She'd started to retreat, leaving him be and not wanting to browbeat him into moving to his own bed. But he mumbled at her again. She glanced at him over her shoulder.

"I can't understand what you're saying, Jack," she admitted. She wasn't sure if he was just grouching at her for waking him up or if he was offering a 'good night' or if he was just making noise. But the repeated mumblings gave her enough reason to stop.

He rolled a bit, turning his body to face the back of the couch and curling his arm around his head. "I said, you're sort of right, you know," he said a bit more clearly, though softly and with an edge of annoyance.

"That you should go sleep in your bed? You should. Why don't you do that?"

He made another small noise and rolled his head against his arm again. "Not that," he muttered.

She sighed bit and rubbed at her eyebrow. She was tired. She eyes were hurting from staring at books under the dim light of the dining room. She'd already decided she needed to get something better in there. She couldn't believe that Jack did most of his schoolwork in there while he was at the apartment on weekends. It must be near impossible to manage some of it in that light.

"About what Jack?"

She saw some movement in his back that she suspected was a shrug. She looked at the ceiling. She really didn't want to play games with him. She knew it was pushing 2 a.m. Benji could be up in as little as three hours and raring to go.

"That Greg was rough with me," he offered quietly, though, in the blanket of dark – his back still to her and his movements still.

She watched him for a moment. Some guilt washed over her for considering having walked away from the conversation all together because she really just wanted to sleep. But she wouldn't walk away from him now. She knew that opportunities to talk Jack often seemed few-and-far between and she really had to catch him when there was some sort of crack in his walls. Maybe their conversation earlier that night had cracked them? Or maybe the Bourne Identity? Or maybe she'd startled him awake from some dream or run-away train of thought that had been plaguing him all evening? Either way – he'd given her an opening and she had to take her chance to ram her foot in that door to try to keep it open.

"That he abused you," she suggested.

"Whatever you want to call it," he mumbled again and then let a silence rest between him for several beats. "I don't ever have to go back there, right? To the farm?"

She shook her head and moved back to the couch, the teen rolling over a bit to look at her and then moving his feet to make space for her on his side of the sectional. She really didn't know why she'd felt they even needed a sectional. She thought it would give them all more room. But Benji was always on top of her on the couch. And if she was already sitting on the couch and Jack joined her, unless she was stretched out, he'd sit on her side too. Neither of the boys liked sitting alone. If she claimed her own space it'd only be a matter of time before Benji was sprawled on top of her.

"Not if you don't want to, Jack," she told him as she took a seat.

His feet immediately rammed against her thigh as she settled. As usual they were freezing and as usual she rearranged the blanket to cover them and gave them a small rub for warmth and then let her hand stay there.

Jack didn't seek out physical affections or reassurances from her. She knew that was normal. She wouldn't expect many 19-year-old boys to be looking for hugs from Mom or anyone else beyond some girl who's pants they were trying to get into. But she also thought Jack needed hugs a bit more than most 19-year-olds. And he likely needed hugs from an adult woman more than most young man too – he had a lifetime to make up for there. Olivia had to admit from her perspective there was something nice about getting a hug from Jack too – the few times she'd forced it on him when he'd needed it, or she had. He usually just stood there, overly stiff and clearly not sure what he should do or where he should put his arms. But as awkward as they were, they still felt nice. It was different than getting the hugs and cuddles from her Little Fox, who so frequently sought them out on his own and who she didn't think twice about wrapping her arms around. But there was something nice about hugging her older boy too – especially now that he didn't immediately pull away. Maybe it was just how much she knew he needed them and she knew what that feeling was like.

Most of the time, though, all Jack wanted to do was jam his cold, clammy feet against her. So she'd stopped jumping away at the freeze-factor and she didn't tell him it was gross to be putting his feet on her. It was what he was comfortable with. It was his way of seeking some physical affection and comfort – and if that's what he needed and could handle for the moment, she'd just go with the flow.

"Jamin's not going to have to either, right?"

She shook her head and patted his feet again. "No, Jack. That's the whole reason we're going through all this, right? To make sure he has somewhere safe to grow up?"

She could make out his shrug better that time – seeing the movement and feeling the slight shift in his weight on the couch.

"How come the lawyer keeps asking questions about Greg and the farm then?"

She sighed at that. She'd managed to drag Jack near kicking-and-screaming into Ellis' office twice now. The most recent had been earlier in the week. Jack wasn't being overly helpful. He wasn't being as stand-off-ish as he had been at their initial meeting – and certainly not nearly as rude as he had been with Mark. But he just didn't seem like he had much to offer to the conversation. He'd given Ellis some information that aided in their paperwork and the paperwork hunt. But generally he sat there and said, 'yes', 'no', 'I don't know'. Bayard was getting frustrated with him and he'd expressed as much to her. They needed more clarity from him to decide how Ellis was really going to structure their case – and how he was going to have to approach that.

"Bayard is just … trying to understand what you guys went through so we can be ready in court, Jack."

"Why does it matter?" he grumbled. "I thought I just had to sign a piece of paper and Jamin's yours."

She let out a breath. Something about it stung when he described it that way – like she'd twisted his arm and was now holding his hand, pen clutched in white-knuckles, and forcing him to sign off on their alleged agreement.

"His questions aren't really about Benji, Jack," she tried to explain to him again. "It's about you."

"Why does that matter?"

"Jack – it matters a lot. To me. And I think it should to you too. I'd like to legally give you a place in this family and all the rights and benefits of that. The security. The safety net."

He settled onto his back more and she could see the whites of his eyes gazing at her. "But why does he need to know what happened?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "Because it will help us all decide if putting you through for extended guardianship or adult adoption makes more sense, Jack. It helps us figure out which option he can build a case for – collect the paperwork for."

"That doesn't make any sense," he mumbled. "I don't get why he needs to know any of it. Why we need to tell the judge any of it. Why can't I just sign the papers for you to take care of Benji and then I sign to say I'm OK with you being whatever for me."

She gave him a small smile, though she was sure he likely couldn't see it in the dark. Apparently they were settling on a 'whatever' status for her and him. She really didn't like that either. They both knew their relationship had evolved into more than that. But until Jack was ready to say directly to her that she was acting as a mother for him – or at least a mother-figure, she supposed 'whatever' would do.

"OK …" she sighed a little and tried to organize her thoughts on that. Bayard had been trying to explain it to him repeatedly but Jack either wasn't listening or he wasn't getting it. She wasn't sure which. "Well … there's different rights and privileges you'd have in the family in extended guardianship versus adult adoption, Jack. And there's different paperwork involved in each – different things have to be proven to the court."

"I know that," he grumbled. "I just don't get why he can't just pick one and do it. I'll sign whatever."

There was that word again. "Bayard isn't going to pick one for you, Jack. It's your decision – and it's a decision you need to make."

"Adoption as an adult is for retards," he said. "And if I have to go to the farm or see Greg – then I don't want to do that one."

She looked at him and put her hand back where his feet were still resting against her. "Jack, it's not for 'retards'. It's for situations like this – and even though adult adoption might be emotionally harder for you, it might make more sense, sweetheart."

"So then that's what you want?"

She wasn't sure if it was a question or an accusation.

"Jack … for this … it's not about what I want. It's about what you want."

"Well, I don't even understand the difference – beyond him asking stupid amounts of questions about Greg and the farm that are none of his fucking business."

She sighed. "He's our lawyer, Jack. It is his business and he's really just trying to help all of us."

Jack didn't respond and she found herself looking at the wall for a moment. Sometimes she didn't know what to say to him or how to deal with him. Sometimes she didn't have a clue what he wanted from her. But she didn't get the sense that he knew half the time either.

"OK … extended guardianship, Jack … it only goes up until your 21st birthday. It gives you some rights and protections in the system. It will provide you with some resources to help you get on your feet and be an adult on your own. It gives me some abilities to help you until you're 21 – after that, legally I won't have those same abilities whether either of us want them. You understand that?"

"Yeah," she got in reply.

"Is that the route you're leaning towards?"

"Well that's what Mark was doing and that's what the judge gave you for three months – so why don't we just do that. It's easier."

She nodded. "The judge only gave it to us for three months because our paperwork wasn't in order, Jack. It wasn't clear if you met all the qualifications to have extended guardianship granted. One of the big ones is that you have to have had a legal guardian previously. I don't know what they were doing up there … but there's … they're paperwork isn't in order, Jack. Bayard is having a lot of trouble gathering information and the files and the information he needs for our paperwork and to put together the supporting documentation for our case."

"Well, I had a guardian," Jack said.

"Who was it?" she put at him pointedly.

"I don't know. I guess Greg," he said.

Olivia shook her head. "If that's true – Bayard doesn't have documentation of that yet. Do you know if anyone went to court or saw a judge on your behalf? Did you go? Do you remember that?"

"The lawyer has already asked that," he put back to her.

She sighed. "OK … well, without the paperwork, we have to assume that it was a presumed guardianship – your natural guardian – and that might not have been your uncle. How old was your sister when your dad died?"

She felt Jack stir again and again stilled his feet against her – trying to calm him.

"Eighteen, I guess."

"So … there's a possibility if might've been Izzy," she said flatly.

Jack snorted. "She wasn't my guardian."

"She might've been legally. The other option is your grandmother."

"She was losing her mind," Jack spat at that. "Whatever was left went away after Dad died. She wasn't a guardian either."

"But the man who beat you was?" she put at him. His definition of what qualified someone to be a guardian didn't seem to fit the rule of the law – which hadn't really seemed to benefit him or be defined very well anyways. But Jack just fell quiet. "Who has control of your trust?"

"The bank," Jack said.

She gave him a small smile again. "Someone's name would've been assigned to it as overseeing it for you. You think that was Greg?"

"No. Likely grandma. I don't know. That doesn't make sense. Dad would've known she was losing her mind and known they were suppose to die before him. I don't know. Greg. Maybe."

"Well – it's Greg now," she allowed. That much they knew. But it was unclear if he'd assumed responsibilities because of his mother's declining health in a power of attorney move.

"Why does that matter?"

"Because if we can't establish guardianship then we should go the adult adoption route," she put at him.

"I don't even understand the difference. So whatever."

Again with that word.

"It's not whatever, Jack," she said a little annoyed. "It's a big decision for both of us."

"And you don't want to be stuck with me for life," he said flatly. "Just Jamin."

She gave his foot a small tap. "No," she said sternly. "Because you have to cut ties with your biological family."

"Whatever. I already have."

"You give up your rights to any property or financial benefits connected to your family too, Jack. If Greg sold the farm, you wouldn't get any of it."

"I don't care …" Jack spat.

"OK. What about the trust your dad set up for you? Do you care about that?"

He fell quiet.

"Do you know how much is in the trust, Jack?" She felt him shrug. She wasn't sure if that meant he did or he didn't. But she did now. It was paperwork they did have – and it was enough to certainly help him get on his feet as he entered adulthood and the working world. But – really – even if it had only been a few thousand dollars, she likely would've fought to make sure he got that money. "Does your scholarship go beyond your undergrad, Jack? Is it going to get you through your masters and certification courses too?"

"No. But there's other scholarships I can apply to then."

She nodded. "OK. But I think knowing this money is there – to help you with those costs, and to help you when you're finding a job and getting an apartment and setting up your adult life, all of that – will be important. And, it's money your dad wanted you to have."

"So what? I can't have it or something?"

"It's ambiguous. Bayard is trying to make sure it is – if we go the adult adoption route. And, if special circumstances need to be proven Jack, we may need to talk about what happened on the farm, what happened with Greg and how various officials and bureaucracies failed you there. If your guys' paperwork slipped through, Jack, others' did too. It's not fair to anyone – and what you guys went through … it shouldn't have happened. You deserve compensation for that – or in the very least to get what your dad left for you."

"I don't want to see Greg and I don't want to go back to the farm," he said firmly.

She nodded. "OK … I think you should focus on what you ultimately want, though, Jack. And, if that's extended guardianship – that's fine. But you also need to make a decision then on if you want Bayard to keep putting together the paperwork for an adult adoption for if the extended guardianship doesn't go through – and if you're prepared to deal with all the realities that are, or may be, involved in getting you adopted."

"Why does it matter if my guardianship expires when I'm 21? I'm an adult anyways," he mumbled.

She always found a little funny when Jack argued he was an adult. He'd had to deal with some adult things in his life already. But he was still so young and so immature in so many ways. It was a glaring light on how grown-up she'd felt when she was his age – and how wrong she was. Though, she often dealt with young people and situations that provided her with those reminders. Still, Jack took it to a different level.

"It makes us legally a family, Jack. That doesn't expire at 21."

"Well it wouldn't anyways?" he asked. "Would it?"

She gripped his foot. "No, Jack. You're always going to have a place here and you're always going to be part of this family. But with adult adoption – in the eyes of the law you'll be part of the family."

"So what's that mean?"

"All sorts of things, Jack. Little things that may never come up or won't even matter for a very long time. But it just means … legally you'd be my son. That's what it boils down to. It's not a time expired condition. It just will … be."

He let out a sigh and fell quiet again and she let him mull on it for a while. It was clear he'd been thinking about it a lot lately and he was confused about which route made the most sense. There were really pluses and minuses to both options.

She wanted him to get go ahead with the adult adoption. She wanted him to have that kind of stability – the security and the belonging. She didn't want him always questioning what his place and role in the family was – and if it was really real. She wanted that confirmation and stability for Benji too – to know his uncle would always be there and was important to both of them. She even wanted it for herself – when she said she had two boys, which she felt like she was allowing more and more, she wanted it to be true. She thought she wanted it to be just as real as Jack did – but she couldn't make that decision for him. It had to be his decision that that was what he wanted too. She just hoped he wouldn't make his decision based solely on not wanting to talk about what he'd experienced. She didn't want him living his life that way. Greg was still hurting him if he did.

"What's making the decision hard for you?" she asked after letting him sit quietly for a few minutes.

He shrugged again. "I don't know."

"I think you do."

He made a sighing sound. "Forever is a long time."

She made her own little noise and smiled inwardly. "Well, when you sign that paper, Jack, technically, Benji will be with me forever."

"That's different," Jack said.

She nodded. He was right. It was different in a way – but it also wasn't.

"Things don't last forever anyways," he mumbled.

"It depends on how you define forever," she said. "We'll have a legal connection for the rest of our lives."

"Even that doesn't last," he said flatly.

She watched him through the dark again. He wouldn't be talking this much if the lights were on – if he thought she could actually see him and see the pain and confusion and the uncertainty she knew was playing across his face and hanging off his body.

"I'm not going anywhere, Jack," she assured him again. She tried to tell him that whenever the opportunity allowed. She knew telling him would never be enough. There was always going to be a part of him that wouldn't quite believe it. She'd have to prove it to him and that would be an never-ending mission that would take her to her grave – and she supposed her death would ultimately prove his point, not hers. She'd would have left him alone again – just like everyone else in his life. "I'm here for both of you in whatever way you need me. Now – and always, whatever happens."

"That's what you say now," he said quietly.

"Jack, I really can't come up with any scenario that would change that."

"What if I move out to the West Coast?" he suggested.

"Then you'll be doing what you're supposed to be doing – living your life. And you'll call and we'll Skype and you'll come home and visit whenever you can. And I'll be proud of you for pursuing your dreams and your career."

She could feel Jack examining her. "What if I did something stupid?"

She smiled inwardly again and gripped his one foot, giving it a little shake. "You think with extended guardianship you just have to restrain yourself from being stupid until you're 21?" she teased him.

"No," he mumbled a bit. "But what if I did something you didn't like?"

"Jack – I don't have to like you," she told him. "I love you."

That statement clearly didn't hold any meaning for him and he pressed, "But what if I did something stupid that you didn't like?"

She sighed. The way his toes were digging into her in that moment it almost made her want to start doing the Little Piggy rhyme. Benji thought that was hilarious but was so ticklish he'd usually spend most of it kicking and squirming away before pressing his feet back at her and demanding more. It usually made the piggy game last much longer than it needed to and he inevitably demanded it be played over and over again. It was like it was another thing he'd missed out on as a baby and toddler – his mother had never been fascinated with his little toes or the giggles he made when she wiggled them for him. Olivia sort of was – even though they weren't the tiny little digits of a baby. But she was sure if she teased Jack with that game right now – it would be the end of the conversation, now and forever.

"OK, Jack, I'm going to assume when you say stupid things that I don't like, you're asking if I'm going to disown you if you get in trouble with the law?" He gave no response. "Sweetheart, if you ever got in trouble, I want you to know you can – and you should – call me and that I will do everything in my power to help you get through it the best you can. The best we all could. I would likely be disappointed with you. I would probably be angry and a little sad – but I'd still care about you and want the best for you, and I would help you. I wouldn't leave you to handle the situation on your own and I wouldn't stop talking to you, visiting you, or loving you."

"But you'd hate me," he stated with a certain defeat.

"I wouldn't hate you."

"Yes you would. You hate guys anyways."

She looked at him through the dark. She could tell he'd gone back to examining the back of the couch rather than her.

"What have I ever said or done to make you think I hate men?" she asked. She couldn't understand where that was coming from at all – though she seemed to hear it a lot lately in court. It made her angry there and it just hurt coming from Jack.

"Work with rapists."

"I don't 'work with rapists', Jack," she put back to him. "I investigate rape. I help victims and I arrest perpetrators. Me disliking them has nothing to do with the fact they are men. It has to do with them being rapists – and I've arrested a fair share of women over the years too. Rape isn't just a crime against women. Men can be raped too – by women. I dislike the criminals I have to deal with at work because they have broken the law and have often done horrendous things to other people. It has nothing to do with their gender."

"You hate your dad," he said.

"I hate what my father did to my mother," she corrected. It was deeper and more complicated than that – but that seemed like an entirely different conversation.

"So then you'd hate me if I did something really bad?"

She examined him a bit more at that. He was starting to concern her. "Have you done something really bad, Jack?"

"No," he said flatly.

"You could talk to me about it if you did. We'd get it sorted out."

"I haven't," he said a little annoyed.

"OK …" she nodded. "Then just know … that my love for you, my caring about you, my helping you … all of it, Jack. It's unconditional."

"That's not true," he said quietly. "Everything is conditional. Nothing's free."

"I didn't say free, Jack," she stressed. "This isn't free. It's a lot of hard work for all of us. I know that. But how I feel about you – doesn't have caveats. It's unconditional. It's not going away. It's not going to either."

Olivia wasn't sure she had really understood what unconditional love was before the boys had arrived in her life. She likely thought she had. It was a concept she heard tossed around long enough. But she'd never really felt it from her mother at all. Sometimes she still wasn't even sure if her mother actually had been able to love her – let alone love her unconditionally. And the love of any men she'd had in her life had certainly been conditional – no matter how lovable she tried to make herself. She wasn't really sure she'd truly loved a man before anyways at this point. She'd been in love – but to love someone and be loved back? That was different and it had really taken the two boys arriving on her doorstep for her to really get a grip on that, to truly understand it, and to finally get to feel what loving and being loved actually felt like.

She was still surprised at how quickly the maternal instinct just kicked in with Benji. He needed to be cared for. He needed to be mothered. He was a little creature. Not a baby but still so babyish. Some of it really was just instinct. Sometimes she really didn't know what she was doing but some part of her seemed to know what she should be doing and she just did it. It hadn't taken long then for the rest of it to just set in. For the love to grow and for the sudden realization one night that with her Little Fox there wasn't any ifs, ands, or buts about it. It was unconditionally there. There wasn't anything she could do about it to protect herself from it and that whatever happened – that feeling was going to be there with her the rest of her life. If he was taken from her – a piece of her would be taken and there'd be a hole in her heart that would always be looking for him, pining for him and worrying about him. He'd carved out a space for himself in her life in more ways than one – heart, soul, body and home.

It'd taken longer with Jack. There was so much resistance from him every step of the way. There still was – though he did allow them to have moments like this now to at least let himself explore what he was feeling. But his confusion about it and his disbelief in it all was still palpable.

Olivia understood where he was coming from. She really did – more than he was able to accept. It'd taken longer for her to get close enough to him to be able to love him. When it did click, though, it was just as real and just as permanent as what she felt for Benji. She couldn't imagine now having Jack vacate her life either. It would hurt just as much.

She wasn't sure that Jack would ever understand that, though. It wouldn't matter how much she tried to explain it to him or describe it to him or assure him that unconditional love did exist. His mother had betrayed that trust in him – that understanding, that acceptance, that belief. Other members of his family had only compounded it for him – hurting him more when they should've been the ones taking up the flag for him and ensuring he did know that he was loved and cared for. So she really didn't think he'd truly understand – not until he had a child of his own and it clicked for him, just like it had clicked for her. So she forgave him for his inability to grasp the concept – his inability to believe it – for now. She had been him not that long ago.

"You don't know that. It went away for my mom …" he said.

She sighed and strained her eyes more to try to better make out his face in the dark. It wouldn't have mattered, though, he was hiding his face – an arm draped across his eyes.

"Jack, I don't know if it went away for your mom. I can just agree with you that she went away – and that was wrong and it was hurtful and it's had very real implications on your life. I'm never going to be able to tell you why she went away. Unless you find her – you'll probably never know. At this point she might not even know. But I can tell you that no matter what you think, that decision had to do with her – not you. And, it's something she has to live with the rest of her life."

"She likely doesn't care," he mumbled like he had marbles in his mouth, betraying why he had his arm across his face. He was teary.

"Maybe she doesn't," Olivia allowed. "But I care, Jack – and I'm sticking with you. I'm proud of you – and I love you."

"You don't even like me, how can you love me?" he demanded with a squeak.

She let out a breath. "That's not the way I meant it, Jack. You know I like you. I just meant … sometimes you're going to say or do things I don't like. You're going to annoy me. Make me angry or sad. You'll disappoint me. Benji does and will too. But that's not going to change that I love you – both of you. Parenting is about supporting you and offering you guidance and advice. Caring about you, loving you – and doing my best to get you both to adulthood in one piece. We're all going to have days where we don't like each other very much – but we can still love each other, Jack."

She let him lay quietly for a few minutes. She could hear the catch in his breathing and knew he was trying to control himself and regain his composure. She didn't call him out on it and just gave him the time he needed, gripping at his one foot quietly and staring at the wall ahead of her.

He was overtired and he was under a lot of stress from all angles. Recovering from his surgery, trying to catch up with his schoolwork while still trying to maintain his scholarship, the questions from Ellis and their whole legal situation and the adoption, his work schedule and his suspicion that he didn't get the camp internship and not knowing what he'd do in the summer beyond work for Gecko which he seemed to think wasn't good enough at that point in his university career. He was just a bundle of nerves – and she knew that he didn't handle that well and she worried about him when he felt under that much pressure. She worried about what it did to him mentally and emotionally and what it might trigger in him. People could only handle so much and Jack's resources were thin as it was.

"Jack, I don't think you should make your decision based on your mom or on not wanting to talk about your uncle," she told him after a while. "I think you should really think about what it is that you want and what would be best for you in the long run – and, I think that might be adoption."

"I don't want to talk about Greg or the farm," he nearly sobbed out.

She gave his foot a squeeze. "I know you don't. But I think talking about it might help, Jack. It's part of the healing process. Not talking about it clearly isn't working for you."

She'd known that for a long time. But now with how upset he was at two in the morning – it was even clearer. He was nearing a tailspin – and she didn't want that for him.

"You can talk to me about it," she offered. "We can do a trial run so I can help you talk through some of the relevant information with Bayard."

She felt him shake his head hard at that. She didn't know how to get him to accept that he needed to talk to someone. If not for the sake of the adoption process – for his own personal well-being. And, if it wasn't going to be her – a counselor. But she knew too it had taken her a long time to accept that herself. Really she had only bitten the bullet and gotten some help about her own upbringing while she was in the process of on-boarding with the NYPD. And other counseling she'd received had been nearly forced on her because of the job – and even when she'd voluntarily sought it on her own, it had taken things getting pretty bad before she accepted that she wasn't going to be able to deal with it on her own.

Olivia wasn't sure how much therapy had helped her. But at least it had gotten some of it out there – and dealing with that was a rather big part of the battle, she'd found. Airing out the dirty laundry, accepting it had happened and trying to figure out a way to move on. She wasn't really sure she'd gotten too far into step two. Maybe she hadn't accepted it had happened – but she had definitely acknowledged it. And, she supposed she'd found someway to move on. It depended on how you defined move on.

"OK … just know … you can talk to me about it, sweetheart. Whenever you want. Whenever you're ready."

"I don't understand what anyone wants to know. He was rough. What else matters? Why isn't that enough?"

"Jack, we both know he was more than rough."

He sighed heavily. "What does that even make me to Jamin? Adoption?" he asked softly. She could see him rubbing his arm across his eyes at that point and it lowered slightly.

She shrugged. "I don't think your decision should be based on that either. But you're always going to be his uncle, sweetheart. Adoption might technically make you his brother too. We'll just figure that out. We can have our own definitions. That's not the important part. Establishing ourselves as a family is the important part."

He fell quiet again and Olivia again gave him the time to reflect on that.

"Do you think my dad knew you became a cop?" he asked after a silence.

She shrugged. "I don't know, Jack. You'd probably know better than me. I'd assume your dad knew me well enough to know that I usually did the things I said I was going to do. You said he told you I was in New York."

"He was likely just guessing," Jack muttered. "Or telling stories."

She shook his foot. "Well that part wasn't a story. It was fact."

He shrugged. "Yeah. I guess." He then became quiet again. "I've been thinking maybe Dad kept that photo and told stories because he wanted us to have someone to look up to and know that not all women sucked – even when they dumped him."

She snorted at that and looked at him. He seemed serious, so she shrugged. "Maybe. Or maybe he just liked telling stories about college."

"You seem to know a lot more about not sucking than our mom did."

She did let out a small snort at that and gave his foot another little shake. "I'll take that as a compliment."

"You do, though," Jack almost protested. "You know how to be a parent, a mom."

She smiled. "I don't know about that. But a big part of parenting really just is being there."

"You're that," he muttered. "You're always doing stuff with Jamin, though. Mom stuff."

She smiled again inwardly at that through the dark. It sounded like her Little Fox again and their discussions on what mommies did. Apparently Jack had a similar list of roles and responsibilities. That actually didn't surprise her. She'd grown-up making her own list about what good mothers did, what a father would do, what having a family would be like.

"Well, I'm trying," she provided.

"He likes what you guys do," Jack mumbled. "That stupid library thing."

She snorted at him and gave his big toe a pull. "He likes that 'stupid library thing'," she informed him sternly.

"I know! And it's dumb. How is it any different than school? It's like taking him to school on the weekend – and he likes it. He's dumb."

"Hey," she said and slapped the top of his foot. "He's not dumb. And he likes it because he loves being read to and he loves getting to feel things. He's very tactile, Jack. That's why he likes the crafts and Play-Doh and his blocks. It's why he's putting things in his mouth all the time and is willing to try new foods – and complains about things being slimy."

"Because he's retarded."

She slapped his foot again. "I don't like that word."

"It's still like going to school – on a Sunday," he pressed.

She shrugged. "It's something to do – and he does have catching up to do in terms of his learning and his social interactions. So going to circle time on a Sunday isn't doing him any harm."

"Don't you get sick of having to go? And read him the stupid books over and over?"

She smiled. "That's why I let him pick a week's worth of books. It gives some variety and it means they go back after the week. Same with the movie. I only have to endure it for a week."

"Until he picks the same books and the same movie again," Jack added with an annoyed tone. He'd had to read some of Benji's favorites over and over too – especially with the slow growing collection they had at home in addition to his library selections. And, Olivia, had to admit that she'd gone out and bought some of his rotational favorites so they could have copies at home. She didn't really care about reading them over and over again – though she did already have some of them memorized word-for-word. She was more interested in Jack's comments, though, than his take on Benji's choices.

"You're jealous of that time I spend with him," she put forward as more of a statement than a question.

Jack snorted. "No, I'm not. I don't want to go to some library story-time thing for preschoolers. I have gone. It's not my thing."

"I didn't say you were jealous of circle time," Olivia corrected. "You're jealous that Benji and I have special time - just the two of us on Sunday."

"It's just the two of you all week," Jack said flatly.

Olivia shrugged. "Yeah. But I'm at work. He's at daycare. You're at school. Weekends are different – and I make sure to spend time with him every Sunday morning and you don't get that time."

Jack shrugged. "Whatever," he mumbled.

"You know, we could schedule some special time for just us to spend some time together too," she offered.

Jack snorted. "No way. It's weird to hang out alone together."

She stilled his feet again. "No it's not, Jack. It's time for us to talk alone and to get to know each other better. To just share time together."

"That makes it sound like a date."

She snorted at him and batted his foot again. "It sort of is – but that's not what people think when they see us alone together, Jack, if that's what you're implying again. They see a mother and a son. That's all."

"No they don't," Jack said with the tiniest bit of noticeable regret in his voice. "That's what they think with you and Jamin. Not me."

She shook her head at him. "That's not true. I'm well aware that I'm old enough to have a son your age. And, Jack, we have lot more similar appearances than Benji and I."

"No we don't," he protested.

"We both have brown hair and eyes," she filled in for him.

"Your hair is way darker than mine and my eyes are hazel not whatever color yours are," he said, like he hadn't noticed before despite months of looking at her.

"OK … well, I've had people assume you're my son, refer to you as me son, ask if you're my son. So I'm fairly certain that's what most people see when we're out together."

She could feel him gazing at her and let him think about that again for a moment.

"But what would we do?" he asked after a while.

She shrugged. "Whatever you want. We could go to dinner. A walk. A movie that isn't an animated kids' movie. One of the museums you've been wanting to go to."

"The Guggenheim?" he suggested. He'd been expressing for a while that he thought they three of them should do that on a Saturday but she'd deflected him, thinking that Benji in tow wouldn't make a very enjoyable visit for Jack. It was far easier to go to the park, playground, Y or to just run errands on a Saturday than it was to organize anything that would likely be more exciting for all of them. There often seemed to be too much of an age gap for her to facilitate something that wasn't boring one of them.

She nodded. "We could go there."

"But what about Benji?"

"Depends on what day we do it. If it's a weeknight I could just leave him in the daycare's extended care for a couple extra hours. Or I could ask Alex or Nick to watch him."

"He doesn't like being alone," Jack said flatly like this idea wouldn't possibly work.

"He wouldn't be alone. He loves the extended care playroom, Jack. Alex is good with him and I like him having the opportunity to play with Nick's little girl. He'd be fine."

She could feel him fidgeting while he thought about that some more.

"But when would we do this?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow. "Whenever. I know you like your schedules …"

"What's that mean?" he demanded a bit more harshly.

She gave his foot a squeeze again to try to calm him. "That you're like Benji. You two are more similar than you know. You both like your little routines and schedules, Jack. You like to know where you're going to be, what's going to be going on, who's going to be there, what you'll be doing."

She wanted to tell him that that was very normal in abused children and really anyone who had been through any sort of trauma. They wanted certainty. They wanted protection. They wanted to control as much in their life as possible. She couldn't say she blamed them. And she wanted to provide that stability and certainty to both Benji and Jack.

"We could do the third Friday every month or something?" she suggested.

"No," Jack replied. "People go out as couples and to party and stuff on Friday."

She shrugged. He had a point. Not that he ever did that that she'd be disrupting some sort of plans – nor did she plan to have him out all hours of the night. She'd likely be aiming to be home by the time most young people would actually be going out.

"It doesn't have to be Friday," she said. "It could be a Tuesday night. You pick."

"I have to work and study," he said like he'd again decided to reject the idea.

"Jack, there's more to life than work and studying. I wasted too much of my life working – trust me. I missed lots. I'm playing catch-up now. Don't make that same mistake."

He sighed and lay there quietly again.

"We could start something like letting you pick a family activity on a Saturday once a month too," she tried.

"Like the three of us?"

"Yeah," she nodded. "So you could pick what you wanted. But you'd have to be conscious of Benji being there. So, if you picked something like the Guggenheim, you'd have to be aware that he's going to get bored sooner than you – and there'd likely be a point where me and Benji would go look at something else or see if there's a children's room or something until you're ready to go. Or if you picked a movie, you'd have to pick something that would be appropriate for a four-year-old to see too."

"Like the James Franco Oz thing?" he suggested.

"Like Escape from Planet Earth," she corrected.

He sighed.

"There's a skateboarding exhibit at the Hall of Science right now," Olivia said. "That's likely something we could all enjoy."

"How do you know about that?"

She shook his foot again. "I don't know. Is it a state secret? The advertising is all over the place, sweetheart."

"You wouldn't like a skateboarding exhibit," Jack said.

"Sure I would. I like spending time with you and Benji – it doesn't matter what it is. I just like us getting to time together."

Jack was quiet for a moment. "OK. But not tomorrow. You're supposed to be studying."

She snorted. She was sure now she'd be getting a lot of that done – with no sleep and a morning of Benji at the library. She'd have to just hope she knew her stuff well enough that ultimately it'd work out in the end.


	171. Chapter 171

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Munch glanced at her as she entered the squad room. She gave him a funny look.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"I work here," he said. "What are you doing here? Cragen said you were off demonstrating your abilities to do physical tasks that no supervisory officer would ever contemplate doing. Leaving the comfort of the desk? I think not."

She snorted and shook her head at him. She missed having John around the squad room. His take on nearly everything dripped with sarcasm. It always had but lately it seemed to be there more often than not. There was a jadedness to it. It made her wonder how much longer he'd last on the job. Sometimes she thought that John was more likely to swallow his gun than he ever was to retire. She knew he had outside interests but she still wasn't sure he'd know what to do with himself when they pried the badge out of his hands and sent him to pasture.

"Thing didn't last as long as I thought it would," she muttered at him, and shucked off her coat and worked at putting away her purse in her locked desk drawer.

Not nearly as many people as she might've expected showed up for the physical testing date. It had meant that she didn't have to wait around too long to go through the various stations and to go out on the Job Standards courses with a wave of candidates. She wasn't sure if the small number of them who'd apparently elected to try to garner the extra points was a good sign or bad sign for her. Beyond some small talk while waiting around to do the testing, there really wasn't any way to tell who was testing for sergeant, lieutenant or captain either. Some of them she could tell just be looking at them – recognizing them from having seen their name on the promotion list or knowing what rank they already had, others she generally gauged their age and guessed what level they'd be at in the NYPD hierarchy by that stage in their career. A lot of the ones who had opted to go through the testing and run the course were rather peak physical condition – and had likely gone into it knowing that they'd be able to earn the maximum tally to their final score. She knew that with most of the people taking the promotion exams, though, they'd be in their late-30s to 40s too – and likely have let some of their physical fitness and lifestyle habits slip just like her. It was hard to keep up a fitness routine and a normal diet when you were married to the job, worked shifts and long hours and what you saw and did slowly wore you down over the years. There'd be lots of candidates who just didn't want to embarrass themselves out on the course – especially if they hadn't done it since the academy or vied for the physical fitness incentive bonus over the years. They would've decided they'd just study harder and be able to beat out the rest of the testers on the written part of the exam. Olivia, though, was after all the points she could get – so she'd set aside any misgivings about how she might do in the fitness test and just did it.

"Does that mean you aren't a real Calamity Jane anymore?"

She snorted at him. If anything the trigger pull was the section of the test that had been the easiest for her and she knew with a certainty that she'd done well on. She felt that the pursuit and subduing a suspect had gone reasonably well too and that she'd managed on restraint test. She hadn't been happy with her performance on the barrier surmount or the dragging the dummy on the victim rescue. And she'd just come away feeling old and out-of-shape after the stair climb and timed mile run. But she'd gone into the whole thing knowing that there were going to be some areas that she was better at than others. And, she tried to remind herself that if anything, having the boys in her life were getting her back into a better nutritional routine and definitely getting her more active. If she concentrated on those efforts – there would be positive outcomes. Maybe she'd make a point to go for the fitness incentive bonus just to prove she could do better than she did that day. But in the very least, she knew she'd come away with some partial points to add to her score. She definitely hadn't maxed out the fitness score – but she hadn't failed either.

"It went fine," was all she allowed to Munch, though. Leaving out the rest of it – and not providing that she already was feeling a little sore from the morning of activity.

"I don't know why you put yourself through that," John commented. "It's like high school gym class with all the jocks on some sort roid rage rampage."

She shook her head at him again. John clearly had issues about his teenaged years – anything that involved physical fitness he seemed to mention that he'd been a pencil in high school that the bullies had wanted to break in half. She wasn't really sure his appearance had improved much since then. But, she also knew that John's definition of a pursuit run was a rapid walk to the squad car and following the rest of them down the street – hopefully cutting off the suspect in the process.

"No all of us can pass the promotion test on a bar bet without even studying, John. I wanted to get the extra points."

"See the trick is to not think or express any of your opinions on the test," he informed her. "Just completely regurgitate the training manual and give no hint at what your morals or actual supervisory style maybe. Definitely don't demonstrate leadership. That's a no-no."

She did roll her eyes at that one. "Thanks for the help."

"I need you to pass this test too. I always liked a woman on top and you being lieutenant means I'm not the one who's going to have to be dealing with you yahoos the next time Cragen decides to take a fishing trip or get embroiled in a career-defining scandal."

"John …" she sighed.

"What?" he demanded innocently.

He could be such an ass sometimes. But she decided to ignore it. Sometimes engaging with his commentaries was just asking for trouble. She glanced at the captain's closed door instead.

"Everyone in there?" she asked.

John shrugged. "I assume so."

"Your detective instincts didn't make you want to go and check it out?"

"Closed door discussions and usually the kind I want to avoid," he said and tapped at a pile of paperwork sitting on his desk corner. "I've got enough to do."

She snorted at him again. He was a real team player lately. He actually seemed far more interested working on the cold cases he'd been assigned to plowing through than he did Special Victims anymore. But she supposed it gave him something to do on nights until a call came in – and him working nights meant that usually the rest of them didn't have to. So she couldn't complain too much.

"Well, I'm not here yet," she informed him, sagging her eyes and starting to walk back out of the squad. "As far as the captain knows – I'm out 'til one."

"So what? You're just going to take an extended coffee break and go shoot the shit with someone else?"

She smiled and pointed at the ceiling. "I'm going upstairs. The daycare is having a lunch thing."

"What? And they aren't sharing with the whole class?"

"Tell you what – you maintain a plausible denial on whether I'm here or not, and not only will I maybe let you keep working nights the first time I go white shirt, I might even bring you back a doggie bag."

"A doggie bag from Bingo. Appropriate," John said and turned back to his desk, apparently ignoring he'd even seen her.

Olivia just shook her head. She'd take it for what it was worth and ignore the rest of the Munch-isms.


	172. Chapter 172

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia smiled as she got into the classroom room at the daycare and spotted her Little Fox. As usual he was sitting near the back of the group of children – looking a little lonely but still so engaged in the activities that were being lead by several of the teachers and caretakers at the center. It looked like most of the children had had some adult come out for the community lunch – marking the end of one of their themed education series that they did with the kids. It made Olivia feel a little bad that she was running late – but at least she'd gotten there at all. With the fitness test scheduled the same day, she hadn't been sure how long it would take and if she'd even manage to get up to Benji's event at all. She'd felt guilty about that – missing two community lunches in a row since he'd been there. First Valentine's and now this. But she had gotten there. That was the important part. And, Benji didn't look too much worse for the wear.

Her little boy had been so excited about he Teddy Bear Picnic the preschool was hosting to wrap up their education unit. It had seemed like near everything he'd been bringing home for the past several weeks had revolved around bears some how. From the letter of the day to their math activities with counting and sorting colored gummy bears to new little songs and ditties he felt the need to teach her. He was rather obsessed with having her recite Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear for him – so he could turn around, touch the ground, dance on his toes and touch his nose. They'd also been on a mission at the library to find about every book they'd read in class so she could re-read it to him at home. They'd gone through Goldie Locks and the Three Bears, multiple reiterations of Corduroy, Ten in the Bed and, of course, Teddy Bear Picnic. Benji had also become rather set on them re-reading some of the Winnie-the-Pooh stories from the collection she gave him at Christmas, putting together for himself that Winnie was a teddy bear too.

She crept quietly over to him, trying not to disrupt the class and sat down on the floor behind him. He didn't even notice at first, he was so engaged in the Bear Hunt repeating story game that the kids were following along with their teachers to. Benji was rather enthusiastically repeating, "Going on a bear hunt, gonna find a big one, I'm not afraid", making following along with the motions and making the silly sounds with each step as the class journeyed through fields, swamps, forests and caves in search of their grizzly. He looked a little ridiculous – but ridiculously cute. All the kids had little construction paper headbands on their heads – effectively giving them bear ears and around their necks were strung little toilet paper roll binoculars, brightly decorated with tape, stickers, paint and yarn. Periodically the children were bringing the cardboard devices up to their eyes and looking around the room very seriously for the bear. But she just smiled at him and gently tickled her fingers up his back, until he jumped a bit and turned around and smile breaking out across his face even more than it already was.

"MOMMY!" he shrieked, jumping up onto his knees and turning around even more.

She smiled more but tapped her finger against her lips and gave the leading teacher an apologetic look and quietly mouthed sorry. She was sure it wasn't the first time that a parent had arrived late and there'd been an activity interruption because of it – but she still didn't like to be the one causing it or to be drawing attention to herself and Benji. Though, none of the other parents there seemed to give much more than a passing glance at her arrival. She sort of liked that about the daycare. It really felt like everyone was in the same boat and it was far less of a rumor mill and gossip line than she might've expected.

Benji crawled into her lap and placed a sloppy little boy kiss against her cheek. He clearly hadn't anticipated her being there – but she hadn't told him she might be. She didn't want to make promises she might not be able to keep. She liked his reaction to her being there, though. He always had a way of making her feel like about the most important person in the world. She supposed in his little world, she really was. It was a lot of responsibility – not that she'd trade it.

Olivia returned the kiss with a small peck, wrapping her arms around him and then settling him onto her crossed legs and having him face the teacher again.

"Shh, Little Fox," she whispered into his ear. "I want to go on the rest of the bear hunt, you better help me."

"I show you, Mommy," he declared again far too loudly and looked up at her proudly with big eyes.

She gave him another smile but again tapped on her lips and then pointed at the teacher. The little boy looked at the woman in the front and then started to more confidently repeat each line of the story with the class, doing the associated motions and Olivia joined in. It was a little silly but everyone else was doing it too – and some of them looked sillier. Burly male detectives or patrol officers still in uniform swishing away grass, swimming through lakes, climbing trees and making fake binoculars with their hands to their eyes, all the while shaking their heads no that they weren't afraid of the bear.

As the bear hunt ended, the teacher started going around the circle of children, inviting them to each introduce their teddy bear and to say why it was special and what its favorite food was to eat. Olivia was pleased to see that not many of the stuffies that had been brought in for the picnic were actual teddy bears. She'd been a little concerned about that and wasn't sure if Benji would feel a little left out by not having a bear. She'd actually had wondered if they should go out and get him one to ensure he fit in but they'd eventually settled on him taking Flame. Not that that had been an easy decision for him. Benji had thought that he should take Heatwave, of course. She'd eventually managed to veto that idea, arguing that there was no way Heatwave was remotely close to being a teddy bear. That had taken some convincing since Heatwave was clearly far superior to a teddy bear. When Benji had finally relented it had been a bit of a toss up on if he was going to take his Mommy Fox stuffie or Flame. For a while he'd insisted on taking both and that had taken some convincing too. The daycare really didn't like the kids dragging in a load of their own playthings, even on special days like this.

When it was Benji's turn, he proudly held his toy in the air. "Dis is Flame," he declared rather confidently and proudly overly loudly, so Olivia gave his back a little rub.

It was interesting to watch him interacting in the class. He was definitely engaged but there was still that restless, nervous energy in him and had him fidgety and definitely not using an indoors voice. She could see that rubbing some teachers the wrong way. It definitely had at the previous daycare but she hadn't had any complaints about him yet there. She'd had some discussions with his teacher about areas of academic concern – that he needed some improvement on and that they suggested she work on with him prior to him starting kindergarten. But he hadn't been labeled as a problem student. If anything, the teachers repeatedly used the word 'enthusiastic' when they described him. Though they also acknowledged that when he was centered out he could be very shy and and when he was given free activity time he tended to gravitate towards independent play rather than joining in with other children.

"He special becuz he a dragon! NOT A BEAR!" Benji added even more forcibly despite her calming touches. "His fav-it food is pigs but he eat princesses lots AND DOLLS!" her little boy said and cast a look directly at a little girl who had brought her dolly with her. She gasped and clutched the baby girl to her tightly.

"Benji …" Olivia hissed in his ear. "That's not nice."

He just glanced up at her and gave her a squint eye that he clearly disagreed. So she instead looked at the father of the little girl and again mouthed an apology but he just shrugged. He had a small smile on his face. He clearly didn't think there'd been any foul behavior. Olivia imagined he had about the same take on princesses and dolls as Nick did – he'd rather be playing dragons and robots, not teacups and tiaras. Olivia wouldn't mind the chance to play some tea party and princess dress-up but she thought that dragons and robots were pretty good too. She somehow suspected a little girl would have just as many rules – if not more – about the proper way to play dolls as her little boy did about Transformers.

The teacher also didn't call him out on his comment – likely just giving him points for having completed the show-and-tell assignment, however inappropriate his response might've been. The class instead just finished going around the circle and then continued on with the rest of the pre-lunch programming, which apparently included a sing-along. Olivia could almost feel the rest of the adult attendees inwardly groan as the staff started up the music and began to lead a rendition of Teddy Bears Picnic.

If Olivia hadn't read the story to Benji previously she would've been completely lost. Most of the other parents seemed to be too - especially since the leading teacher's voice and the song on the little stereo was mostly being drowned out by the mumbled, garbled lyrics as sung by three- to five-year-old children. It was mostly incomprehensible – no matter how many times the kids may have practiced the song. But there was something endearing about it. The kids were so into it. She glanced around at the other parents in the room and most of them looked about as confused as she felt but were also looking around with wry smiles at the mangled song. At least she picked up on the line, "Today's the day the teddy bears have a picnic" – mostly because Benji was near screaming it out each time they reached it. His next favorite line seemed to be about the teddy bears playing and shouting – which he again was sure to shout out all while bouncing his boney little ass on top of her already sore legs from the fitness test.

The song had seemed rather never-ending but when it finally finished, the parents were charged with taking the kids to the sink to wash their hands before lunch and then escort them down the hallway to the community room that had been set up for picnic. Benji was restless having to wait in line outside the room as everyone took their turns apparently going through a bit of a buffet line to pick their picnic items.

"Why are we not going in?" he demanded of her, despite several other people still being in front of them and several more being behind them.

"Because we need to wait our turn, Benj," she said, keeping a firm grip on his hand as he fidgeted from foot-to-foot so restlessly she was starting to think he needed a bathroom break. "Do you need to pee?"

"No. I hungry," he protested.

"It will be our turn soon," she assured him. She was thinking he might've been happier if she hadn't been there for the feeding line. The kids who didn't have parents in attendance had been taken through and settled first. Benji would've been more than pleased to be inside stuffing his face by now.

As they got inside she lead him over to the long row of low tables that had been covered with red-and-white checkered tablecloths before the trays of themed food were put on them. It was a cute spread for a preschooler's lunch but even glancing down the supposed buffet she was fairly certain she'd be looking for something a bit more substantial later in the day for herself. She handed Benji a paper plate as they started down the line, stopping first at the little sandwiches that had been cut out in the shape of bears.

"What kind of sandwich do you want Little Fox?" she asked while he examined the choices with great interest. "There's … honey, jam, peanut butter, peanut butter and jam and peanut butter and honey," she said examining the little signs in front of the trays. Even the little place cards were decorated with little bears and bees. It made her wonder who on the staff got tasked with dealing with setting up the community days and if they were all this elaborate. It definitely made a special treat for the kids – and it made her want to be a bit more conscious about ensuring she could get up to them to spend the time with her little boy.

"Peanut honey," Benji informed her and she placed one of the bears on his plate, claiming the same for herself. At least she could pretend it was protein.

"OK … ants on a log with cream cheese or with peanut butter?" she asked, examining the craisins on the cream cheese and the raisins on the peanut butter.

"Both," Benji stated.

She looked at him. "I don't know, sweetheart. I'm not sure that peanut butter and cream cheese go together very well." She was actually wishing she'd taken a jam sandwich because cream cheese and celery seemed a lot more appealing to her than peanut butter.

"Both," Benji stated again. She wasn't going to fight with him about it, so she just put one of each on his plate and again did the same on hers. She figured he'd take one bite of the cream cheese before letting her claim it and she could trade him her peanut butter.

She added a skewer of various berries to his plate and then the little baggie that contained different kinds of Teddy Graham crackers and honeycomb cereal to finish off the meal.

"Mommy they polar bears, brown bears and grizzle bears," he told her as he examined the dessert.

She smiled. "I think you're right, Little Fox," she said, as she reached and grabbed a little carton of milk for him – not even giving him the choice of apple juice – and a bottle of water for herself.

She glanced around the room again as they got to the end of the line of food. The staff had put out blankets on the ground to simulate a picnic area. But they'd come through near the last third of the line and all of the blankets were already occupied with at least one parent-child pairing. She sort of had a high school moment where she was in the cafeteria and she wasn't quite sure where she was supposed to go and sit. She'd always kept to herself in high school and in some ways, she supposed that hadn't ever really changed. Benji didn't let her think about it too long, though. He started trotting in the direction of one of the blankets that already had two pairings sitting at it and dropped himself down like he was made of rubber to the floor. He didn't even give a greeting or ask any sort of permission to join the group. Just sat – so she did the same.

"Hi," she offered, though, as she lowered herself somewhat awkwardly with her plate and both their drinks to the ground. She definitely wasn't made of rubber and she seemed a bit more concerned about spilling her food all over the place than Benji did.

"Hi," a young mother who was still in a patrol uniform returned. She appeared to still be in her 20s and looked surprisingly tired. Olivia suspected she might've just gotten off of night shift before coming up to spend some time with her son. The other man in his suit and tie just gave her a nod. He was likely closer to her age but he didn't look that excited to be at the daycare function – maybe he had work he thought was more pressing going on downstairs.

"Olivia," she tried again with the introductions that she wasn't even entirely sure were necessary. What was the lunchtime protocol at a preschool gathering anyways? "This is Benji," she nodded in the direction her little boy who was working at biting off every extremity of his bear sandwich.

"I Benji," he declared with a full mouth.

She gave his shoulder a little pat. "Don't talk with your mouth full Benj," she corrected gently.

"Banji," the one little boy said, "real bears eat honey."

"And peanut butter," Benji added with a mouthful of sandwich again.

"No, jam's better," the little boy with the man added. "Then they bleed when you bite them."

"Don't say that," the man said as the little boy purposely – and almost violently – bit off the head of his sandwich.

Benji looked at him with some confused fascination as the boy oozed out the jam between the slices of bread and Olivia was suddenly glad that neither of them had picked jam – because that suggestion was making her lose her appetite. She dealt with enough blood and gore as it was.

Benji examined his plate, though. "My ants red," he stated of the craisins.

The little boy with the woman held up his ants on a log. "You eat 'em like dis," he informed them all and then rammed his tongue into the ridge and licked upward, sending a rather significant amount of cream cheese up his nose.

"Bryson," the woman sighed and grabbed her napkin to start trying to wipe up the white gunk that was all over her son's face and up his nostrils. Olivia smiled and looked down a bit, not wanting to laugh at the mess the other woman seemed slightly annoyed about. She was starting to get the impression that the real reason parents were invited to community lunches wasn't so much to socialize with the other parents and to spend time with their children – as it was to manage the disaster and clean up the kids' wake.

"He a B too," Benji informed her and picked up his own ants on a log and examined it.

She reached and stilled his hand. "I heard that. But let's not eat our ants on the log Bryson's way, please. I think crunching them is better."

The other woman glanced at her from still working on getting the little boy to blow the cream cheese out of his nose and gave her a small smile.

"Crunching them is way better," she agreed.


	173. Chapter 173

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Detective Benson?" a nervous voice asked and Olivia looked up to find a rather timid looking uni standing next to her desk.

She allowed a nod and managed to stop tapping on her keyboard for a moment. It was almost the end of the day on Friday. She was really aiming to get out of there right on time so she could get home and get some last minute cramming in before her exam. She didn't need any interruptions. "Can I help you?"

He wrung his hands a bit, twisting them around his patrol cap. He was acting nervous and she set her eyes on him a bit more directly trying to gauge what his problem was or what he'd been sent up to talk to her about. He didn't have a file in his hand to hand her and she couldn't even think of anything she had on the go that would've had a uni coming to her with information.

"Ah …" he stuttered a bit. "My partner's Teegan."

She ran that name through her head and tried to come up with how that was connected to any of her cases. She couldn't think of having dealt with anyone named Teegan recently – at a scene or otherwise.

"And?" she put back to him, wishing he'd just spit it out and be on his way. And also wondering why his commanding officer would've sent up someone so uncomfortable in their squad room or dealing with detectives. Sometimes when she was dealing with the uni kids anymore she just felt so old and tired and wondered why she was still there – how she'd been there that long, if she'd ever been that young and nervous and incompetent when she'd started out.

"Ah … you're Benji's mom?" he asked, giving her a funny look like she was the one who was making the conversation difficult. "From the daycare, right?"

She rubbed her eyebrow at that. Now she really wasn't sure where this was going and wasn't sure she wanted to know. She suspected that her little boy had licked someone – or worse, bit them. And the parent wasn't very happy. But why send your partner with that message?

"Yeah, I am," she said flatly. "What happened?"

"Oh," the guy fidgeted again. "Nothing. It's just … I think you ate lunch with Teegan and my son … Bryson … the other say."

Oh, that kind of partner, she thought. But she also thought the guy should probably know that that kind of language would cause confusion in their line of work. But she wasn't going to give him some sort of political correctness lesson on that.

"Umm, yeah, we did," she agreed.

"Ah …," the guy stuttered a bit more. "Teegan had mentioned that Bryson and Benji seemed to be getting along at lunch and he's like a name we've heard a couple times at home … and we were kind of wondering if maybe we could set up a playdate or something for the kids?"

She watched him at that. She almost felt confused. Was this how playdates work? The guy seemed almost so awkward about it you'd think he was asking her out on a date and he knew she was going to reject him before he gave got out of the gate. But even more confusing was that it was someone else who was asking for their child to play with Benji – not her having to beg some other parents or teachers to include him. She felt herself sputter for a moment, almost like the young officer standing in front of her.

"Umm … yeah …" she finally managed to get out and opened her desk drawer, quickly rooting for one of her cards. "That'd be good," she said, grabbing a pen to add her personal line to the back of the card, not that it really mattered since both the number listed on the front and her private number rang into the same phone. "Well, this weekend wouldn't be good – but maybe next weekend?"

The guy nodded and took the card with a thin smile. "Yeah, whenever," he allowed and shoved his hand into his pocket to hand her his own crumbled slip of paper with a telephone number written on it. "That's Teegan's cell but she'll likely call you first."

She nodded. "Sure."

"Umm … OK …" he said and started to back away. "Thanks … Oh … I'm Ruben … Tanner," he added.

She nodded. "OK, thanks, Ruben. Talk soon …"

He nodded and left the squad. She looked at the slip of paper again and picked up her own phone to enter it into there before she lost it.

"Thought Benji didn't have friends?" Nick commented from across the way.

She glanced at him and snorted. "He doesn't."

"Ah …" Nick said. "Thought the kid might look like he was really looking to set up a playdate with Jack."

She allowed him a thin smile at that. It was true. Teegan and Ruben might be 30 and even that might be being generous. She was probably going to end up feeling old taking Benji to playdate with their son. She wasn't even sure what the protocol was. Was she supposed to stay with Benji? She couldn't imagine just leaving him with strangers – that was asking for a disaster. Was she supposed to invite them over to her place or go over to theirs? Or did they meet somewhere? Would she be expected to call first after they'd put forward the proposal even though he said his partner would call? She still really didn't have any idea how that realm of the parental landscape worked. But she didn't get the impression that the two kid uni officers that had spawned Bryson were all that prim and proper in having some sort of New York standards about these kinds of things. She wasn't sure if anyone up in that daycare would be. It was a different kind of people than what she'd encountered at the nursery school. They were her kind of people. Still – she sort of wished she had Elliot around to ask. He'd know after dealing with it in five kids. Kathy probably knew better than him. But she was sure Nick could guide her. He seemed to have developed a bit of an expert on navigating certain parental and childrearing protocols that existed in the city.

"Looks like Benji has a potential friend now," Nick offered her supportively.

She snorted again at that and put down her phone. "The other day this kid shoved a wad of cream cheese up his nose, Nick."

She saw a smile spread across her partner's face at that and knew he was trying not to laugh too – and he hadn't even seen the mess or the clean-up efforts.

"See … that's just the kind of playmate Ben needs. Zara can't compete with that."

Olivia shook her head. "She really can't."


	174. Chapter 174

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"Your dinner smells good," she called at Jack, glancing over her shoulder and into the kitchen.

From the moment he'd come into the apartment the aroma of what had to be greasy pizza that followed along with him. She'd eaten already and normally she'd turn down that kind of indulgence anymore. But there was something about pizza and studying. It was like her brain had clicked back to 20-something years ago and remembered that pizza and exams were just made for each other – and her stomach had started growling to prove the point.

Jack, though, had done his usual arrival efforts to ignore her – first clattering around in the foyer at such a level that she was sure he was going to wake Benji and she'd lose out on last minute cramming time trying to get him to settle again. He'd then disappeared into the kitchen still without so much as a hello and had begun to clatter around in there. But her giving up and acknowledging his presence herself at least made him appear.

"You can have some of it too," he mumbled at her. "But I got you this … for studying."

Her eyes followed his hand as it set a tall cup of Starbucks coffee on the table next to her elbow. She smiled at it and reached for it immediately. Part of her knew that she shouldn't risk the caffeine buzz having her awake all night and going into the exam on little sleep and nerves – but she was likely going to be like that either way. She might as well get the coffee fix going now.

"I do love you," she said and flashed him a smile – but then did a bit of a double-take.

Her teen was dressed in a pair of smart business casual pants with a pressed shirt and tie on. Of course, the shirt was hanging out of his waist at that point and the tie was pulled loose but he was still far more dressed up than she was used to seeing him. She'd known that he was going over to tour an architectural firm with one of his classes and sit in on some sort of presentation. But she supposed she'd either forgotten – or hadn't considered – that he'd be getting dressed up for it. She wasn't sure Jack would actually do that even though she'd help him pick out some clothes for some of schooling activities and outings earlier in the year.

"You look nice," she told him. But just got a 'whatever' mumbled at her dismissively as he trailed back into the kitchen behind her. "How'd the tour go?"

"OK," he said as he clattered around in there some more.

"Yeah? Was it interesting?" she asked, as he reappeared with a couple plates and a pizza box that he near dropped on the table before taking a seat across from her and handing her a plate across the table.

He shrugged. "Yeah, I guess."

"You guess?"

He shrugged. "Yeah," he said again and flipped the box open, examined the pizza for a minute and then selected a slice – not bothering to even set it on the plate for a moment. It went straight to his mouth and he started chewing – likely doing his best to effectively end her inquiry into what his day had looked like.

Like Benji had rules about how to play Transformers – Jack had rules about how she was allowed to ask about his schooling. The main rule seemed to be she wasn't supposed to ask and he'd really prefer if she didn't express interest. It was a hard line to walk. She was interested and she did want to try to keep him on track. She sort of wished she'd had a bit more encouragement and guidance while she was picking her way through college. Or even just acknowledgement of the work she was putting in to get by and keep up her grades and keep her scholarship. She thought Jack might want the same but he usually didn't seem to. If he wanted to talk about it – he broached it. And even if he broached it, if she expressed too much interest in it, he'd shut down again. So instead she examined the pizza herself.

It looked like Jack had bought a pie that was half veggie and half some kind of meat lover's special. One side was covered in broccoli, tomatoes, onions, green peppers, mushrooms and black olives while the opposite was piled high with pepperoni, sausage, ham and meatballs. She glanced at the teen and then reached for one of the heart-attack-waiting-to-happen slices on what was clearly meant to be his side. He'd likely thought he was being very considerate getting half the pizza to be vegetarian for her. But if she was going to indulge, she was going to do it right. She'd likely only let herself eat the one piece and it would likely be the only slice she'd eat for months and months to come – so she was skipping the veggies.

Jack glared at her a bit. "That's supposed to be my side," he said a little annoyed.

She shrugged at him and brought the pizza up to her mouth. "I didn't see names on the slices."

He rolled his eyes at her but didn't protest the point further. Instead, he stuck out his greasy fingers and pulled one of the test papers she'd had in front her over to him and spun in around to stare at it. He gave her a funny look.

"What's this? Where's Waldo?"

She snorted at him but managed to swallow her mouthful without choking on her food. "It's an observation exercise," she told him. "You get some time to look at the photo and then you have to answer questions about it."

Jack flipped over the sheet and looked at the next page. "How much are the pants on sale for?" he asked.

"They're 25 per cent off," she said flatly.

He turned back to the picture and gazed at it for a moment and then gave her a look. "I hope your whole test isn't as dumb as this."

She gave him a smile. "Nah. Only about 50 of the questions will be as dumb as that."

"The woman in the Fit Gym jacket is carrying an item. What is it?" he asked looking at the question and answer key again.

"A purse," she said.

"They want to know what hand it's in," he added with some disgust.

"Left," she added.

He gapped at her. "How long have you been staring at this thing?"

She shrugged. "You get 10 minutes to look at the scene photo."

"This is seriously dumb," he said and looked at it again. "They are asking like phone numbers and the price of a salad at the deli."

"You want me to tell you those too?"

He shook his head at her and gave her a look. "How is this testing anything? I mean any idiot could memorize random crap."

She snorted. "It's harder than it looks – especially under a time crunch and you don't know at what point in the test they're going to stop you and put it up on the screen. But, you're right, it's not necessarily an accurate reflection of the types of observations we have to make on the job."

He made another noise and pushed it away and grabbed at more papers she had on the table, again pulling them over to him with greasy fingers. She thought about commenting on it. He didn't need to get grease stains all over everything on the table. But she'd also been working around men for enough of her life that she just knew some things they didn't grow out of. It didn't matter if they were married, if they had girlfriends, if they'd had involved mothers and stable homes with sisters. Some things just didn't seem to sink in with guys. Handling work related papers with greasy hands seemed to be one of them. Besides, she had enough battles to fight with Jack and she had to pick carefully. She couldn't be nagging at him endlessly about everything. That didn't do anything for their relationship.

"So did the presentation go long?" she pressed again instead. "You're later than I expected."

He glanced at her from the booklet he was examining now and shrugged. "Nah. Some alum offered to take us out to a site for a look-see. It seemed like the kind of thing you couldn't say no to. Would've looked bad. Then I had to go to Funky's. Pablo isn't working tomorrow so I had to pick up the shit for class so I didn't have to go into the store in the morning."

She allowed a listening sound at that. She'd prefer to hear more about his class' outing but at least he was talking. With Jack just getting him to speak counted for a lot.

"You know I'm taking Jamin to the class tomorrow while you're at your test, right?" he added with another glance.

She shrugged. "I figured."

"And if the weather holds we're taking the kids outside – not the gym," he said a bit more forcibly.

She snorted. "OK," she allowed.

He glanced at her again. "And, he's going to dress skater – not the shit you put him in."

She shook her head and rolled her eyes at that. "He dresses himself, Jack."

He rolled his eyes at her. "He does not. You make him all co-ordinated."

"If you mean I buy him clothes that match – then, yes, I make him all co-ordinated," she said with a bit of annoyed sarcasm.

The truth was that she did dress Benji to any extent. Or at least she helped set out his clothes before he dressed himself – if they were going out in public that day, which basically meant most days of the week. But if she let Benji dress himself – he'd be like Jack. He'd wear the same shirt and pants all week and even then it'd be a fight to get it to go in the laundry hamper. Worse, he was a little boy and had no concept of color co-ordination or what clashed with his orange-tinged blond hair. At least most of Jack's clothes seemed to be some shade of black, grey or blue. Benji thought green, red and orange together were perfectly acceptable. That was an exaggeration. She had made sure that she only bought him clothes that could be co-ordinated in some what that didn't look too attroish together or with his fair complexion and vibrant hair.

"He's wearing jeans and a hoodie," Jack put to her.

She just shrugged again. "OK. You can dress him however you want tomorrow."

She would actually be more than fine to let Jack handle dealing with Benji's morning duties, if that's what he thought he wanted. He could see just how easy that was. He likely had forgotten. They'd see how much input Benji let Jack have in what he wore. That might surprise him too. If Benji didn't want to be wearing jeans and a hoodie – he wouldn't be. And, Olivia expected her Little Fox's chosen outfit was more likely to be his khaki cargo pants and his robot sleeved tee. That was generally always the chosen outfit – and she wasn't sure that fit Jack's definition of dressing like a skater.

Jack watched her for a moment like he was expecting her to object in some way and when she didn't just flipped another page in the booklet.

"What's this about?" he asked around the pizza that had found its way back to his mouth again and she had to resist the urge to remind him not to talk with his mouth full – just like she had to with Benji.

"It's the after-school program that's offered at the school Benji's going to be at in the fall," she said flatly, taking the last bite of her pizza and deciding to forego the starch of the crust, setting it on the plate and pushing it away from her so she wouldn't be tempted.

Jack gave her a look and then looked back at the page. "After-school program? You going to put him in one of these classes?"

She shrugged as she swallowed. "Maybe. I need something to keep him occupied between when school finishes and my work day is done."

"He won't be in daycare anymore?" Jack asked.

"Hmm. I think I technically will still have a slot for him there. I need to ask about that soon. But then I'd have to go and pick him up and bring him over to the precinct. I might not be available to do that every day. This would be easier. It's at the school. I think it's covered off until about 6 p.m."

He gave her a look like he was thinking about that – and maybe like he didn't agree with it. She imagined that he likely went home to his grandparents after school while growing up – and probably chores on the farm. His dad was likely even around even if he was still working around the property. The concept of Benji not going home immediately when the bell rang likely seemed a little strange to him. But it really was just going to be the way it was going to be. Olivia wasn't going to get a nanny or a babysitter. She knew Jack couldn't commit to being able to pick Benji up every day after school and neither could she. Getting him into an after-school program made the most sense – and getting him into the one at the school so he didn't need to be transported somewhere would be the easiest.

"You should sign him up for this one," Jack said after his examination of her, though, and jabbed his finger at the page. "Brick Master. Sounds cool. Play with Lego all afternoon. Sign me up."

She snorted and looked back to her own work again. "Is that one for kindergarteners? They have they grades they're for up in the corner."

He made a sound and didn't respond so she took that as a no. "Don't sign him up for something retarded then," Jack said instead.

She glanced at him. "Jack, I really don't like how much you're using that word lately. I just don't like that word."

His eyes met her briefly. "Retarded?"

She kept the contact and nodded. "Retarded. You've been using it a lot in reference to Benji and his learning and personality and schooling. I don't like it – at all."

He gazed at her again and she thought they might be moving towards an argument, which she didn't need. But she was really sick of the word. She seemed to have mostly phased him out of using stupid but she didn't think retarded was much of an improvement. She actually thought it might be worse, though 'stupid' was likely more upsetting for Benji.

"Don't sign him up for Spanish," Jack said, though.

She shook her head at him. She would've appreciated him acknowledging what she'd said a bit more verbally and indicating he'd be correcting his behavior. But that was likely asking for too much.

"I might sign him up for Spanish. Languages are a good skill set to have, Jack, and he'll pick up more of it – faster and easier – if he starts young."

He groaned at her. She actually thought Jack might be a bit jealous that Benji might come out of childhood with a second language – or third. She wasn't shooting for him to be bilingual – but being multilingual was certainly a good skill set to have in the world anymore, and it definitely didn't hurt in New York either.

She was actually a little surprised that Jack didn't seem to have any real foundation in French knowing Jay's love of languages and knowing that his mother had allegedly been French Canadian. But maybe that was why Jack didn't have any languages – Jay had dropped that interest or drive to pass it on to his children after whatever had happened there. Or he was just busy being a single father and working on the family farm – and didn't find time for much of anything else by the sounds of it.

It all made Olivia a little sad if she reflected on it too long. She was sure Jay had done his best and despite some of the challenges Jack had spaced in his teens in his father's absence, it had sounded like he had had a relatively normal childhood overall. It's own pain and challenges – but all childhoods seemed to have that on some level. Still, there was a part of her that wanted to do things differently than Jay may have done for his son, to do better. But she wasn't Jay and she wasn't a father – she was a single mother, working and living in a city. It would be different for Benji. She hoped that eventually Jack would see that was alright and wasn't wrong and wasn't constantly drawing comparisons between his childhood and her Little Fox's. They'd be different. She couldn't help that.

"Don't sign him up for something gay either," Jack added. "Yoga?" he stressed with some disgust.

Olivia put her pencil down loudly that time and stared at him until he met her eyes. "I really don't like the way you use that word either, Jack. You're using it in a really derogatory way."

He shrugged. "Yoga's kinda gay."

"Yoga is not 'kinda gay', Jack. It's meditative. It's good exercise and strength training. You know, you and Benji both could likely get a lot out of it – both in terms of relaxing and focusing yourselves, calming and self-soothing, and giving you some extra flexibility and strength for your skateboarding."

Jack shook his head at her. "I don't think so," he mumbled and looked away.

"The Y does a yoga class. We should go over and check it out some time," she said pointedly.

He snorted at her. "I don't think so," he said again and this time closed and booklet and tossed it aside. "Why do you have that anyways? Isn't it a little early to be thinking about that shit?"

Apparently he was reverting back to just swearing since she was vetoing all his other language choices. Getting Jack's language and attitude in check really seemed like a back-and-forth battle – a tug of war – more days than not. Sometimes it just felt like he was testing her and pushing her buttons – seeing if she'd react. Other times it was clear it was just habit and he didn't even realize he was doing it. But then she'd go days or even a week where he didn't swear at her over the phone on a week night or didn't drop the F-bomb at the apartment on the weekend. Then they'd have an evening like this where every second word out of his mouth was pushing her the wrong way. She tried to tell herself that it was just about her that night – she was anxious about the test and was being hard on him and overly agitated about nothing. She told herself to stop.

She shrugged. "I haven't really looked at it too closely yet. I just picked it up."

That was the truth. She'd actually had had it for a while – having picked it up after dropping some paperwork off at what would be Benji's school. It'd got shoved in her desk and basically forgotten until it got mixed in with some of the study materials she'd been toting around lately in trying to find some time to hit the books. She'd flipped through it when it got shuffled on the table with everything else but she hadn't taken too much time to look at it in any sort of detail. Jack was right. It was still a ways away. But she also knew September would be there far too quickly.

"They'll be asking me questions about how Benji will be cared for while I'm at work when the home study starts up. Just making sure I have some answers," she added.

"You got a date for that now?" Jack asked her, giving her a bit of a concerned look.

She nodded and rubbed at her eyebrow. "Yeah. Bayard's got us on board with an agency now. So that process will start in a couple weeks."

"Is it going to be hard?" Jack asked. "The home study?"

She watched him for a moment but then just tried to shrug it off. "No. It's not a big deal," she allowed. It was what she was trying to convince herself – even though she knew it was a big deal. It was going to be the deciding factor in what their family was going to look like.

"Then how come you're so worried about it?" Jack put back to her.

She shrugged again. "I'm not," she lied a little. She actually despised that Jack had picked up on her apprehension about the home study process.

It was Jack's turn to watch her. "Yes, you are," he said, and she just looked at him without offering a response. She didn't know what to say to that. She didn't want him to be worried too. That wasn't going to get any of them further ahead.

"You aren't as much of a bad ass as you pretend to be," Jack said.

She looked at him. "Is that so?"

"No. Not when I've seen you get all teary about stupid crafts Benji makes or dress up all girly for Christmas shit."

She snorted at that and rubbed her eyebrow again. "You want to remember who's the parent in this relationship and who the kid is when you're giving your little running commentary."

"You aren't that scary anymore," Jack said flatly.

"Being scary was never my objective, Jack."

He just stared at her again. "Is the home study going to be hard?"

"No, Jack," she said a bit more sternly. She really didn't want to get into that night. Not when she was trying to study. Not when her exam was the next morning. That was stressful enough. The home study process was a stressor she didn't want to start dwelling on (more than she already was) quite yet. "It's going to be basic questions about my personal history and about why I want to be a parent and my parenting techniques."

"You have parenting techniques?" Jack said a little sarcastically, accompanying it with a smart-ass look.

She met his eyes more firmly. "I don't know. You tell me?"

He couldn't keep the eye contact that long and broke away looking down. She wasn't perfect – far from it. She knew she had a lot to learn about parenting and about raising boys. But she definitely felt like she had mastered some techniques. Both the boys had rules and boundaries. She was stern with them while still trying to give them all the comfort and affection they needed. She didn't really have consequences or punishments for Jack. Though, she hadn't really don't anything that needed that yet. And, he definitely knew when she was upset with him and when she wanted him to adjust his behavior. Beyond that – how exactly do you lay out consequences and punishments for a 19-year-old? They only have to listen so much before pulling the 'I'm an adult' card and storming away or shutting you out. It involved a different touch than with Benji.

Not that Benji got endless punishments either. He was a pleaser. If he even got the slightest hint that she was upset with him there were usually tears and 'sewys'. That wasn't to say she didn't have him sitting in time-outs on a regular basis – or that his near nightly Rescue Bots episode didn't get revoked. Once Heatwave had even spent some time up on the top of the fridge when Benji had decided he was going to throw his toys around the living room. If he couldn't play with them properly – he didn't get to play with them. But she was sure the wails Heatwave's temporary removal had caused made the neighbors in the surrounding apartments think she was torturing an elephant in her unit or something.

It really was amazing the lung capacity, decibel level and foot stomping intensity a four-year-old could manage when they were upset. There were days her Little Fox made restraining some of the big and burl perps, who didn't want to go into custody easily, look like a walk in the park. Benji could throw a fit when he wanted to. He was funny, though. It was like it would click almost far too quickly for a little boy that 'this might make Mommy not love me' and suddenly he'd have himself even more upset and need calming in a different way.

So maybe she didn't know how to parent. Or she didn't have a technique down. She just dealt with it as she went. She kept learning what her boys needed from her – and the boundaries she needed to establish for her own sanity too. She just had to hope in the end it would mean that they'd both grow into functional adults. But she somehow doubt that any of that was the appropriate answer to give to the agency worker who came in to examine her home and life and children.

"If that's all it is then why are you so worried about it?" Jack asked.

She sighed and looked down collecting herself. "I just want it to go smoothly, Jack. That's all."

"Why wouldn't it go smoothly?"

"I don't know, Jack," she said exasperated. "Sweetheart … my exam is in less than 15 hours. I really want to get some studying in and try to get some sleep. Do we need to talk about this tonight? Can it wait until tomorrow?"

He looked at her again and then looked back to his pizza box, lifting the lid and claiming another piece. He took a bite and chewed slowly, still watching her. But she took it as an indication that the conversation was over – or so she hoped, so Olivia looked back to the work in front of her.

"You know studies show that cramping the night before is kind of pointless," he said. "It's better to take a break and sleep on it. Let your mind process it and digest. If you don't know it now – you aren't going to."

She let out an annoyed sighed and glared at him. "Thank you for that advice, Jack. Maybe if you let me finish going through this practice test, I might be able to take it."

"You're worried about the exam too?" he asked and then shoved the slice in his mouth again.

"Yes, Jack. I'm worried about the exam too. I want to do well on the exam. Passing the exam and being on the promotion list will be good for the home study. I want to do well on the home study too. They go hand-in-hand. Doing well on this is going to help me on the other."

"How?"

She restrained herself from rolling her eyes and just put her pen back down yet again. One thing she'd definitely learned with kids was that it never ended. Having Benji in bed didn't mean her job was over for the night. Jack was just as likely to have a problem or want to talk – or just want some attention, as much as her little boy was. And, it didn't matter what her schedule or priorities were. Neither of them really cared – even if they were specifically about bettering their lives.

"Because, sweetheart, getting promoted to lieutenant will position me in a more supervisory role. That will mean that I'll be working more predictable hours, which is good for when you're trying to raise a family."

"I thought you'd still be a detective?"

"I will. For now. My rank will change – if I pass and am far enough up the list with my score. But until there's a supervisor opening that I want to apply for and move into – I'll likely stay with SVU as a detective for the moment. My rank will give me some leeway, though. Seniority. That will help."

"Why do you have to prove all this shit? I mean … we live with here anyways. You're being Jamin's mom anyways."

She sighed. "Because it's the process, Jack. It's what I need to do to be able to adopt Benji. And, it's what the judge wanted. So – we're doing it. It will be fine. We just have to get through it."

"Do I have to be here for it?"

She shook her head. "No, not for the first meeting."

She actually thought that it would probably be best to limit Jack's involvement in the process. She knew it was important for all of them for him to be around for part of it – for it to be clear that he was part of the family, and for him to hopefully express that he wanted them to be a family and for her to be Benji's mother (and maybe even allow that he'd like her to be his too – verbally). But, she also knew that Jack excelled at negativity and putting up fronts and an attitude in a way that she didn't think would be great for first impressions with the agency worker. It'd probably be best for her to limit both of their exposures to each other. And, really, Benji dealing with a stranger in their home was going to be enough to manage on the first visit anyways. She could already foresee him having some sort of breakdown that she feared she wouldn't end up managing at the standard the agency would deem acceptable to approve her eligibility for adoption. She didn't want to have to shop around until they found an agency that wrote down what she wanted. Going through the process once was going to be enough. It needed to work out the first time.

"First meeting?"

Olivia allowed a small nod. "It will be about four meetings likely, Jack. They'll probably want to talk to you at some point. It might be good if you're prepared to talk to them. But you don't need to be here for the first one. They're likely just going to be doing a bit of an inspection of the apartment to make sure it's a safe environment and talking to me a bit about the process and doing some initial get-to-know you chit-chat. Seeing Benji at home."

"Why do they need to talk to you four times?" he said like the idea was crazy.

She sighed. This was taking up more time than she wanted and she really just wanted not to think about it until she got the exam out of the way.

"Lots of reasons, Jack. They'll do the home inspection at the one meeting. They'll likely call my references and then schedule the next talk. Ask me all sorts of questions. They'll want to talk to Benji at one – maybe you. They'll be generally observing Benji and how we interact together. How comfortable he is here. My ability to be a parent to him. I have to do a medical exam at some point in this process – so they might have questions if something comes up on that. Or just … general follow-up. It's a process, Jack."

"It's dumb," he said. "You're already parenting him. What's wrong with the apartment?"

"Nothing is wrong with the apartment."

"It's stupid. Just because you didn't have him you have to go through this. Them judging you. They don't judge bad parents."

"Jack …" she sighed. "It's just how it works. We just have to go with the process. We knew this was the deal."

"Then how come you're so worried about it? I can tell."

"Because I want it to go well, sweetheart. I want to get the approval so we can move on. That's all."

"So they can fail you?"

"They don't fail you. They just … don't approve you for adoption."

"But I approved you for adoption," he said. "I want you to take care of him."

She gave him a thin smile. "I know, sweetheart, and it's going to work out. We just have to … go along with the process."

"THEN WHY ARE YOU NERVOUS?" he demanded with his frustration dripping from him.

"I'm nervous about my test. That's all," she replied.

"You're lying – and you don't like when I do that to you," he said and examined his pizza.

She watched the top of his head for a moment. His hair product looked crusty. He still clearly hadn't learned to use it properly – and he hadn't had his cut trimmed since he went and chopped off all his locks just before Christmas. He was due for another haircut – if he intended to keep it short. But she wasn't going to pester him about it. At least she'd managed to train him to not wear a hat in the house. That was something.

"I've done a home study before, sweetheart," she told him honestly. She didn't like being accused of lying – and she didn't much like twisting the truth to try to calm him either. She did that enough. Kids only needed to know so much. Jack had enough on his plate. But he was a young man and she was finding the more she gave with him, the more she'd get back – even when she didn't necessarily like laying herself so bare to him, or anyone for that matter.

He looked up at her from his pizza. "Why?"

"I've told you, Jack, that I'd looked into adoption before. I did a home study during that process."

"But you decided not to adopt?"

"I didn't get approved to adopt, sweetheart. That's why I'm nervous."

"You failed?"

"I didn't fail. I just didn't get approved to adopt at that time."

"Isn't it the same thing?"

She sighed. "I don't know. I guess so." She certainly felt like she'd failed but she didn't really want to frame it that way for either of them.

"Why'd you fail?"

She rubbed at her eyebrow and met his eyes directly again. He seemed uncomfortable under her gaze now and picked at some of the meatballs on his slice, pulling one off and popping it into his mouth to slowly chew – far too long for what the little piece needed; he could've swallowed it whole.

"At that time the agency I used felt that I worked irregular hours in a high risk job and that I didn't have much of a support network."

"That's all the same," Jack said defeated and looked down again, his head hanging.

She reached across the table and stroked the back of his one hand with her thumb – just once, just enough to get him to glance up.

"Sweetheart – that was five years ago. And, a lot has changed since then. I've changed since then. And, this is a very, very different situation. To start, I used the public agency. This is a private agency – because we're doing a private adoption. It's between you and me. I have a good lawyer and Bayard is helping me prepare for the questions they will be asking. I'm taking this exam – and I'm positioning myself to work a structured schedule in a supervisory role, in a job that pays more than what I make now. I'm working with my captain and colleagues to make sure that I'm home as much as possible in the meantime. And, sweetheart, I've got you to help me when I can't be here. That's important. I've got us a bigger apartment with room for all of us to grow and be a family. I've got Benji here with me now. I'm being a parent. It's all very different – and it's going to work out fine."

"You don't know that," Jack said quietly.

"I do know that. Because if this avenue doesn't work out for us – then Bayard is going to take us down another one. Sweetheart – even if they say no, Benji is still in your custody and you decide, OK? So – if you want him in my care, we're going to figure out how to do that, whether or not we can make it legally official. It's going to be fine."

"I don't understand why they failed you?"

She shrugged. "Maybe because it wasn't the right time for me, Jack. Maybe this – our family – is what was supposed to happen. We don't need to dwell on what happened in the past. We just need to focus on getting through the here-and-now. And, that's going to work out fine."

"Is this costing a lot of money?" he mumbled at her and gave her another little glance, there was a glint of guilt in his eyes.

She shook her head. "Sweetheart, I'm the parent, OK? One of my jobs is managing the household's money. You don't have to worry about that – or what any of this is costing."

"We're costing you a lot …"

"Kids cost a lot, Jack. I knew what I was getting into. You don't worry about that. Is anything happening that's making you feel like we're hard up on cash?"

He shook his head.

"Because we aren't. I'm fine. This household is fine."

He gave a small nod. "I'm going to play Xbox now …" he mumbled.

She gave him a little look and a thin smile. "OK. You're OK?"

He shrugged.

"If you need to talk this out more … we can …"

"You need to study …"

"These books aren't going anywhere … and like you said, if I don't know it now, I'm not going to."

Jack just shrugged again. "I'm OK," he said and again reached for the pizza box, and claimed a third slice.

"OK," she nodded as he let the lid fall back into place. "Take that into the kitchen. I don't want it sitting here tempting me. And, change, Jack. Don't get those clothes all wrinkly – more than they already are."

"I was going to put them in the hamper anyways," he groaned at her.

"Change," she said more seriously. "I don't want you falling asleep in those. Your clean laundry is in the basket in my room. I haven't had a chance to put it away yet."

He made some sort of unimpressed noise but stood and claimed the pizza box and trudged back towards the kitchen behind her.

"Can I at least turn on some music while I play?" he asked.

She allowed a small nod. "Sure. Quietly. Benji's sleeping and I want to put in a bit more time here …"


	175. Chapter 175

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia glanced next to her as she saw the movement and heard the familiar voice next to her. But her passing glance settled into a glare as her eyes fixed on the man.

"Remember Benji?" Elliot said, as he nearly yanked the arms of Eli's jacket off him. "He's right there, go sit with him."

The little boy's eyes followed his father's pointed finger and without so much of an acknowledgement, headed over to where her Little Fox was sitting. He was rather easy to pick out in a crowd with his flash of bright hair standing on end. It was standing particularly high that Sunday morning. Benji had gotten her into the habit of carrying his 'spiker' with her and near demanding that she 'fix' his hair every time she let him take his beanie off his head. It made her hands a bit of a mess and she wasn't sure it did much for his hairstyle. She couldn't wait until it was summer and she could use it as an excuse to try something else with the mess on his head but she thought he'd be a little devastated about losing the faux-hawk. So she might wait until he decided himself that he'd outgrown it. Or at least try to find something just as cool that he'd buy into getting without having a meltdown in the barber's chair.

Benji was sitting at the back of the group at the library circle time, as usual. Olivia and the daycare had managed to get him trained to at least start out sitting on his butt. But she could still see him bouncing his crossed knees restlessly on his feet – his hands fidgeting and bouncing along with them. She knew, though, that as soon as the actually story started, he'd be up on his knees, his butt bouncing just as restlessly against his heels – as he listened. She supposed that was a positive about him sitting at the back – at least it meant he wasn't blocking anyone else's view in trying to see the pictures or disturbing any other child too much. Though, some children still seemed to give him dirty looks about his fidgeting if they were sitting in front of him.

She didn't reflect on it too long. Only watching long enough to see Eli charge up to the front of the circle-time children's area and to sit next to Benji. He clearly let out a 'hi' and she saw Benji look at him. She wasn't sure any recognition was setting in and she watched carefully to see if a new person's presence would trigger a meltdown. But it seemed that kind of reaction was usually reserved for adults. Benji usually just looked at other kids with some skepticism and disinterest. Other times she could tell he must've sensed something he didn't like about them and she could see the protective body language settle in on him. That didn't happen with Eli, though. Benji barely looked at him long enough to acknowledge him before returning his gaze to the front of the room where the group leader was finally starting to get settled into place – piling the two books and the craft that'd they'd be doing that morning onto a display easel. That was clearly much more interesting to Benji than Eli. Olivia was almost glad for that.

She gave Elliot a firmer look. "What are you doing here?" she asked bluntly.

He shrugged and settled his ass against the sink counter that she was also leaning against – avoiding the minor socialization that she could've been participating in with the other mothers there. There were a couple moms that she'd slowly gotten into the habit of at least being friendly with since coming to the circle-time weekly with Benji. But their kids were at the older end of the slot's age-range offering and Benji never seemed to sit near them during the story-time or craft activity – so no playdates or friendships had really developed there despite her efforts. One of them wasn't there that week anyways – so much like her Little Fox, she'd kind of opted to keep to herself. Elliot, though, seemed to have decided to veto that option for her.

"You mentioned you come out to this every Sunday with him," he said flatly.

"That's not what I meant," she said more pointedly.

He glanced at her at that – pulling his eyes away from his own observation of the two boys.

"I thought here you might talk to me without storming away or slamming a door in my face," he said much more directly.

She shook her head and looked at the ceiling. She was still upset with him – and in the month since their last communication nothing had happened to improve or resolve that at all. She just really didn't have the time or energy to fight with him. And, she really hated that he was invading on her Sunday morning time with her little boy. Especially that Sunday. She just wanted some quiet time – relaxing time – after the lead up to the exam. She didn't need an extra layer of stress added to it when she thought she was just getting to come down from one high.

"This isn't exactly the most appropriate place to have a conversation, Elliot," she put to him and glanced to the front where the leader was getting her weekly chit-chat with the children. That was usually the point that the adults just shut-up or reverted to whispers if they were going to talk. Even then the leader would sometimes cast the whisperers dirty looks – like they were setting a bad example and disrupting her programming.

He just looked at her, though, and she let out an annoyed sound and then gestured before moving and going down the few steps to stand on the floor outside the little elevated open area. Out of the leader's view – and hopefully earshot – but close enough to the railing that she could still see Benji, and hopefully spot him if he seemed to be looking for her.

"El, we really don't have anything to talk about," she said and gave him firm eyes. "I know where you stand. I've heard your opinion. It's my life. End of story."

"We don't need the tone and attitude," he put back to her. "I know it too well. I know you too well."

She snorted at that and again looked at the ceiling. "El … no you don't. You don't know as much about me as you think. Not anymore."

He gazed at her silently at that for what felt like a long time. She grew sick of his gaze and turned her eyes back to the circle-time, watching Benji instead. As she expected, he was now up on his knees and Eli had joined him in the position.

"I'm just … worried about you," Elliot said. "I've seen how …"

Her eyes snapped back at him at that. "We've already talked about this, Elliot. This situation is not the same as what happened with Calvin."

He shook his head. "It's not just Calvin, Olivia. I've seen how you get attached to kids. Nathan. Ashley."

She glared at him at that. "This is not the same as those cases either."

"I just don't want you to get hurt. I'm worried about how you'll handle this, if it doesn't work out the way you want."

"Elliot – maybe you should stop worrying so much about me, and worry a bit more about you. I don't think it's me that you need to be worried about," she told him pointedly.

"Look … I'm sorry that how I'm trying to help isn't …"

"El – you aren't trying to help," she near spat at him. "You're lecturing me. Every step of the way, you've been lecturing me. I wanted a friend. Not … someone to analyze me and my choices every step of the way. The social workers and the judge can do that, Elliot. That's their job. Not yours. Especially not anymore."

"Being a single parent is hard," he said flatly and seemed to look at her with softer eyes. "And with … damaged kids."

She hated that word. She didn't want anyone to use it about her child. As far as she was concerned no one was allowed to use it about either of her children but her. And she was only allowed to use it because she actually knew what it meant – in life and in relation to Jack and her Little Fox. She actually knew how they were damaged. Everyone else just needed to accept they needed a bit more time and a bit more help – and if they'd gotten that sooner, they might not need as much of it now as they did. It wasn't their fault.

She rubbed her eyebrow. "They aren't damaged," she put back to him. "They're just kids. They are normal, healthy kids – with a few challenges that maybe children a bit luckier than them didn't have to navigate. But they're fine."

"Still … raising a child on your own …"

She held up her hand at that. "El – that part of this equation is none of your business and none of your concern. You know – I have been looking at options about adopting or having a child for years. None of those scenarios involved a partner. It was being a single mother. The challenges of being a single parent had already been considered. And, yes, some days it's hard and I'm sure there will be points it will be really hard – maybe in ways I haven't thought about or anticipated, but I'll deal with it. You don't need to worry about that."

"I only have Eli on the weekends – and I have support, people to fall back on …"

"I'm not as alone as you think, El," she said and met his eyes. "You weren't the only person in my life."

"You never talked about anyone …"

"You've been away for more than a year, Elliot. Nearly two. Things have changed. I have changed. And, you know what – right now, I have a partner at work who's really supportive of me – of this," she said and gestured back where Benji seemed to have at least settled against his heels, though still looked so engaged in the story that was being read. "Who has a little girl, who he is letting me and Benji be a part of their lives. Cragen … is being understanding and accommodating. Changes to me job and life are being made to accommodate this. And, this is what I want. That's really all you need to know."

"And what if it doesn't work out?"

"It's going to work out," she told him pointedly. "And, if it doesn't, El. I'm a big girl and I've dealt with disappointment before."

"Not like this will be," he said.

"El …" she sighed.

"I don't want this to destroy you," he near snapped at her before she could say anything else and drilled his eyes at her. "I don't mean to be an ass. But I know what this is going to do to you if it falls through. I really do hope it works."

She stopped and watched him for a moment at that. She wanted to still be angry with him but she could see the hurt and the concern there as he said it. The sincerity behind the apology – and she reminded herself how few times she'd ever heard 'sorry' out of her partner's mouth, especially directed at her.

"It's going to be fine, El," she said a little more softly. "These aren't kids from work. This isn't work related. It's not some fantasy or what-if. These are my kids, El. It's what I've been waiting for – and it's going to work out. For all three of us. I'm going to make it work out. I've committed to it."

He let out a noise like he didn't really believe her – like she didn't know how to make her family finally become a reality. Like he didn't believe that she knew how to do it even if she did. That she'd somehow screw it up or put the job before her boys. But she'd watched enough people around her make mistakes. Elliot included. Fin with Ken. Munch with his failed marriages. Cragen with his lack of relationships and no family. Even Nick now. She knew the mistakes that could be made. She'd make her own – she wasn't going to repeat ones that she knew could have devastating effects on her family.

She let him examine the floor for a moment, and instead moved closer to the banister to peak back through the little bars and into the children's room. The group leader was starting to explain the craft to the kids and Benji was all the way up off his heels – gazing at her and the paper plate owls that it looked like they'd be making. It looked like it was going to involve paint, glue, hand tracing and cutting construction paper to brown the plate and to add handprint wings and big yellow eyes. She was sure there were likely going to be markers involved, which Benji would love. And it looked like feathers too. She wondered if feathers would resemble feathers after a four-year-old got a hold of white glue to paste them to his owl.

Olivia wasn't sure what the craft's relation to the story was – seeing as Elliot had caused her to miss it – but she was sure her Little Fox would get her up to speed pretty quick. Eli looked nearly as excited and transfixed by the craft instructions as Benji. It almost made her wonder how often the little boy got to do crafts. Surely at school. She wasn't sure she could see Elliot sitting and down crafts with him on the weekend; Kathy likely did if she had the time and the energy. She wondered if the little boy had ever been to a library circle time before. She glanced at Elliot again.

"You know, El, it bothered me that you didn't let me be a part of your family's life. That I had to fight to know that personal side of you. That for the first years of our partnership – when I didn't really much care about kids or family – I had to hear endless stories about your kids. And, then when things started happening with you and Kathy – when I really could have been there for you, when your girls got older and maybe I could've been another ear for them – you shut me out. But I still tried. For you and for them. I think it maybe even hurts more now – because my partner, he's going through a divorce and he has a little girl, he's a single dad – and he's letting me in. It makes me wonder why you didn't. And it makes it even more glaring to me all the things I missed out on and all the things I wanted so much to be a part of.

"I thought after Eli was born – after being there for you and him and Kathy – that maybe with him, you'd let me in. But you still didn't. And, I think when I reached out to you, El, with Benji – the vision I had in my head was this," she said and gestured where their two boys were sitting next to each other being briefed on the activity. "I thought, maybe I'd be allowed in now. Maybe our two little boys might be able to play together sometimes and have a friendship – and maybe that would let us be friends again too. I wasn't looking for you to solve my problems, or fix things for me, or lecture me. I just thought maybe we could be a part of each other's lives and maybe that might our families could finally be a part of each other's lives too. But if you don't want that – that's fine. I've accepted that – more so now than I did in fourteen years of partnership, Elliot. I'm telling you, though, that I'm doing this. I've got myself a family. My boys are here to stay. And, if you don't change something soon – you're going to miss it. And, El, missing it hurts."


	176. Chapter 176

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia stood and watched as Benji again swung his hands at his sides and then hopped over the crack in the sidewalk before trotting forward a couple steps and once again repeating the motion.

He'd been doing that for nearly two city blocks at that point. Needless to say, it'd be a rather slow walk home from the library. She was trying not to be annoyed with him. It wasn't like they had anything to rush home to. But he was blocking the sidewalk and a lot of people were giving her a look as they walked by her – like she should be hurrying him along. She was trying to ignore it, though, and let him have his fun. She'd only shuttled him to the side a couple times as parents with strollers tried to navigate around them.

She figured at least his hopping activity was better than the pretend skateboarding that had been going on during the trek to the library. He was literally jumping off the walls then. Apparently going to the skateboarding class with Jack the day before had reignited that obsession. At least for the moment.

"Mommy, I gonna have hot chalk-lick when we stop for coffee," he informed her as he readied for his next big jump.

She gave him a small smile and watched as he again swung his arms in a big movement like the little jump necessary to get over the crack almost amounted to the long jump.

"You can't have hot chocolate, sweetheart. Remember we all agreed we'd give up chocolate for Lent."

He looked at her after he landed and squinted. "LENT NOT OVER YET?" he demanded.

She almost laughed at that. There was such a disgusted conviction to it. "Not yet, Benj. Still a couple more weeks."

"THAT FOR-EVA!" he protested again.

She nodded. "Lent is a long time," she agreed. "But after Lent, the Easter Bunny will bring you some chocolate."

He huffed and stomped over to her at that. "I DO NOT LIKE LENT!"

She smiled and rubbed at her eyebrow. "You'll have to take that up with Peedg," she told him but he just made his Little Fox growling sound. Considering they'd christened Jack Growling Fox, she thought Benji did a pretty good job at living up to the name on his own too. "I'll get you some hot apple cider," she offered.

"And rice mellow bar!" he very near demanded over her.

She snorted at him but gave him sterner eyes and tapping under his chin until he looked right at her. "And, a marshmallow bar too, please, Mommy," she corrected for him.

He examined her and thought about it. She wasn't sure he was going to take the coaching. She actually had a moment where she thought it said a lot more about her coffee house habits if her little boy new the snack item by heart enough to be able to order what he wanted himself. She might have to revise that. But she wasn't going to let him order her around in the process.

"Mommmmmmmmmmmmiiiie Fox," he whined.

She shrugged at him. "We say please when we'd like something, don't we?"

His little bottom lip settled into a pout at that.

"Hmm. I guess you don't want a snack with your cider," she said.

"Yes Mommy!" he protested.

"Then what do you say?"

He huffed at her. "Mellow bar please."

She nodded. "OK," she agreed. "A hot cider and a marshmallow bar for Little Fox." She gave his arm a little tug. "You know, if we stop hopping, I think we might get to the café for our snack faster."

"Bunnies hop, Mommy," he told her. "Like the Eater Bunny. He hop and bring chalk-lick."

"If he hopped like that, Benj, you'd never get your chocolate on Easter morning."

He glanced at her but seemed to ignore the comment, continuing to hop over each crack – now with them both hand-in-hand. She wasn't sure if that was better or worse. But she again let him. Taking slow steps forward. It'd be the afternoon by the time they were home at that rate.

"Benj, I've been thinking," she said, after slowly pacing forward with him.

He glanced at her from his efforts. "What you thinkin' Mommy?"

It was what she always said to him when he told her the exact same phrase. Though, his thoughts were usually much deeper and more humorous than anything she was thinking at the moment.

"I was thinking maybe it would be fun if we got together with a friend so you two could play," she offered.

He didn't even look at her at that, examining his feet as he again prepared for his next jump.

"Like Eli?" he asked as he landed.

She watched him for a moment and felt a small smile tug at her lips at that, even though she didn't really want it too. She still wasn't convinced that Elliot really got it or would be able to revise his behavior enough for either of them to let the other in and them to have a relationship again. She wasn't sure she wanted to get her hopes again – or Benji's. Though, it had been fun to watch the two of them doing the craft at circle time. She likely had a misplaced sense of pride that her Little Fox's owl had turned out much nicer than Eli's – and Eli was older and she was likely a little biased about Benji's crafting abilities. He'd already pointed out that the owl could go in his woodland forest, fox den room. She wasn't sure Jack was going to like that idea when they got home. But she'd likely be pulling out some sticky-tact to put it up on the wall anyways.

"I was thinking more maybe one of the little boys from daycare," she suggested instead, though.

She didn't want to get involved with trying to arrange a playdate with Elliot yet. She'd let their conversation sit with him again – and she'd leave the ball in his court. It was his turn to make a move and to decide if he wanted to be a part of her life – their lives. She'd left herself too open to him before – too many times in the pass. She wasn't going to put herself out there again now. She'd learned from those mistakes. If he wanted to try – he'd have to give a little now. Decide on his own. She didn't have high hopes that would happen considering he'd completely cut himself out of her life for over a year and seemed to be doing more to drag her down than boost her up these days. "What about that little boy we ate with at the teddy bear picnic?"

Benji looked at her with big eyes at that like that was a horrifying notion. "Mommy! Karl kay-zee. He like Sid. The toys scared of him!"

She really had to restrain herself from laughing at her little boy's Toy Story analogy. She had to restrain herself even more about the deadly serious tone he'd taken with her about it. She thought too maybe it explained a lot about why that boy's father had looked so frustrated and wishing that he was anywhere else but the teddy bear picnic with his son that seemed a little too fascinated with seeping the jam out of his headless sandwich.

"I was thinking the other little boy," she clarified. "What was his name?"

Benji nodded at that like it was a much more reasonable suggestion. "Bison," he stated with confidence.

"Bryson," she corrected, though, she didn't really need to since the other kid had consistently called her Little Fox what sounded almost like "Banjo" throughout the lunch. "Are you friends with Bryson?"

Benji nodded but shrugged too, swinging her hand a bit as he thought about that. "Bison have Bumblebee too, Mommy. But his Bumblebee not real becuz it just a robot he not transform."

"Hmm," she agreed like that was clearly fascinating and a completely valid criteria to measure friendship on. She was sure in the mind of a four-year-old it was. Maybe he had a point. Maybe Benji's friendship criteria could teach her a bit about how to form some new friendships in her life. That might be easier if it was based on whether or not, A) said friend had a Transformer, or B) said Transformer actually transformed. She thought she might substitute Transformer with wine or coffee or lunch offerings, though. "Maybe we could invite Bryson over to see your transforming Transformers?"

Benji looked up and squinted at her at that. "He just see them?"

"Well, I think maybe you should let him play with them too. But they're your toys and he wouldn't take them, Benj."

He considered that. "Bison don't know how to play Transformers becuz he Bumblebee do not transform. He only know how to play robots."

"Hmm," Olivia agreed again. She'd previously been under the assumption that playing Transformers was playing robots. But apparently she was confused on that matter too. "Well … maybe you could teach him how to play Transformers?"

"He don't know the rules," Benji put bluntly.

"I think you could teach him those too," she suggested. "I think it'd be a lot of fun if Bryson came over and we all played Transformers."

Benji considered that again and looked at her. "Does Peedg play?"

She shrugged. "Maybe. If he's home, sweetheart."

She really didn't think Jack would have any interest in playing Transformers with two four-year-olds. He barely had any interest in playing Transformers with Benji – especially since he'd gotten the Rescue Bots at Christmas, which Jack said took all the fun out of playing Transformers. Olivia on the other hand felt that the addition of the one-step Rescue Bots had actually made playing Transformers with her Little Fox almost fun. She thought it was a bit improvement over him demanding she hurry up with transforming the other Goddamn things. Not that that had entirely stopped either. She still got handed the mangled mess of a four-year-old's attempt to transform the things and was expected to instantaneously make it look like something. Whenever Jack was in the apartment she just automatically sent Benji with them to him – since he apparently thought dealing with that was the fun part of playtime.

She didn't have to negotiate the playdate further with him, though, as sirens started to blare about half a block ahead of them. Benji looked up from his hopping at that.

"HEATWAVE!" he shrieked and attempted to run but she gripped tightly onto his hand, as he extended both of their arms to full length.

"We'll watch from here, Benj," she said and closed the gap between them and stooped to scoop him up and settle him on her hip. Though she did move forward too as the fire truck pulled out of the station and turned to start charging towards them.

"HEATWAVE COMING TO GET US!" Benji screamed and started waving.

"We aren't going with him, Little Fox. He's going to help people in an emergency," she hushed into his ear and put a small kiss against his temple. He was buzzing with excitement and kicking at her as the fire truck went by. The fire fighters must've seen him and seemed to give an extra blare on the siren and she saw the one man in the truck return their waves.

"We go too, Mommy!" he near yelled at her but looked at her with hopeful eyes as the truck went by them and continued down the road, her turning her body so they both could continue to watch.

Olivia shook her head. "Not today, Little Fox. It's important we stay out of the way so Heatwave and the firefighters can do their jobs and help the people in the fire."

"They rez-cue them," Benji informed her.

She nodded. "They might be rescuing them."

"But Mommy what if Heatwave transform! We not see it!"

She gave him a smile and planted another little kiss on his cheek, though he hardly seemed to notice he was still so transfixed in watching the fire truck as it turned another corner and disappeared. It's sirens continued to echo.

"Then it's not our turn to see him transform yet, Benj," she told him.

"But we know him secret, right, Mommy?"

She nodded. "We know his secret."

"Rez-cue Bots AWAY!" Benji yelled but then cuddled into her, gripping at her neck.

"Rescue Bots AWAY!" she agreed with just as much forcefulness, completely ignoring the nearby people on the street.


	177. Chapter 177

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

"You remember when I used to manage to drag you out of the office for lunch, it would actually be for lunch," Alex mumbled, as she examined a pack of bendable bunnies in the dollar store.

Olivia glanced at her and shrugged. "Sorry. If I don't run some of these errands now, I won't get the chance to. I'll buy you a salad or something on the way back. Mea culpa."

Alex shook her head. "Pass," she stated bluntly and then held up the bunnies at Olivia, who was looking at the packets of various sized plastic eggs. Even the dollar store seemed to be trying to make Easter more complicated than it needed to be. Too many size choices, color choices, pattern choices – sports balls, silly faces, rabbits and chicks with ears and legs, camfougable eggs. It was ridiculous. "You sure you want to get him this stuff? Remember that case with the kid that chewed on his cars and ended up with holes in his head?"

Olivia glared at her and took the bunnies out of her hand and returned them to the rack. "I'm not getting him those. And he doesn't put his toys in his mouth."

Alex gave her a look. "He doesn't put toys in his mouth? Are we talking about the same kid? I think the last time I saw him he spent the majority of the time with that in his mouth," she said and pointed at where Olivia's necklace was resting against her chest. "Closely followed by sucking on the ladder of his fire truck."

Olivia snorted and rubbed at her eyebrow. "I'm working on that."

"I've also seen him eat Play-Doh," Alex added.

Olivia sighed and shook her head. "I'm working on that too."

"Clearly a work in progress," Alex said flatly and then picked up a carrot filled with hard-looking candy and shook it.

"Aren't we all," Olivia said and again took the item from her friend's hand and returned it to the shelf. "I'm not getting him any candy here."

"Hmm. Lead toys. But no lead candies. Good to know."

Olivia shot her another look. "Stop it," she instructed and shook her head. "You're worse than shopping with Jack. I don't need the running commentary."

"This," Alex said and gestured at the dollar store Easter section, which was surprisingly crowded – but maybe not that surprising considering it was during the lunch hours, "is not my definition of shopping."

Olivia rolled her eyes. "You didn't have to come, you know."

"Again – I thought we were going out for lunch," Alex said.

"We're out. It's lunch," Olivia added, putting some colored artificial straw to her growing basket of purchases.

"It's sort of funny that you're doing Easter shopping two weeks before the thing but left Christmas until the week before," Alex commented, still following Olivia down the aisle and examining all the knick-knacks that still seemed a little overpriced for what they were – even at a dollar. "This seems like the kind of thing you could've done the night before."

Olivia snorted and gave her a smile. "I don't think so. Jack is taking Easter very seriously. We have a Lent calendar on the fridge. We didn't have an Advent calendar – but we've got a Lent calendar."

Alex gazed at her. "I hope it's counting down until the Resurrection."

Olivia shook her head. "Nope. As far as I can tell – it ends next Friday."

"Lovely. Counts down to the death of Jesus. What does Ben think he's counting down to?"

Olivia rubbed her eyebrow at that and looked down. "Explaining what the hell Easter is to him isn't going well. So far he's grasped that Jesus needs to die so the Easter Bunny can bring him chocolate."

She saw Alex really trying not to laugh at that. She was trying even not to smile with her arms crossed over her chest – trying so hard to keep up that prim and proper, far too sophisticated to be shopping in a dollar store pose.

"I suppose that's an accurate assessment …" she finally allowed.

Olivia shrugged. "I wasn't going to argue with him. I leave that up to Jack."

"Oh, that must be fun to referee," the other woman said flatly.

"Sometimes I just let them yell at each other," Olivia allowed. "Usually it's a good time to go and take my shower. Go down to the laundry room. Suddenly need groceries."

"Hmm," Alex said. "You might want to try a different parenting method on the day of the home study."

Olivia gave her a small smile at that. "No kidding …", she said but picked up a little craft kit and held it up for Alex to look at, the other woman taking it. "I really just wanted to pick up a few crafts for him to do between now and then. The daycare and the library are taking a pretty non-denominational approach. Focusing on spring. That's fine. But he likes the rabbit stuff."

Alex was still gazing at the little packet that makings for a bunny – complete with a pompom tail.

"Sometimes it's a little weird, you know," she said and glanced at Olivia who'd moved on to looking at a kit that made a headband with rabbit ears. She knew her Little Fox would love that too. He adored that kind of dress-up – especially if he got to make the craft himself and decorate it to his flamboyant standards.

Olivia just looked at her, though, and took the bunny bit back from her, placing it in the basket. "It's not that weird. He'll like it. It looks easy."

"Not that," Alex corrected. "Just all of it."

Olivia gave her a look. "It's a dollar store, Alex. Don't pretend like you've never been in one before. Dollar stores are your friend when kids are in the equation."

"That's exactly what I mean," Alex sighed and then looked at the shelves again. "It's not like you were pregnant and all of us had a chance to adjust to the idea of you having a baby. He's not even a baby. He's a walking, talking little person – and you're super mom."

Olivia snorted at that and examined her friend. "I'm not super mom," she said a little indignantly. "Both of them will assure you of that."

Alex allowed her a small smile for that effort. "I know you're happy. Excited. I can see that. I know it's what you want. And I'm happy for you. It's just been a lot of change – quickly. You've changed too."

Olivia examined her, stopping her shopping. "I haven't changed."

"Olivia – we're in a dollar store on our lunch hour."

Olivia shook the basket that she had resting in the loop of her arm. "But look at all the deals I'm getting."

Alex let out a small laugh and shook her head and then reached and shuffled through the basket – apparently wanting to drop the topic almost as suddenly as she'd broached it. Olivia let her, though. She knew it was hard for Alex on a variety of levels. It wasn't just a change in their friendship and relationship – it was a situation that had placed a glaring magnifying glass on her life too. She knew Alex was struggling with that. Taking stalk in her own 40 years of existence and trying to measure what her next moves should be – where she was going and what she really wanted.

She knew that interacting with Benji and Jack had the other woman swinging between extremes about what she wanted too. Neither of them were consistent cute moments and cuddles. They were a lot of frustration, work and money. But they were worth it – in the grand scheme of things, as far as Olivia was concerned. Alex though hadn't yet decided if that was worth it in the grand scheme of things for her yet.

Olivia thought though maybe she wouldn't have made that decision for herself either. She'd sputtered on it. If the situation hadn't just fallen into her life and sent it into chaos – it might never have happened because she would've spent her forties second-guessing herself and the changes she wanted and needed to be happy. She was glad she didn't have the opportunity anymore. She was glad it just happened. She dealt better with things just happening and figuring out how to make it work. She wouldn't trade it for the world now.

"And you don't even have your calculator out to know if you're on budget with all these awesome purchases," Alex teased of their previous Christmas shopping trek.

Olivia smiled and shrugged. "Who needs a calculator? We're at the dollar store, I can count."

Alex snorted as she removed her hand. "Maybe you should count more carefully. I think you're going to be surprised how much you've spent in a dollar store by the time you go through cash."

Olivia just shrugged at that. She wouldn't admit it to Alex but she'd already had previous trips to the dollar store that she'd ended up rather surprised about how much she spent. But some things were just easier to stock up on there – especially with kids.

She had a general idea how much she'd spend on Easter crap. She wasn't going to be as much of a stickler about it as a Christmas. But Easter wasn't supposed to be nearly as expensive as Christmas. Or at least she thought it wasn't. She'd definitely seen some displays and sales in other stores she'd been into that made it seem like the holiday had become almost a second Christmas in some households – complete with wrapped presents and toys from multiple sources.

She wasn't going to go that crazy – especially since she really had no concept of what to include in an Easter basket. She'd never gotten one as a child – and she had no intention of completely overloading either of the boys on sugar. They got enough treats as it was. They didn't need a basket full of candy. She just wanted to do something fun for them. Something they could all experience together.

She'd got the sense that Jack had done Easter before – the traditional reason for the season with all the religious aspects. He'd never really gotten into the commercialism, though. They'd even had a bit of a discussion about whether the Easter Bunny was 'allowed' to come to the apartment. He'd lost – since she was the parent and she'd already informed Benji of the thing's existence. She couldn't exactly take it back. But she thought if Jack could try to keep from being a teenager for an hour or so in the Sunday morning – maybe he could have some fun too.

"So what are you getting him, if you aren't buying lead toys or candy?" Alex asked.

Olivia shrugged again. "I've picked up some stuff for Jack already. So I'm just going to try balance it out with that a bit."

Alex gave her an amused look. "You're making Jack an Easter basket? And you bought his things first?"

Olivia just shrugged yet again and rounded the corner on the next aisle that had more spring-oriented toys rather than Easter specific. She spotted some bubble sets and started to examine them, trying to pick one that seemed sort of little boy-ish. The least amount of pink and butterflies as possible.

"You know that novelty shop around the corner from the precinct?"

Alex gazed at her. "You mean that creepy, darkened hole in the wall that you've said you are surprised you've never heard of any rape reports coming out of?"

Olivia gave her a look but then snorted and rolled her eyes. "That'd be the one. They had this rabbit in the window …"

"That store does not sell Easter stuff," Alex protested.

"You didn't let me finish," Olivia interjected. "It's a chocolate zombie bunny. It's green. Fangs. Dripping blood. It's pretty funny."

Alex looked at her like she'd lost her mind. "You bought Jack – the teenager who has a Lent calendar on your fridge – a zombie bunny for Easter?"

Olivia nodded. "They had some other zombie stuff in there too. Apparently Zombie Jesus Day is a whole thing."

"Again – you are marking Zombie Jesus Day with the boy who has a Lent calendar on your fridge?"

She just nodded again. "It evolved into a bit of a theme. Zombies. Green. I picked him up some skateboarding … things … from Funky's for him. Creature skate hardware. Board wax that's green. I don't know. He'll like it."

Alex looked at her a bit more seriously. "Zombie Jesus Day?" she stressed again. "Religious kid. Zombie Jesus Day."

Olivia made a noise. "He's not that religious. He's just … trying to honor memories of his dad. Cling onto some of his happy moments from growing up. He likes zombies. He's been making me watch Walking Dead with him."

"You're watching Walking Dead?" Alex snorted.

She shrugged. "Compared to some of the other things both of them make me watch, it's actually pretty good. Jack has already pointed out that it's 'awesome' that the season finale is on Easter. I didn't pick up on the reference at the time – but I'm assuming it's because of Zombie Jesus Day now."

Alex looked at her like she might've lost her mind – or at leas that she'd proven her point that things had gotten a little weird since the boys had arrived on the scene and that she'd changed. But eventually she just shook her head.

"OK …" she said. "So what's the theme for Ben's basket?"

Olivia glanced at her. "Hmm. I don't know. Easter. Spring. Blue."

"Specific," Alex muttered.

Olivia picked up a Thomas the Tank Engine workbook with some number activities and flipped through it.

"You aren't seriously going to get him a workbook for Easter?" Alex asked. "Easter baskets should be chocolate and a new church outfit. I think you're doing it wrong."

Olivia snorted. "Is that what you got? Look at all this stuff. I think you got gypped."

"Somehow I don't think I'd be excited about getting given homework in my Easter basket," she mumbled.

Olivia held it up at her again. "But it has Thomas on it," she said. "And it's blue," she added and then put it in the basket before reaching for another that looked like it had alphabet worksheets in it.

Maybe Thomas would be a good blue theme. They'd been watching a lot of the train show lately and Benji seemed relatively intrigued. So just vehicles in general might work, she thought. Her Little Fox loved anything with wheels. Really, though, it wouldn't matter what was in the basket. He'd be excited just that it was there. That was Benji. He'd be even more excited when he realized there were a few little toys and goodies in the basket when she'd coached him to just expect a chocolate bunny and some little eggs left for him.

Alex grabbed the one she'd placed in the basket and started paying through it herself. "Doesn't he get taught this at his preschool program? I thought the new daycare was better?"

Olivia nodded and started to move over to the general toy section to see if there was anything there that she'd consider getting for him. She wasn't quite as picky about dollar store toys as Alex seemed to be. She had some standards – there were certain things she wouldn't buy there. But there were other things that just made sense to take the discount on.

"He does. But he's behind in his math comprehension."

"I wouldn't exactly call this math comprehension," Alex said.

Olivia sighed and took it back from her and tapped on the cover. "It's for four and five-year-olds, Alex. They're just learning their numbers."

"So by math comprehension, you mean he doesn't know how to count," she stated bluntly.

"He's learning," Olivia mumbled. She didn't want to get into it. "Their education doesn't stop in the classroom anyways," she defended herself, though. "I'm supposed to be working with him on things at home."

"Does he actually like doing them?" Alex asked.

She shrugged. "Benji likes most things. It's not work yet to him. He's pretty easily entertained."

Alex stopped and looked at the book section again, no longer trailing after her down the aisle. "Maybe I should get him one for Friday?"

Olivia snorted and looked back to her. "I thought you weren't going to take him back to the apartment because you're afraid he'll freak out."

"I changed that idea when I realized the last time I had him out of the apartment, he pissed himself," she said and grabbed a watercolor painting book and examined it.

"He hasn't had any accidents like that since then," Olivia assured her.

"Ah – he also hasn't been out of the apartment with me since then," Alex added, casting her a look.

Olivia examined her. "If you aren't comfortable with taking him, you can say no, you know?" she stated. "I can ask Nick. Or I can just leave him in the extended hours of the daycare for a couple hours. It's fine."

Alex shook her head. "It's OK." But then she glanced at her. "How long are you going to be out on your date?"

Olivia sighed. "Don't slip and call it that in front of Jack," she said with some sternness.

Alex just gave her a look. "Sorry. Your … thing …"

"It's just … time with him. My mom took me out for dinner all the time as an adult. You parents never did that?"

Alex looked at her again and just shrugged in a clear no. It almost made Olivia feel bad for her. For all her mother's failings there had been certain areas where she'd at least tried – and one of them had been when she came back to the city and started her career, they'd get together once a week for dinner. It wasn't always enjoyable. Most of the time it wasn't. She'd be drinking. They'd be fighting. She'd have more words than Olivia wanted to hear about her career choice. But at least they saw each other on a regular basis. For better and worse. It was clear that Alex didn't have that.

"The gallery closes at 8, I think. I'm not sure how long he'll want to stay and look. And I'll likely offer to buy him dinner after – if that's not to weird for him. So I'd assume we'll be home between 10 and 11 at the latest."

Alex gave a small nod and continued to examine the selection of coloring, painting and workbooks.

"You're going to be fine," Olivia assured. "He's always asking about you. He knows you're in the precinct regularly and he doesn't understand why Auntie Alex doesn't come up and visit him in daycare. He'll be excited to see you."

She snorted. "Until he realizes that his mom isn't around."

"I'll prep him."

"You prepped him last time and he still had a meltdown," Alex said.

"He's grown a bit since then. He's more comfortable with the situation, Alex. You're both going to be fine. Just call me if you aren't."


	178. Chapter 178

**Title: Hello, Goodbye**

**Author: ZombieJazz**

**Fandom: Law & Order: SVU**

**Disclaimer: I don't own them. Law and Order SVU and its characters belong to Dick Wolf. The characters of Jack (and his family) have been created and developed for the sake of this AU series.**

**Summary: A shadow from Olivia's past shows up on her doorstep and offers the opportunity for her to take a very different direction in her life. This story exists outside of the universe that my other stories are happening in. **

**Author's Notes: This AU series is for SVU fans and readers who want Olivia to have something that resembles a more normal life outside of work and a family of her own - hopefully somewhat realistically within the canon of SVU. Most of the chapters will ultimately take place outside of the work environment, so there aren't going to be too many references to cases from the show. But this story would generally be starting in about Season 13/14 of the show. Please let me know what you think and if you distribute elsewhere.**

Olivia peeked around the corner of the foyer and into the living room as they entered the apartment. At first she was almost concerned when her Little Fox hadn't come running at her and there'd been no greeting from Alex. But looking into the living room, she saw that Benji was completely flaked out in Alex's lap, drapped over her in his favorite baby orangutan grip, eyes closed and back rising and falling in his slow breaths of sleep – completely oblivious to their arrival home or the episode of Thomas the Tank Engine that Alex had running on the television. Olivia could tell that Alex wasn't watching it either, though – likely the reason it hadn't been switched to something else with the little boy's sleep. Alex was watching Benji.

Olivia knew the instinct – the feeling. There was something about having the little boy – a little person – falling asleep in your arms. You couldn't help but be drawn to it. She knew that she'd sit and look at his soft skin and his little ears. She'd smooth out his hair and rub his back gently if he stirred in his sleep. She'd watch the little twitches in him and the slow movements of his breathing – feeling it against her as well. She'd feel too as his body weight became heavier against her and he reached that dead weight as his sleep deepened and he entered his dreams. Olivia knew how transfixing it could be. She wasn't sure she fully realized before how entertaining watching a child sleep could be. But it wasn't so much that it was entertaining – it was comforting to her too. And there was something about the connection of it – the level of trust that existed for him to allow himself to rest so soundly against her in such an exposed way. Those moments made her feel even more like his mom.

She'd admit that sometimes she let him fall asleep against her rather than shuttling back to his room – just so she could have that quiet bonding time with him as he drifted off. Even after he drifted off, she'd often still sit with him for a while after and just watch him and reflect. She rarely could bring herself to immediately go and deposit him back in his own bed.

"Hi," Olivia mouthed quietly and the attorney gave her a thin smile. But Olivia also saw her adjust her grip around the little boy a bit – likely realizing that her opportunity to hold him was rapidly coming to an end. Olivia let her have it for a few more moments, though, disappearing back into the foyer to finish taking off her street wear while Jack worked at clattering around doing the same.

"Sorry," Alex apologized almost as soon as she re-entered the room. "He didn't want to go to bed while you were still out."

Olivia just gave her a smile and shook her head. "It's OK. Sometimes it's easier to just let him drift off watching one of his shows."

"He turned it on and got it going. Frightening. I couldn't figure out how to get it to turn off," Alex sighed and glanced at where the Xbox controller - that Benji showed expertise at using to turn on the machine, start up Netflix and pick from an endless array of movies and tv shows but near always picked about the same five to watch over and over - was sitting next to them. Alex still made no move to let go of her Little Fox, though. If anything, she adjusted her arms around him a bit more, cupping the back of his head where it was resting slack against her shoulder. "You don't want to know how many episodes I've sat through. They just keep coming on."

Olivia smiled a bit more at that. "Great show, right?" She asked but then picked up the controller and put it on the table. "The remote turns off if you aren't using it." She nodded at Jack. "Sweetheart, turn off the Xbox."

He glanced at the television. "This is a good episode," he mumbled and examined the screen for a moment like he really was interested. Olivia wouldn't be surprised if he was. She'd seen him flaked out on the couch watching the show with Benji before. She wouldn't tell him but she'd walked back into the living room other times to have found Benji having moved off to play with his toys and Jack still staring at the show. But the show had definitely been around long enough that the teen had likely grown up watching it too. He'd clearly expressed that he thought Thomas was a much better kids' show than Sam the Fireman or Bob the Builder. She wasn't sure Benji entirely agreed with him. But if Jack said something was cool – it was cool. So Thomas – and Ninja Turtles - was on that list for the moment.

Olivia shook her head and shot Alex another smile, but she just snorted, as Jack finally leaned forward to turn the console off manually. Benji stirred a bit in the activity around him.

"Mommy?" the little boy mumbled as his eyes fluttered.

Olivia leaned in a bit and rubbed his back. "Mommy's home, Benj. Go back to sleep."

"Mommy," he mumbled again, his eyes fluttering more.

Olivia looked to Alex. "Here, I'll take him," she said and moved to position her hands to bring the little boy to her.

Alex didn't resist but she could see some regret in her and Olivia understood. She had trouble letting go of her Little Fox even when it was of her own volation. She wouldn't want someone taking him out of her arms.

Benji settled against her readily, his arms and legs wrapping around her. Olivia enjoyed the comfort of feeling her little boy return to her too. There was something therapeutic about knowing he still missed her. That the bond was still there and even though he was slowly becoming more comfortable with their times of separation and understanding that she'd always come back – that growth in him hadn't become enough that he just ignored her when she returned. He wanted wanted to be in her arms – as much as she wanted to have him there. It was really something she'd been longing for her whole life – to have that one person who really needed her and wanted her – and loved her.

Her hands trailed up his back and cupped at his head in a similar manner to what Alex had been doing before. But she gave the woman a bit of a funny look.

"Did you give him a bath?" Olivia asked, as her fingers combed through his still damp hair.

Alex gave her a sheepish look. "We made muffins. He sort of managed to get the flour and batter everywhere."

Olivia snorted. She really couldn't imagine Alex making muffins. It seemed far too domestic, though the woman had surprised her with her apparently secret cooking and making abilities at Christmas. Still, doing that on her own was a little different than navigating a recipe with a four-year-old. Olivia actually would've liked to see Alex trying to manage Benji's definition of 'helping' in the kitchen. Not to mention, Alex's horror – or at least annoyance – that would've painted across her face when the little boy managed to get the ingredients everywhere. All over him – and undoubtedly the kitchen too. On second thought it almost made Olivia a little scared to see what the kitchen actually looked like. If Alex had taken the time to clean up Benji, chances were the kitchen might still be a diaster, especially when she'd just found her Little Fox sleeping on top of the attorney. She doubted Alex would've roused him – or missed out on that quiet time – to go and clean up the kitchen. At least Olivia probably wouldn't have. But Alex was a bit more of a neat freak than her.

"You better not have looked at his junk or else we'll have to call the pedophile police," Jack interjected with a smart-ass grin on his face.

Alex gapped at him – looking even more embarrassed. Olivia knew that Alex might not have been entirely comfortable bathing Benji – and comments like that wouldn't help matters at all. So Olivia spun back to where Jack had taken up residence off in the far end of the couch in one of the recliners.

"Jack, that is an entirely inappropreiate comment," she shoot at him with eyes that were near daggers.

He quieted and gazed at her. "It was a joke," he said softly.

"It was obnoxious," she corrected for him and he looked away.

"Mommy … we make muffins …" Benji mumbled against her again, stirring more.

She rubbed at his back. Her raised voice likely hadn't done anything to help soothe him back to sleep.

"I know, sweetheart. They sound good."

"Oat-teal way-sin," he muttered more.

She gave Alex a small smile at that and bounced and rocked her Little Fox a bit more.

"I can't wait to try one, Benj."

"Now?" he asked.

She shook her head a bit – moving him along with the movement. "I think we'll wait until morning, Little Fox. Hush. Go back to sleep."

But she sat herself down on the couch, just down from Alex, at that. It was clear it was going to take a few more minutes to get him to drift back off. Taking him into the bedroom and trying to get him settled at that point would likely do more to wake him up in protest than it would to get him to shut off again.

"Well, I'm going to take a crap and make room for one now," Jack announced – again rather obnoxiously – and got out of his seat, heading back towards the bathroom.

Olivia shook her head at him but made no comment.

"That was disgusting," Alex stated after the fan in the other room audibly started, likely safely drowning out most of their voices.

Olivia just shrugged. "He's a teenaged boy. That comment was pretty much par for the course."

"You know this one is going to grow into that," Alex said and reached out and gently stroked at one of Benji's little bare feet. But he kicked at her, causing her to drop her hand away. Apparently he had no more time for her now that Mommy Fox was home.

Olivia rubbed his back some more, calming him. "At least with this one, I'll have memories about how cute and sweet he was when he was little."

She wanted to add that Jack had his cute and sweet moments too – even though he wasn't so little. There was still a boy in there. And there was still a kid who really just wanted to please his mom. Just most of the time the teenaged attitude and the self-defense mechanisms covered it up. And, she wasn't too sure that Alex would fully appreciate some of the stories about the cute or sweet things Jack did for her. They didn't really have the same level of cuteness or sweetness of a four-year-old – but they still often touched Liv's heart. In some cases a little more than some of Benji's little boy gestures.

"It went OK?" Olivia asked, pulling her eyes away from her little boy to look at her friend. She'd been surprised that she'd only gotten a couple brief texts from Alex while her and Jack had been out. She'd really expected some panic or a call demanding that she come home as Benji entered into a meltdown or tantrum. But that call hadn't come.

Alex just nodded instead. "He was fine. Beyond insisting that only you know how to read and how to put him to bed."

Olivia snorted again at that and smiled into her little boy's hair. It was sort of nice to know in his opinion she had expert knowledge in certain areas – no matter how ridiculous those areas were.

"He never stops, though," Alex added. "His energy level just kept going and going."

Olivia smiled. "I think that's just little boys."

"So he's always like that? I thought it might be nervous energy or special treatment."

Olivia shook her head. "Nah. He's busy."

Alex examined her. "I don't know how you're doing it every night."

She just shrugged. "You get used to it. You learn to focus his energy and attention to get you a few minutes break here and there. Sometimes he lets me make his dinner uninterrupted – or use the bathroom."

Alex smiled at that. "I don't think I got a chance to do that. But I think I'll wait now that someone is taking a crap in there apparently."

Olivia shook her head again. "You can go use the one in my bedroom, if you want." But Alex made no move to go. "I'm not surprised dinner is moving right through him with what he ate."

"Where'd you go?" Alex asked.

Olivia let out a small laugh at that and rolled her eyes a bit. "Just some grill. It had dog pictures all over the walls – and apparently you're allowed to have your pets in there too. There was a dog dining next to us."

"Wow … he knows how to show a girl a good time," Alex allowed drily.

Olivia rubbed at her eyebrow and shifted slightly to check on Benji. She thought he might've passed out again. His breathing was shallower and his mutterings had quieted.

"I've had dates take me to worse places. At least Jack shares appetizers – not that he ordered anything that I wanted to ingest. And, he can almost make conversation."

"I think you need to get out more if shared appetizers with a teenager at a dog diner is starting to sound like a good time," Alex informed her.

Olivia just allowed a small snort but didn't comment.

"When did you end it with David?" she asked.

Olivia shrugged. "I guess around this time last year."

"OK. When did you really stop seeing him?"

Olivia shot her a look. "March," she said bluntly. But the attorney continued to eye her. "We stopped dating in March. We stopped seeing each other in May."

"Been a while …" was all Alex said.

Olivia just gave her another look. "When's the last time you went out on a date?"

Alex just snorted. "Apparently more recently than you."

Olivia eventually shrugged, though. "They aren't ready for it yet. I'm not either. I'm busy. I'm exhausted. Maybe things will settle down after the adoptions go through - and I can start thinking about it."

Alex seemed to eye her for a long time after that. They never really talked about their relationships. Olivia wasn't really too sure how much dating either of them did. She knew Alex dated – at least in the past – but mentions of it seemed to come farther and farther between anymore. Workload and age. Olivia knew the feeling. She went through phases with dating. In her early-30s while just starting out on the job she'd still made herself – she'd still had social life, a love life, a sex life. More and more of that seemed to get pushed aside with age and the workload and things she saw on the job. Sometimes it just seemed easier to keep to herself and force on the work – the victims – then to put herself out there. Ironically, the older she got the less she wanted to be alone and to just find a man to love her and care about her and to start a family with. But the more time she spent on the job the less likely it seemed that any such man really existed. Add in her assault into the whole mix of it and she just was sick of men at times.

She'd really put herself out there with David. She'd thought that maybe that was what it was like to be happy. To be in a real relationship. To be cared about. But she'd let it hang out there too much. She'd let herself be too happy and it had blown up in her face. She wasn't really sure she was ready to deal with that again – not yet. It probably wouldn't have mattered if the boys were in her life or not. She wasn't sure she was ready to try again. She'd had her chance in the summer with Cassidy – and she'd chosen not to. She didn't believe that in different circumstances the outcome would've been too much different than what she had at the moment. At least at the moment she had the boys.

In some weird way, seeing how little men operated, how young men operated, it helped her understand some things about the gender a bit more. She thought it was restoring some faith in her that good men existed out there beyond the few she'd had on her list before. She trusted that Benji and Jack would grow into good men – ones that she'd be proud, not fearful, about them entering a relationship with a woman. That for all their faults and failings, she knew that those boys inside of them were good and they knew right from wrong and that they were loving, caring men who'd do the best they could to love and honor their girlfriends, wives and daughters. Or at least that's what she told herself. She didn't want to think she'd be raising boys that she'd ever see pass through her squad room.

"It doesn't have to be anything serious," Alex muttered at her.

Olivia snorted at that and gave her another look. "Are you offering to babysit so I can go on a booty call?" she asked rather sarcastically.

Alex gave her a kind but steely glare. "Maybe you could disguise it by saying you were taking Jack on another date."

Olivia laughed and shook her head. "I don't think so," she said and then added more directly. "And, I don't think so about the first part either. I'm fine."

"Don't want to know any of those details either …" Alex said.

Olivia rolled her eyes. "You brought it up."

Alex just watched her and Benji again for a moment. "So beyond the apparently diarrhea causing dinner, how'd the rest of the night go?"

Olivia just gave a little nod. "It was fine. He seemed to like the museum. I enjoyed it too."

She wasn't sure she wanted to say too much more than that. It was private time for her and Jack. She knew Alex had accepted that Jack was part of the package and that she wanted him to be a member of her family just as much as she wanted Benji. But she wasn't sure the attorney completely understood the dynamics of trying to manage, raise and mother a teenager. Sometimes Olivia wasn't sure she completely understood the dynamics either. They seemed to be constantly shifting. What she'd done right the one day was suddenly wrong and intolerable the next. But it just provided more reason to try to make that alone time with Jack – so he understood that she was there for him too and wanted to know him and spend time with him too.

The outing had done better than she expected. She was never really sure what to expect with Jack. But she'd definitely noticed he'd been more clingy, in a way, since his surgery. He looked to her more. He talked to her more. He sought out his tiny little acknowledgments and affections more. She'd thought that the ruptured appendix had just really rattled him. But after the night together she was starting to feel like maybe he was finally starting to settle into the family unit they were creating – accepting it and becoming more comfortable with it.

They'd started out in a gallery about the architect who'd designed the building when they entered the Guggenheim. Well – actually, they'd initially stood outside the building with Jack rattling off a rather impressive litany of information about the design of the Wright building. She'd thought he must've been reading about it or studying it at school but then he'd pulled out his phone and had downloaded some app entirely dedicated to the architecture of the place. Her hope of getting some time to look at the actually artwork housed in the museum had kind of ended there. Inside Jack had been fascinated with the rotunda. She'd expressed surprise that he hadn't been in the building before – either out of his own interest or on some sort of field trip or assignment with one of his classes. But he'd just shrugged and quietly stated that it was expensive. And it had been – more than she remembered it being – but she hadn't been to any museums in ages. Well, not including some of the kiddie exhibits she'd taken Benji to.

Jack had seemed rather transfixed by the architecture exhibit, so she'd just let him take his time. She didn't know that much about the building or the architect, so it wasn't like she didn't take anything out of spending the time in the gallery. It was just if she'd been there alone, she likely would've bypassed that area. She'd been almost certain that after they looked at that, Jack was going to profess he was done and ready to go eat. But instead he'd looked at her and asked if she'd downloaded the app for the museum. She'd shaken her head and he'd very nearly grabbed her phone out of her hand and found it for her – like she was incapable of doing that on her own.

"I don't have headphones, Jack," she'd said when he'd finally handed it back to her and she'd glanced at it realizing that the bulk of it appeared to be an audio tour.

"Well that's dumb," he said, like it was completely foreign that anyone would ever be without headphones. Though the extent he carried his around with him and the abuse he put them through, it was pretty clear at that point why he went through the cheap sets so quickly. However, she agreed with Gecko's previous assessment that it wouldn't be worth buying him expensive ones if it destroyed cheap ones that fast. She really didn't think a bigger price tag meant a longer lasting life with what Jack put his earbuds through.

"We'll share," he'd eventually stated, as he gazed at the map and navigated them to the elevator to begin their swirling trek down the ramps of interconnecting galleries.

She wasn't sure what she really expected out of Jack in the galleries. But he'd actually seemed interested and engaged. They hadn't rushed through and he hadn't just been interested in looking at the building. They'd wandered – him handing her one of his earbuds to listen to the audio guide on some the artwork. He'd made some comments and observations – verbally to her. He'd stopped and read placards and flipped around some of the written content of the app he'd downloaded. He'd even asked her some questions. She didn't consider herself an expert at all. But she did have some interest in art – and another thing she supposed her mother had done right – was drag her to various museums and art galleries in the city. So Olivia did know some. She was able to answer some of his questions in a way that almost sounded intelligent. To comment on some of his observations. To make some of her own. To engage in conversation with him. And, he'd actually seemed to listen. He hadn't rolled his eyes at her or said anything to indicate that he didn't think she knew what she was talking about or that he thought her observations, interest or knowledge was dumb. He hadn't acted like he didn't know. She'd prepared herself for that. That he'd likely walk far ahead of her or behind her and pretty much have let her paid for the outing but have done his own thing. But, though he'd sometimes ventured onto the next painting or wandered into the next interconnecting gallery without her – he hadn't gone far. There were a couple times he'd come back looking for her – but not in a 'hurry up' kind of way. There'd be another couple times where she'd realized she'd gotten a bit ahead of him and had stopped and waited or gone and peaked back in the previous gallery to see him staring at a piece still. It'd be a surprisingly nice gallery visit.

Olivia had thought that might change again when they got to the restaurant. But he'd taken her up on the offer of dinner (she wasn't too surprised by that – Jack was always hungry) and though he'd picked a place that she thought was a little kitschy, he then hadn't made any sort of comments about them looking like anything other than a mother taking her college aged son out for a meal. There were clearly some couples in the restaurant but it was mostly families. And, it really wasn't a high class place by any means. Jack had actually observed that Benji would likely like it. She'd had to agree with him - between the pictures of the dogs and the dog sitting at the feet of the diners at the next table. But where she wasn't so sure about the hygiene of dining with animals, Jack seemed rather pleased to get to pet the dog that had looked longingly at his pulled pork quesadilla to the point that the teen had actually asked the couple if he could give the mutt a shred of his meat. He'd seemed to make an instant friend for life with that. And Jack had actually smiled a real smile while he'd petted the dog, which made Olivia smile too and engage in her own stroking of the friendly beast. Some of her misgivings about having a dog at the next table to them fading.

It'd been a little awkward in the restaurant at first. Her and Jack talked. But they had so rarely spent alone time out of the apartment – that it seemed to take a little while to find a topic that the teen was comfortable on out in public. He'd sat there for a while just wordlessly nodding, shaking his head or shrugging at her efforts to make conversation. Showing more interest in the giant milkshake he'd ordered – called the Cookie Monster, which she suspected contained more than his necessary caloric intake for the day, possibly in just one sip. But he seemed quite happy to be focusing his attention on it, slurping at it, stirring it and picking out hunks of cookie with his fingers. It was another moment where she was reminded how much Jack and Benji were alike – not matter the years between them, and how much of a boy still existed in the young adult that was sitting across from her.

She'd eventually just let him sit there and nursed her own glass of water while they waited for the food. She wasn't really sure her and Jack were at the comfortable silence point out in public. At home they sat quietly a lot together. But that usually meant he was doing homework in the same room as her or they were both staring blankly at the TV. This was different. Still, he hadn't seemed very interested in talking about school or work. He'd seemed less interested in hearing about her week or Benji anecdotes. And, she was avoiding broaching any more serious topics. Olivia knew if she set the precedent that her taking him out was really a time for her to try to get him to talk about things he didn't want to talk about – he'd shutdown and they wouldn't ever have another outing, they wouldn't have that alone time to bond or get to know each other or to work on their relationship, and she'd probably have more trouble getting him to open up in the important areas. So eventually had been him who'd broken the silence – apparently not enjoying it either.

"You should upgrade your cable package," he'd said flatly, still examining the inside of his milkshake glass, like it was truly fascinating – possibly more transfixed than he had been with some of the art or architecture at the Guggenheim.

"Why should I do that, Jack?" she'd bitten.

He shrugged. "You need HBO."

She'd snorted. "I think we're all surviving just fine without HBO."

"But Walking Dead is ending soon and we'll need a new Sunday show," he'd stated plainly and given her a glance.

She'd let that sink it with her for a moment. 'We'll need a new Sunday show'. Sunday night had really become Jack's night in some ways. She focused on Benji in the morning. She tried to share her time as best she could in the afternoon. And, in the evening with him picking Sunday dinner and her going and sitting on the couch with him to endure zombies – it had become 'his time'. She hadn't even gone into it with those intentions. They were simple gestures. They really were just spending some time with him and making sure he felt included and like he had a place in her life and in the life of the family. But that simple statement made clear to her too that whether he was acknowledging it in quite the same way as her or not, it had come to hold meaning for him too. They had a Sunday night show. They had something he expected them to do together on Sunday – even if it was just watching TV together for an hour. And he didn't want that to end when his zombie show concluded for the season.

"I'm pretty sure there's other shows running at 9 p.m. on channels other than HBO," she'd finally added.

"Yeah, but Game of Thrones is on HBO," he'd informed her.

She'd smiled loosely at him at that. "You want to watch Game of Thrones?" she'd tried not to let any mocking enter her tone but she feared there'd been some. She didn't know a ton about the show. She'd never seen it. But she had seen the books out – and she wasn't so completely disengaged to not know it was some sort of medieval fantasy show. The concept of her grouchy skateboarding teenager who spent hours racing around virtual racetracks on his Xbox and bobbing around on some alien planet shooting up things pretending to basically be what amounted to just another robot – not to dissimilar from Benji's robots, her teenager who swore too much and blared his punk rock music that deafening levels in his own ears and on her stereo every chance he got, who'd rather eat a processed cheese slice than the artisan products she put in the fridge despite having grown up on a diary farm, who didn't know how to use chopsticks and who had picked a restaurant based on noting 'it smells greasy' when they were out front – would now want to watch a show like that seemed a little funny to her. But Jack surprised her regularly.

"It's supposed to be good," he said.

"You haven't watched it before?"

"I've seen some of it. It's basically dragon porn. You probably won't like it."

"Based on that description – you're likely right."

"You didn't think you'd like Walking Dead."

"You're right," she agreed. "And in describing it – porn would not enter the equation. So imagine how I feel about watching Game of Thrones now."

"I think this season Game of Thrones is going to have zombies too."

"Zombie dragon porn?" she suggested.

He looked at her like she was being ridiculous. She thought she was being kind of funny.

"Whatever. I'll watch it some other way," he'd muttered.

"I'll check to see how much it costs," she'd said.

He'd lit up a bit at that. "It has other shows too," he added a bit more excitedly. "Boardwalk Empire and True Blood and The Newsroom. You should get Showtime too and then we can watch Homeland and Shameless and Californication and Dexter."

She shook her head at him. "I'm not watching Dexter with you – and you know how I feel about that show. I'm not a big fan of you watching Californication either."

He'd just looked at her – almost with puppy dog eyes, like he was mirroring their four-legged friend.

"That's a lot of TV, Jack," she'd added. "You aren't around enough to watch that much. I'm not either."

He'd sighed. "Everyone is always talking about them …" he said quietly. "I never know what they're talking about …"

"What do you mean you never know what they're talking about?" she pressed. It sure seemed like he knew a lot about these television shows to her. But maybe that was the generation gap.

He fingered at his glass some more and shrugged. "Like before class or between class … in the dorms … always. They talk and I just … whatever … Dad never let us watch anything either."

She'd examined the top of his head and watched as he dug another piece of cookie dough out of his milkshake with his fingers.

"Aren't other kids in the dorms watching it or downloading it and you can go and hang out with them to watch these things?"

He just shrugged. "Yeah. I guess. Like you said – I don't have time to watch any of it anyways."

"Jack …" she sighed at him and he just glanced at her. "You can take TV breaks. Get home from work. Take an hour to get something to eat and watch a show. Study then. Give yourself time to do things other than work and school."

She'd probably prefer his time outside of working and studying involved something other than watching television. But if watching television meant he'd be socializing with other kids either while watching it or the next day – then she'd take it. He should be doing that. There were days where his loneliness just so permeated his being and it made her so sad. She knew the feeling and she hated knowing he felt that way.

"Most of them air on Sundays …" he'd told her with another glance. "Just like … rotate through at different times of the year."

She nodded at him at that and rubbed her eyebrow. "OK …" she allowed. "I'll check to see about how much it would cost to upgrade the cable, Jack. But not guarantees – and there's lots of shows on that list I have no interest in sitting through."

"You said that about Walking Dead too," he interjected with some glee entering his voice again – like he'd just won some sort of discussion. She wasn't sure he had. She wasn't really sure how much she'd be willing to pay to facilitate this. But maybe she should take the stance that the money didn't matter if it helped him in some way? She did that with other things. But helping him by facilitating television viewing? She wasn't sure about that. They'd still have a 'Sunday show' then though – or more importantly time together once a week.

"I'm not watching Dexter," she stressed again. "And I'm not sitting with my teenaged son and watching Californication – and that's above and beyond me having strong objections to the entire premise of that show. AND … the jury is still out on dragon porn."

He snorted at her. "It's not really porn. It's just dragons. And it's HBO. There's going to be sex."

She'd just shaken her head and rolled her eyes at him. But had left it. And, she left it again with Alex. She didn't need to know the details of what her and Jack had discussed. The little victories and the small reveals. Olivia wasn't sure if there'd been much growth in her and Jack's relationship that night. But she'd managed to learn a bit more about him and maybe some simple ways to make things easier for him. She'd gotten some glimpses of the things she was doing right with him too.

"That's all you've got to say about it?" Alex asked.

Olivia just shrugged. "He wants to go to the car show next time."

Alex really snorted at that. "He really does know how to show a woman a good time."

Olivia just shook his head. "He's 19. He has an excuse. And, I don't mind looking at cars."

Alex gave her a look.

"What?" Olivia said.

She shrugged. "Nothing." But her eyes effectively told her – again – that the attorney thought she was losing it.

Jack wandered back through the living room and glanced at them as he went into the kitchen. He returned moments later with a muffin in one hand already with a bite out of it and a second one in the other. He plopped back into the couch and examined them.

"Why'd you stop talking?" he mumbled with a full mouth. "Were you talking about me?"

Olivia shook her head. "No. We were just talking about how the night went for everyone," she said and again checked on Benji. He was definitely out at that point. "I'm going to put him down," she said and rose.

But Jack was still examining her like he didn't really believe that they hadn't been discussing him. Then all he mumbled, though, was, "These are good. You should get the recipe."


End file.
